Determining The 7th Day After A Baby Was Born

The seventh day is determined from the day the child is born. For example, if a child was born on Monday then Aqeeqah will be on the next Sunday. In this case, Monday is considered as the first of the seven days in demarcating Sunday as the seventh day.

However, some of our pious elders have used a different formula in determining the seventh day. They say that if the child was born for instance at 11am on Monday, then the first day (in terms of being a complete day) will only end at 11am on Tuesday. In that case, the second day will end on Wednesday, the third day on Thursday and so on, until the seventh day ends on Monday at 11am. Based on this formula, one will regard the first of the seven days as being Tuesday, as that is when the child’s first day of existence in the world is completed. This will result in the seventh day being the next Monday and not Sunday. The Aqeeqah will hence be done at any time on the next Monday morning before 11am which is the time when the child was born on the previous Monday. Hadhrat Mufti Mahmood Hasan Saheb Gangohi Rahmatullahi Alaih had a preference for this latter method of calculation. However both the former or latter method may be implemented, both ways are permissible.

Allamah Shami has mentioned that naming the child should be first then shaving of the head and then slaughtering of the animal.ii There is no sequence as to when circumcision should be carried out.