obligatory.
Ikrimah said, “Ibn ʿAbbās sent me with two dirhams to buy meat and told me, ‘Whomever you meet, say to him: This is the sacrifice of Ibn ʿAbbās.’”
It is also related that Bilāl once offered a rooster as his sacrifice. Any report that is cited for a matter to which it is not directly relevant is a weak proof.
The scholars disagreed over whether a person who intends to offer a sacrifice must refrain during the first ten days (of Dhul-Ḥijjah) from trimming his hair or nails, even though an authentic ḥadīth establishes this practice.
[Chapter Two: The kinds of sacrificial animals, their qualities, their ages, and their prescribed numbers]
This chapter contains four well-known issues:
- Distinguishing the species;
- Distinguishing the qualities;
- Determining the age;
- Fixing the number.
Issue One: The jurists are unanimously agreed that the sacrificial animal may be taken from any of the livestock species. They differed, however, over which species is preferable. Mālik held that the best for uḍḥiyah are rams, then cattle, then camels—the reverse of his order for the hady offered during pilgrimage. Another report from him states the order as camels, then cattle, then rams.
Al-Shāfiʿī adopted the opposite ranking for the uḍḥiyah: camels first, then cattle, then rams; this was also the view of Ashhab and Ibn Shabbān.
The cause of their disagreement lies in the seeming conflict between analogy (qiyās) and the evidence of prophetic practice. Nothing is reported from the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—showing that he sacrificed anything other than a ram, which some have taken as proof that rams are superior for the uḍḥiyah. Yet al-Bukhārī relates from Ibn ʿUmar something that points the other way, namely his statement: “The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—used to slaughter and sacrifice in the prayer-ground.”
As for analogy, since the uḍḥiyah is an act of worship performed with an animal, the best species for it should match the ranking for the hady. Al-Shāfiʿī supported his position with the general wording of the ḥadīth: “Whoever goes out in the first hour, it is as though he had offered a camel; whoever goes out in the second hour…”