division is a sale; rather, it is the setting apart of a right, as we have mentioned in the chapter on partition.

1769 - Issue: He said: (The aqiqah [shaving sacrifice] is a sunnah, [for a boy two sheep, and for a girl one sheep]).

The aqiqah is the sacrificial animal that is slaughtered for a newborn. It has also been said that it is the food that is prepared and for which people are invited on account of the newborn. Abu Ubayd said: The root of the word "aqiqah" is the hair that is upon the newborn. Its plural is "aqa'iq," and from it is the saying of the poet:

O Hind, do not marry a foolish man Whose aqiqah was left unclipped, as I reckon

Then the Arabs named the sacrifice [slaughtered] at the time of shaving the child's hair an "aqiqah," following their custom of naming a thing by the name of its cause or what is adjacent to it. This then became well-known until it became one of the conventional names, and the original meaning was submerged within it; thus, when used absolutely, nothing is understood from "aqiqah" except the sacrifice. Ibn Abd al-Barr said: Ahmad rejected this interpretation and said: The aqiqah is the slaughter itself. The reasoning for this is that the root of "al-'aqq" is to cut, and from this is "aqqa walidayhi" (he was undutiful to his parents), meaning he severed ties with them. Slaughter is the severing of the throat, the esophagus, and the two jugular veins. The aqiqah is a sunnah according to the opinion of the generality of scholars, among them Ibn Abbas, Ibn Umar, Aisha, the jurists of the Tabi'in, and the scholars of the major centers of learning, except for the People of Reason (Ahl al-Ra'y). They said: It is not a sunnah and is an affair of the Pre-Islamic era (Jahiliyyah). It is narrated from the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) that he was asked about the aqiqah, and he said: "Verily, Allah the Almighty does not love undutifulness ('uquq)." It is as if he disliked the name, and he said: "Whoever has a child born to him, and he loves to perform a rite of sacrifice for him, then let him do so." Narrated by Malik in