Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
One may pay the price of the Aqeeqah to an Islamic organization to buy, slaughter, and distribute the meat of a sheep on his behalf.
Answering your question, Dr. Wael Shehab, PhD in Islamic Studies from Al-Azhar University and currently the Imam of the Downtown Toronto Masjid in Canada, states:
Let us seize the chance and remind you and our Muslims brothers and sisters of the rulings of Aqeeqah.
Aqeeqah is a Sunnah. It is a Sunnah to shave the hair of the baby on the 7thday of his birth and give its weight of gold in charity. It is also the Sunnah to name the baby on the 7th day.
If one is capable, he is recommended by the Sunnah to offer Aqeeqah on the same day; if not, one may delay offering it when he becomes capable to.
It is acceptable, as far as Shari`ah is concerned, to slaughter one sheep for the boy; the same way a single sheep could be slaughtered for the girl.
One may pay the price of the Aqeeqah to an Islamic organization to buy, slaughter, and distribute the meat of a sheep on his behalf.
Aqeeqah in itself is not fulfilled if its price is spent on charitable projects other than slaughtering a sacrificial animal and distributing its meat according to the Sunnah.
Almighty Allah knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.