What is the ruling on charities slaughtering udhiyah (sacrifices) without mentioning the donors by name at the time of slaughter?

Praise be to Allah.

Firstly: There is nothing wrong with giving a charity money to do the udhiyah; this comes under the heading of delegating them as a proxy to slaughter the udhiyah.

Charities undertake to do that in two ways:

The first way is mentioning the donors by name, so they have a list of their names and a sheep will be slaughtered on behalf of So-and-so son of So-and-so, and a cow will be slaughtered on behalf of seven specific people who are named in the list, and they do that for each cow. This is what is obligatory.

The second way is not mentioning the donors by name; rather if they have one hundred people, for example, they will slaughter one hundred sheep on their behalf, without stating that this sheep is on behalf of So-and-so, and this one is on behalf of So-and-so. This is not valid.

Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymin (may Allah have mercy on him) was asked: Some Hajj groups collect money from the pilgrims to offer the hadiy (sacrifice) on their behalf, but they do not mention the name of each person [at the time of slaughter]. Is this permissible?

He replied: This is not permissible. It is essential to name the person on whose behalf the sacrifice is being slaughtered. So for example, if there are thirty men in the group, and they bought thirty sheep for them, then he [the slaughterman] should have on hand a list of their names, and every time he slaughters a sheep, he should say: This is on behalf of So-and-so. It is essential to mention the names. As for slaughtering thirty sheep on behalf of thirty men, that is not right."(Al-Liqa’ ash-Shahri  73/32).

And he (may Allah have mercy on him) was asked: We have heard from you that you warned against giving money to these companies, but what is the solution  regarding what is past? We did Hajj more than once, and we gave money to these companies, but they did not take our names. What is the ruling on what is past? Is it valid? If it is not valid, then what must we do?

Answer: We did not warn against giving the hadiy, because the hadiy (sacrifice) is in fact necessary. The person has two options: either he can give it to these companies (charities), or he can slaughter it himself and leave it in the place where he slaughters it, and no one will benefit from it, neither he himself nor anyone else.

But if it so happens that a person slaughters his sacrifice, eats some of it and gives some of it as gifts and as charity, then undoubtedly this is much better. This is something that some people can do who have acquaintances in Makkah; they can appoint a proxy to do it on their behalf, and they can say: Slaughter the sacrifice on our behalf. In that case, it will be made use of. Or he can go to Makkah himself, and go to the slaughterhouse, and buy an animal and slaughter it there, and he will find people crowding around him to take some of the meat from him.

But what I think is that it is a grievous mistake to send the value of the udhiyah to another country, so that it may be slaughtered there. This is the thing for which there is no basis.

The Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) used to send the hadiy to Makkah to be slaughtered in Makkah, and there is no report from him, and no hadith, sound or weak, to suggest that he would send his udhiyah to any other place. Rather he would slaughter it in his own house, and they [his family] would eat some of it, give some of it as gifts and give some of it as charity."(Al-Liqa’ ash-Shahri  34/17).

Based on that, if the charity did not record your friend’s name, this means that they did not specify that this slaughter was done on his behalf. Rather they did it as we mentioned in the second scenario, in which they slaughter a number of animals on behalf of a number of people without mentioning them by name, and this is not permissible.

Please see the answer to question no. 126662 .

Secondly:

If the donor was not mentioned by name, then no one is liable – with regard to what has happened in the past – and we ask Allah to accept the udhiyah from the donors. But he should not do that again with the udhiyah in the future.

We asked our shaykh, ‘Abd ar-Rahman al-Barrak (may Allah preserve him) about what should be done in a case when the udhiyah was not done in the name of a specific person, and who is responsible in the case when the number of animals slaughtered is fewer than the number required?

He said: It is obligatory to mention names.

But if names are not mentioned, we do not say that it is just regular meat; rather it is something that Allah has enjoined and He will reward the donor for it.

In the case of any shortfall in the numbers of sheep, or if some of the sheep die, the one who neglected to mention the names of the donors is the one who must bear responsibility.

And Allah knows best.