The practice

Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy describes tahnik as chewing a date and then rubbing it on the newborn's palate with a clean finger. ¹ ²

Its place

The Sheikh mentions tahnik in the context of aqiqa and the shaving of the newborn's hair, and says it is done on the seventh day after birth (needs_source: the day is spoken once in the transcript). ¹

From the lectures: tahnik on the seventh day

The speaker says a newborn is given tahnik on the seventh day after birth: a date is chewed and then rubbed on the child's palate with a finger ¹. He gives a reason that doctors say teeth have sockets around the gums and that this helps teeth grow quickly; he attributes this to doctors without a source, so it is not adopted here (needs_source) ². In the same passage he mentions a claim about Ibrahim's circumcision after eighty; the sentence is garbled and is not written here (needs_source).

Sources

Assabile archive of Omar Abdelkafy's lectures (audio and video) , Al Hoquq, episode 5, at 00:08:00 · Listen at the archive (opens the audio at this time)

Assabile archive of Omar Abdelkafy's lectures (audio and video) , Al Hoquq, episode 5, at 00:08:30 · Listen at the archive (opens the audio at this time)

Custody of a child (hadana)

Custody (hadana) is keeping safe, and raising in what suits, a person who cannot yet manage his own affairs; it is obligatory, since the child may perish or be harmed without it, and it becomes an individual duty when there is no other custodian. It differs from sponsorship (kafala), which is the joining of liabilities, from guardianship, and from the executorship that a will creates. It applies to a child, and to an insane or imbecile adult by general agreement. The mother has the better claim so long as she does not marry a stranger to the child: ”You have the better claim to him as long as you do not marry.” The order of claimants after the mother differs: the Hanafis put the mother's mother, the father's mother, the sisters, the aunts and then the agnates; the Malikis put the maternal grandmother, the aunts, the paternal grandmother, then the father; the Shafi'is put the daughter, the mothers' line, the paternal grandmother, the sisters and the aunts; the Hanbalis put the mothers' line, then the father, the paternal line, the grandfather, and the sisters, aunts and kin. When male and female claimants stand equal, the female takes precedence. The custodian's conditions include Islam for some, puberty and reason, trustworthiness, ability, freedom from contagious illness, soundness of judgement for the Malikis and Shafi'is, and a safe place. A man must be a mahram of an adolescent girl in his charge; a woman must not marry a stranger to the child and must not keep him in the house of someone who dislikes him. The place of custody is the father's dwelling; a custodian's removal to settle elsewhere ends custody for the majority, and the Hanafis draw a distinction for a mother's travel. Payment for custody is allowed for the Shafi'is and Hanbalis, and in the preferred Maliki view there is none. Custody lapses with a bar and returns when the bar is removed, and the views differ on its return after divorce. The mothers' custody of a boy ends at seven for the Hanafis, at puberty for the Malikis, while the Shafi'is give the child a choice between his parents on reaching discernment. Each parent has the right to see and visit the child.

Tahnik (rubbing a newborn's palate with date)

At a glance

The practice

Its place

From the lectures: tahnik on the seventh day

People and things also explored

Sources

Living

Custody of a child (hadana)