Chapter Three: The Rulings of Slaughter
The rulings that pertain to the slaughter specific to the ʿEid sacrifices revolve around two matters: the timing and the act of slaughter itself.
- The Time of Slaughter
The jurists disagreed over three points: when the time begins, when it ends, and the status of the intervening nights.
a. Its Beginning
They are unanimously agreed that slaughter before the prayer is invalid, on account of the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—having said, “Whoever slaughters before the prayer, it is nothing but ordinary meat,” as well as his instruction that anyone who slaughtered before the prayer must repeat the sacrifice, and his statement, “The first thing we do on this day of ours is to pray, then we slaughter,” together with other sound reports to the same effect.
They diverged, however, concerning one who slaughters after the prayer yet before the Imam has performed his own slaughter.
• Mālik held that no one may sacrifice his animal before the Imam has slaughtered.
• Abū Ḥanīfah and al-Thawrī maintained that slaughter is permissible once the prayer is finished, even if it precedes the Imam’s slaughter.
The root of their disagreement lies in the differing textual reports on the subject. In some narrations we read: “The Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—ordered the one who had slaughtered before the prayer to repeat the sacrifice,” whereas in others: “He ordered the one who had slaughtered before he himself had slaughtered to repeat it.” Muslim transmitted the latter wording.
Whoever regards these as two separate incidents makes the Imam’s slaughter a condition for validity; whoever sees them as one and the same holds that the only criterion is the completion of the prayer.
There is likewise variation in the transmissions of the ḥadīth of Abū Burdah ibn Niyār. Some versions state: “He slaughtered before the prayer, so the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—commanded him to repeat the sacrifice,” while others say: “He slaughtered before the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—had slaughtered, so he ordered him to repeat it.”
Given this, it is preferable to treat the narrator’s wording, “before the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—had slaughtered,” and the other wording, “before the prayer,” as referring to a single circumstance; for whoever slaughters before the prayer has necessarily slaughtered before the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him. It follows that the decisive factor in invalidity is slaughtering prior to the prayer, as the authentic reports from Anas and others make clear: “Whoever slaughters before the prayer must repeat it.” For that is because