Sacrificing a he-goat a few days short of a year

Question

Question: Zayd bought a he-goat for sacrifice that is only 18 days short of a year, but because of its fatness it looks a year old. Will the sacrifice of such a he-goat be correct or not? Qadi Thana’ullah Panipati ﵀ wrote in “Ma la Budda Minhu” that it is better (awla) for it to be a year old, from which a doubt arises that even if it is a few days short of a year, the sacrifice will still be correct.

Answer

I did not find this ruling in “Ma la Budda Minhu”; write out its full text. The generality of fiqh books state that the sacrifice is correct with a he-goat that has completed one year and entered its second year; from this it follows that a younger one is not correct. Shami stated exactly this explicitly in “Radd al-Muhtar” (p. 204, vol. 5).

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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