Hadith Three
On the authority of Jundub ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Bajali (may Allah be pleased with him):
“The Messenger of Allah ﷺ prayed on the Day of Sacrifice, then delivered the sermon, then slaughtered. He said, ‘Whoever slaughters before performing the prayer must offer another sacrifice in its place, and whoever has not yet slaughtered should do so, pronouncing the name of Allah.’ ”
Lexical notes
• al-Bajali: an attribution to his tribe, Bajilah.
• ‘should slaughter in the name of Allah’: i.e., saying ‘bismi Allah’; another recension reads, “let him slaughter upon the name of Allah.”
Overall meaning
On the Day of ʿId al-Aḍḥā the Prophet ﷺ began with the prayer, followed it with the sermon, and concluded with the slaughter. He then clarified to the people: anyone who had slaughtered before the ʿId prayer had not fulfilled the requirement and had to offer a fresh animal, whereas whoever had not yet slaughtered should proceed, invoking Allah’s name. The report therefore establishes this sequence as the only valid order. It is even clearer than the preceding narration in showing that the time for slaughter commences when the ʿId prayer ends—not merely when its time arrives, as al-Shāfiʿī held, nor with the imam’s own slaughter, as Mālik maintained, but with the completion of the prayer itself, as the Ḥanafis and Ḥanbalis have stated. The ḥadith also confirms the prescription of mentioning Allah’s name at the moment of slaughter, a point already explained.
Scholarly disagreement
Abū Ḥanīfah, Mālik, and al-Thawri considered the uḍḥiyah obligatory for anyone able to afford it, citing the verse, “So pray to your Lord and sacrifice” (Qurʾan 108:2). The majority, however, regard it as an emphatic sunnah. The preferable course is not to neglect it when one has the means, for the Prophet ﷺ said, “Whoever is affluent yet does not offer a sacrifice should not come near our place of prayer.”
Hadith Four
Jābir (may Allah be pleased with him) said: “I attended the ʿId with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. He began with the prayer before the sermon, without adhān or iqāmah. Then he stood, leaning on Bilāl, and he commanded the people to fear Allah, urged them to obey Him, and admonished them…"