ʿAqīqah for a Deceased Child

Question: Allah blessed me with three daughters, but they all died when they were still small, and I did not perform the ʿaqiqah (the newborn’s sacrificial offering) for them. I have heard that a child’s intercession is linked to the performance of the ʿaqiqah. Is it valid to offer the ʿaqiqah on their behalf after their death, and may I combine all three in a single animal, or must a separate animal be offered for each one?

Answer: Performing the ʿaqiqah for a newborn is an emphatically recommended sunnah, and this is the view of the majority of the scholars. This ruling applies to living children, where there is no controversy, for it is a practice authentically established from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). As for offering the ʿaqiqah for children who have already died, it does not appear to me to be legislated. The ʿaqiqah is slaughtered as a ransom for the child, as an optimistic sign of his safety, and as a means of driving Satan away from him, as the scholar Ibn al-Qayyim explained in Tuhfat al-Mawdūd concerning the rulings of the newborn. These considerations are absent in the case of children who have passed away.

With regard to the notion mentioned by the questioner—that the ʿaqiqah contributes to the child’s intercession for his father if it is performed—this is not correct. Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allah have mercy on him) deemed that view weak and stated that the underlying wisdom behind the ʿaqiqah is twofold:

1. It revives the practice of Abraham (peace be upon him) when he ransomed Ishmael.

2. It repels Satan from the newborn. The meaning of the ḥadith, “Every child is held in pledge for his ʿaqiqah,” is that the child’s release from Satan’s grip is tied to it. If no ʿaqiqah is performed, he remains captive to Satan; but when the prescribed ʿaqiqah is carried out, then—by Allah’s permission—it becomes a cause for his liberation from Satan. This is the purport of what Ibn al-Qayyim conveyed.