Your baby’s seventh day

Sources

1. al-Nawawī, al-Majmūʿ (Shāfiʿī) 8/429–433A confirmed sunnah: two sheep for a boy and one for a girl; one for a boy achieves the basic sunnah. Same conditions as the uḍḥiyah; a cow or camel may be shared by seven. Joints separated without breaking bones (if broken, it is against the better course, not disliked). Cooked, ideally sweet; sending it to the poor is better than inviting them, but both are allowed. The day of birth is counted among the seven; if born at night, the following day. It does not lapse, but should not be delayed past puberty; then the person may do it for himself. Smearing with blood is disliked; saffron is recommended. Shave on the seventh and give the hair’s weight in gold, else silver, boy and girl alike.
2. Ibn ʿUthaymīn, al-Sharḥ al-Mumtiʿ ʿalā Zād al-Mustaqniʿ (Ḥanbalī) 7/493–495Slaughter on the seventh day: “if born on Saturday, slaughter on Friday, one day before the weekday of birth; this is the rule.” If no barber can shave a newborn safely, estimate the hair’s weight in silver.
3. al-Mawsūʿah al-Fiqhiyyah al-Kuwaytiyyah 30/278–279, “ʿAqīqah”The majority count the day of birth among the seven; if born at night, the following day is counted. The Mālikīs do not count the day of birth for one born after dawn.
4. al-Dardīr, al-Sharḥ al-Kabīr, with al-Dasūqī’s Ḥāshiyah (Mālikī) 2/126Recommended for the father, from his own wealth: one animal valid as an uḍḥiyah, boy or girl alike, on the seventh day, by day. The day of birth is not counted if the baby was born after dawn. Its time lapses at sunset of the seventh (a weaker view allows the second and third weeks). Shave the head even of a girl, and give its weight in gold or silver. Breaking the bones is allowed. Making it a walīmah that people are invited to is disliked; it is cooked and eaten by the family and others in their own places. Smearing the baby with its blood is disliked.
5. al-Ḥaṭṭāb, Mawāhib al-Jalīl (Mālikī) 3/256–257The ʿaqīqah is slaughtered by day; the preferred time is mid-morning to noon, it is disliked from just after noon (zawāl) until sunset, and between dawn and sunrise; at night it is not valid.
6. al-Buhūtī, Kashshāf al-Qināʿ (Ḥanbalī) 3/25–31A sunnah for the father; if two sheep are not possible, one; he may borrow if able to repay. The child does not do it for himself when grown (Aḥmad), but if he does it is not disliked, and a group of Ḥanbalīs recommend it. Seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, then any day; “it is not limited to childhood”. Shave a boy’s head, not a girl’s, on the seventh, and give its weight in silver. Saffron is fine; blood is disliked. Cooked with water and salt, no bones broken; give the midwife a thigh.
7. Buraydah (marfūʿ), al-Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿjam al-Awsaṭ 4882; al-Bayhaqī, al-Sunan al-Kubrā 19771“The ʿaqīqah is slaughtered on the seventh, the fourteenth or the twenty-first.”Grading: Disputed. al-Albānī: ḍaʿīf in Irwāʾ al-Ghalīl 1170, but ṣaḥīḥ in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Jāmiʿ 4132. al-Ṭabarānī: only Ismāʿīl ibn Muslim narrated it from Qatādah. al-Suyūṭī: ṣaḥīḥ.
8. al-Nawawī, al-Majmūʿ (Shāfiʿī) 8/442–443The sunnah is to give the adhān in the newborn’s ear at birth, boy or girl, in the words of the prayer adhān; a group of scholars add the iqāmah in the left ear. Taḥnīk with a date is sunnah, or something sweet if there is no date; the one who does it should be a good person, “and if not a man, then a righteous woman”. The parent is congratulated with the words taught by al-Ḥusayn, and replies with a prayer.
9. Ibn Qudāmah, al-Mughnī (Ḥanbalī) 9/464Some scholars said it is recommended for the father to give the adhān in his child’s ear when born. ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz would wrap his newborn in a cloth, give the adhān in the right ear and the iqāmah in the left, and name the child. Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s words of congratulation. The Prophet ﷺ did taḥnīk with dates.
10. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5467Abū Mūsā: a son was born to me and I brought him to the Prophet ﷺ. He named him Ibrāhīm, rubbed his palate with a date, prayed for blessing for him and gave him back to me.
11. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2838Samurah: the Prophet ﷺ said, “Every child is held in pledge by his ʿaqīqah: it is slaughtered for him on his seventh day, his head is shaved, and he is named.”Grading: ṣaḥīḥ (al-Albānī, Ṣaḥīḥ Abī Dāwūd 2838; Irwāʾ al-Ghalīl 1165). al-Tirmidhī (1522): ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ.
12. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-Muḥtār 1:299–300 (Bāb al-Ḥayḍ)Nifās “has no limit for its least”; its longest is forty days; and “its ruling is like menstruation in everything” except a few listed matters.
13. Ibn Qudāmah, al-Mughnī 1:250–252, 254The longest nifās is forty days (Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī said sixty). It has no shortest time: whenever she sees she is clean, she bathes and she is pure; he adds that her husband should wait out the forty days as a recommendation. If bleeding goes past forty and matches her usual period, it is her period; otherwise istiḥāḍah, and she prays. 1:254: the woman in nifās is like the menstruating woman in all that is forbidden to her and lifted from her, “we know of no disagreement in this”.
14. al-Dardīr, al-Sharḥ al-Kabīr, with Ḥāshiyat al-Dasūqī 1:174–175Nifās is blood that comes for the birth; its least is a single flow and its longest sixty days; “what it prevents is as with menstruation”.
15. al-Ramlī, Nihāyat al-Muḥtāj 1:356–358The least nifās is a moment, the longest sixty days and the usual forty; and “what menstruation forbids, it forbids”.