238 Syamsuddin Arif
2.1.13. Gift for the Beloved on the Rules Pertaining to New Born Babies
(Tuḥfat al-mawdūd bi-aḥkām al-mawlūd)
This epistle has been published by Pustaka at-Tibyan Jakarta under
the title Kado Sang Bayi (The Baby’s Present). In this book we find
Ibn al-Qayyim’s explanation about what the Muslim parents should
do to their new-born babies. This includes uttering the call to prayer
(adhān) and iqāma (call for prayer) in the baby’s right and left ear
respectively; doing taḥnīk, i. e. putting sweet things in the mouth of the
baby and invoking Allah to bless the newly born baby; slaughtering a
sheep (ʿaqīqa), shaving the child’s head and anointing it with saffron
and giving the child a good name – the latter preferably on the seventh
day. Ibn al-Qayyim regards this ʿaqīqa as a means by which the child
is brought close to Allah soon after he comes into this world, since it
is a ransom that would enable him or her to intercede for the parents
in the Afterlife. Also recommended by Ibn al-Qayyim is circumcision
(khitān) which signifies natural purity (sunan al-fiṭra).
2.1.14. Cure for the Sick
(Shifāʾ al-ʿalīl fī masāʾil al-qaḍāʾ wal-qadar wal-ḥikma wa-taʿlīl)Published by Pustaka Azzam, Jakarta, it has been translated under the
title Qadha dan Qadar (On Divine Ordinance and Predestination). It
was apparently based on the text printed in 1407/1987 by Dār al-Kutub
al-ʿIlmiyya, Beirut. The treatise was basically written in order to refute
two major heresies: the so-called qadariyya (belief in man’s free will)
and its opposite, i. e. fatalism (jabriyya). The issues addressed include
whether one’s felicity or misery in the afterlife are predetermined or
not, the difference between predetermination (qaḍāʾ) and causality
(qadar), the meaning of guidance (hudā) and aberrance (ḍalāl), human
effort (kasb) in relation to God’s domination (jabr). Equally interest-
ing is the imaginary debate Ibn al-Qayyim relayed between the two
opposing camps. In his views, the fatalists’ thesis is untenable because
it would render meaningless the sending of the prophets, and would
defeat the purpose of reward and punishment in the hereafter.
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