The rules of inheritance in Islam

The foundations

Three verses of Surah An-Nisa set the shares: verse 11 (children and parents), verse 12 (spouses and maternal half-siblings) and verse 176, the last of the surah (full and paternal half-siblings).

The Sunnah completes them: “Give the fixed shares to those entitled to them; whatever remains goes to the closest male” (al-Bukhari, no. 6737), the grandmother’s share, that of the son’s daughter with a daughter. The Companions settled the cases the texts did not cover: ‘awl, the ‘Umariyyatan, the grandfather with brothers.

“These are the limits set by Allah” (verse 13): the shares are not chosen, except by the heirs’ agreement after the death.

Before the division

First, out of what the deceased left: reasonable funeral costs (washing, shroud, burial), then debts (including any dowry still owed to the wife), then bequests.

A bequest (wasiyya) is limited to one third of what remains and cannot go to an heir without the heirs’ consent: “Allah has given everyone entitled their due: no bequest for an heir” (Abu Dawud, no. 2870); “one third, and one third is a lot” (al-Bukhari, no. 2742).

What remains after that is divided among the heirs.

Causes, conditions and impediments

One inherits through kinship, through marriage (even unconsummated) and, historically, through emancipation (wala’).

The death must be certain (or declared by a judge), the heir must be alive at the time of death, and the relationship must be known.

Three things prevent inheriting: killing the deceased (“the killer does not inherit”, at-Tirmidhi, no. 2109), difference of religion (“a Muslim does not inherit from a non-Muslim, nor a non-Muslim from a Muslim”, Muslim, no. 1614) and slavery. An heir who is prevented does not count: he neither excludes nor reduces anyone.

The heirs

Male heirs: son, son’s son (however low), father, paternal grandfather, full brother, paternal half-brother, maternal half-brother, full brother’s son, paternal half-brother’s son, full paternal uncle, paternal half-uncle, full uncle’s son, half-uncle’s son, husband.

Female heirs: daughter, son’s daughter, mother, maternal grandmother, paternal grandmother, full sister, paternal half-sister, maternal half-sister, wife.

Six heirs are never excluded: the husband, the wife, the father, the mother, the son and the daughter.

The fixed shares (furud)

The Quran names six shares: one half, one quarter, one eighth, two thirds, one third and one sixth. Jurists add one third of the remainder (‘Umariyyatan, grandfather).

Heirs to the remainder (‘asaba)

‘Asaba in their own right: men linked to the deceased with no woman in between. They are ranked by line (descendants, then father and grandfather, then brothers and their sons, then uncles and their sons), then by degree, then by the strength of the tie (full before paternal). The first one found takes the whole remainder.

‘Asaba through another: the daughter with the son, the son’s daughter with the son’s son, the sister with her brother of the same kind. The man receives twice the woman’s share.

‘Asaba with another: the full or paternal half-sister with a daughter or a son’s daughter. She takes the remainder and comes before paternal half-brothers, nephews and uncles.

If the fixed shares take everything, the heirs to the remainder get nothing.

Exclusion (hajb)

Total exclusion (hajb hirman): the closer excludes the more distant. The son excludes grandchildren, brothers and sisters, nephews and uncles; the father excludes the grandfather and all brothers and sisters; the mother excludes grandmothers; any inheriting descendant, the father and the grandfather exclude maternal half-siblings; the full brother excludes the paternal half-brother.

Reduction (hajb nuqsan): a child reduces the husband from 1/2 to 1/4, the wife from 1/4 to 1/8 and the mother from 1/3 to 1/6; two brothers or sisters also reduce the mother to 1/6, even when they are themselves excluded.

‘Awl (when the shares exceed the estate)

Sometimes the fixed shares add up to more than the estate: for example the husband (1/2) and two full sisters (2/3). The base is then raised so that everyone is reduced in proportion: 6 becomes 7, 8, 9 or 10; 12 becomes 13, 15 or 17; 24 becomes 27.

‘Umar decided it on the advice of the Companions, and the four schools apply it; Ibn ‘Abbas opposed it.

Radd (when something is left over)

If part of the estate remains with no heir to the remainder, the Hanafis and Hanbalis return it to the fixed-share heirs in proportion to their shares, except to the spouses.

In the classical view of the Malikis and Shafi‘is, this remainder goes to the Muslims’ public treasury; their later scholars accepted radd when the treasury is not properly run.

If the spouse is alone, the remainder does not return to them in the classical view; some later Hanafis and several national laws give it to them.

The base of the calculation and the correction

To calculate, the shares are brought to the same denominator: this is the base (asl al-mas’ala), always 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 or 24 (18 or 36 with the grandfather and brothers).

If a group cannot divide its parts into whole numbers (three sons for 7 parts, for instance), the base is multiplied: this is the correction (tashih).

Relatives through women (dhawu al-arham)

Children of daughters and of sisters, daughters of brothers and of uncles, maternal uncles and aunts, paternal aunts, the maternal grandfather… They only inherit when there is no fixed-share heir (other than a spouse) and no heir to the remainder.

The Hanafis (method of proximity, qaraba) and the Hanbalis (method of substitution, tanzîl) let them inherit; the Malikis and Shafi‘is, in their classical view, give the estate to the public treasury, and their later scholars let them inherit. They rely on “blood relatives are more entitled to one another” (Surah Al-Anfal, verse 75) and “the maternal uncle is the heir of one who has no heir” (at-Tirmidhi, no. 2103).