It also brings joy, cheer, and a sense of ease to oneself and one’s family during this great Islamic festival.

Within it lie divine wisdoms and secrets; human minds can only grasp of them according to their capacity.

The default ruling is that the udḥiyah is offered on behalf of the living.

Yet it is permissible to designate it as charity for the dead, and its reward does reach them.

In some regions, however, people almost never offer it except for the deceased. It is as though they imagine the udḥiyah to be exclusive to the dead, so a living person among them seldom sacrifices on his own behalf.

Thus, when one of them writes a will, the very first item he stipulates is one or more sacrificial animals, in proportion to his means. It is rare for a testator to bequeath anything besides an udḥiyah and the distribution of food on the nights of Friday during Ramadan; other kinds of benevolence are scarcely mentioned.

This stems from the negligence of the learned men who draft those wills: they neither remind the people nor teach them that a bequest ought to be directed to whatever act of charity is most beneficial.

Although the udḥiyah is a meritorious, generous, and virtuous act, there are other avenues of goodness that may, in certain circumstances, be even better. Allah is the One who grants success.

Hadith 388
Anas ibn Mālik (may Allah be pleased with him) reported: The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) sacrificed two horned rams that were predominantly white with some black. He slaughtered them with his own hand, pronounced the basmalah, uttered the takbīr, and placed his foot on their neck-sides.

Lexical notes:
• “Two rams” (kabshayni): A ram is a male sheep that has lost its first set of incisors—about two years old and entering the third.
• “Predominantly white” (amlahayn): A ram whose coat is mostly white with patches of black.
• “Their neck-sides” (ṣifāḥihimā): with a kasrah on the ṣād and ḥāʾ. Ibn al-Athīr said in al-Nihāyah that a ṣafḥah is the side or surface of something; here it refers to the sides of their necks.

Overall meaning:
The insistence on the udḥiyah is underscored by the fact that the Prophet himself performed it. He offered two rams, each white with some black and possessing horns. He personally slaughtered them with his noble hand, because this is a great act of worship that he chose to execute himself. At the moment of slaughter he invoked the name of Allah, seeking His help so that blessing would descend and goodness spread, and he uttered the takbīr to magnify and revere Allah, dedicate the act solely to Him, and manifest humility and submission before the Lord of the worlds.