The Prophet ﷺ said, "There is no faraa and no ateerah." The faraa was the firstborn of the livestock, which they used to slaughter for their idols, and the ateerah was a sacrifice offered in Rajab.
عن النبي ﷺ قال: لا فرع ولا عتيرة. والفرع: أول النتاج كانوا يذبحونه لطواغيتهم، والعتيرة في رجب.
Bukhari narrated it in the book on the sacrifice for a newborn child (5473), and Muslim in the book on sacrifices (38:1976), both of them through Mamar, who said, Zuhri informed us, from Ibn Musayab, from Abu Hurairah, and he related it.Regarding his saying, "And the fara is the first of the offspring..." and so on, Khattabi said, "I think the explanation given in it comes from the words of Zuhri," and Hafiz supported this in Fath al-Bari (597/9).I say, there is something to be examined in the explanation of the fara, for Abu Dawud narrated it with a sahih chain from Zuhri, from Saeed (that is, Ibn Musayab), who said, "The fara is the first of the offspring, an offspring would be born to them and they would slaughter it."In a narration of Nasai (4223), through Shubah, from Mamar and Sufyan (that is, bin Husayn), from Zuhri, from Saeed bin Musayab, from Abu Hurairah, one of them said, "The Messenger of Allah ﷺ forbade the fara and the atirah," while the other said, "No fara and no atirah."It was mentioned earlier that Mamar narrated it with the wording, "No fara and no atirah." This means that the one who narrated it with the wording "forbade" is Sufyan bin Husayn Wasiti, and although he is trustworthy, he was weak in his narration from Zuhri.Ibn Adi said, "Apart from Zuhri, he is sound in hadith, but in his narrations from Zuhri he relates things in which he differs from others."Accordingly, the wording preserved is that of the Sahihayn, "No fara and no atirah."As for his saying, "No fara," the word fara has a fatha on both the fa and the ra, and its plural is fira. It is explained, as mentioned at the end of the hadith, as the first offspring of camels or sheep, which the people of pre-Islamic times used to slaughter for their idols. It is also said that in pre-Islamic times, when a man's camels reached one hundred, he would bring forward a young camel and slaughter it for his idol.As for his saying, "and no atirah," the word atirah has a fatha on the undotted letter and a kasra on the dotted letter, following the pattern of the word meaning "great." It is explained in the hadith as being the sheep slaughtered in the month of Rajab.Abu Ubayd said, "The atirah is the Rajabiyyah, a sacrifice that they used to slaughter in pre-Islamic times during Rajab to draw near to their idols."Others said, "The atirah is a vow that they used to make, that whoever's wealth reached a certain amount would slaughter one head out of every ten of it in Rajab."