- It is permissible for the one offering the udḥiyah (ritual sacrifice) to count a single sheep on behalf of himself and the members of his household, so that several persons share in the reward of that one sacrifice.
If, however, the udḥiyah is one-seventh of a camel or one-seventh of a cow, Shaykh Aḥmad al-Qaṣīr maintained that such a seventh is not sufficient for a man together with his family, because it constitutes a joint share in the same blood, and the wording of the ḥadith concerns a sheep, not a seventh of a camel or cow.
Shaykh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Saʿdī, on the other hand, held that one-seventh of a camel or cow unquestionably stands in the place of a sheep. That is what the prophetic narrations indicate and what the scholars have always understood from them. Hence the recent fatwā that forbids dedicating the reward of a seventh of a camel or cow to more than one person—whether during the sacrificer’s lifetime or after his death—is certainly mistaken. All our jurists, in both concise primers and lengthy works, state that the rulings for the sacrifice of cattle and camels are identical in every respect to those for sheep. They mention this at the end of the Book of Funerals; the author of al-Iqnāʿ states it explicitly and unambiguously, and they record it again at the close of the section on compensation for game in the Book of Ḥajj. All praise is due to Allah.
Be aware that the later scholars who issued a contrary fatwā rested their view on the statement of the early authorities, “A camel or cow suffices for seven.” They assumed this meant that no more than seven people may share in the entire animal. That, however, was not what the earlier jurists intended. We concede only that one animal fulfils a single udḥiyah, just as a single sheep fulfils one udḥiyah.
As for the claim that the reward of a sheep may be gifted to more than one person whereas the reward of a seventh of a camel may not, this is an assertion made without knowledge; it runs counter to the evidences and to the words of the jurists.
This matter has confused many scholars because they have conflated the question of sufficiency (ijzāʾ) with that of gifting the reward (ihdāʾ).