Omo Alfa Oloka Islamic Foundation Of Nigeria, Kaiama Road Omoda Area, Ilorin (2024)

07/02/2021

INHERITANCE IN ISLAM

Inheritance is considered as an integral part of Shariah Law. Muslims inherit from one another as stated in the Qur'an.[Qur'an 4:7] Hence, there is a legal share for relatives of the decedent in his estate and property. The major rules of inheritance are detailed in Qur'an, Hadith and Fiqh.

When a Muslim dies there are four duties which need to be performed. They are:

Pay funeral and burial expenses.
Paying debts of the deceased.
Determine the value / will of the deceased if any (which is capped to one third of the estate as the remainder is decided by shariah law).
Distribute the remainder of estate and property to the relatives of the deceased according to Shariah Law.
Therefore, it is necessary to determine the relatives of the deceased who are entitled to inherit, and their shares.[2]

These laws take greater prominence in Islam because of the restriction placed on the testator (a person who makes a will). Islamic law places two restrictions on the testator:

To whom he or she can bequeath his or her wealth.
The amount that he or she can bequeath (which must not exceed one third of the deceased's estate).[2]
Different types of heirs Edit
Heirs referred to as primary heirs are always entitled to a share of the inheritance, they are never totally excluded. These primary heirs consist of the spouse relict, both parents, the son and the daughter. All remaining heirs can be totally excluded by the presence of other heirs. But under certain circumstances, other heirs can also inherit as residuaries, namely the father, paternal grandfather, daughter, agnatic granddaughter, full sister, consanguine sister and mother.[2] Those who inherit are usually categorized into three groups:

Quota-heirs (dhawu al-farāʾḍ), This group includes four males and eight females.[3] The male quota-heirs are the husband, father, paternal grandfather and maternal brother. The females quot-heirs are the wife, daughter, granddaughter, mother, grandmother, full sister, paternal sister and maternal sister. However, there are scenarios that could move the daughter, granddaughter, father, grandfather, full siblings and paternal siblings to the second group ('asaba).
Members of the ʿaṣaba (residuaries), usually a combination of male (and sometimes female) relatives that inherit as residuaries after the shares of the Quota-heirs is distributed.[1]
Extended family members (dhawu al arham): This includes any blood relative who is not a quot-heir or 'asaba (residuary). Examples include maternal grandfather, aunts, nieces and female cousins.
Process of Inheritance Edit
Inheritance is distributed in the following order:[4]

All quot-heirs are allocated their shares. If this exhausts the property, the process completes. Otherwise, go to next step.
Residuary heirs get the remainder of the property.
If there are no residuaries, but there is a balance from step (1), the money is redistributed proportionally to the quota heirs. This process is called (al rad).
If there are no quota or residuary heirs, the property is distributed to extended family members.
If there are no quot-heirs, residuary heirs and extended heirs, the property escheats to the state treasury, Bayt al-mal.
The classical position of the Maliki and Shafi'i schools is that if there are no quota or residuary heirs, the property directly goes to the state treasury, i.e. steps (3) and (4) are skipped. However, both schools joined the Hanafi and Hanbali schools in adopting the above five steps due to the absence or disorganization of Bayt al-mal.

Rules of inclusion and exclusion Edit
In Islamic law, only relatives with a legitimate blood relationship to the deceased are entitled to inherit. Thus, illegitimate children and adopted children have no shares in inheritance. In general, a full brother will exclude a half-brother who shares a common father ("consanguine brother), but not a half-brother who shares a common mother. In cases where a deceased man leaves a pregnant woman, the unborn child's share will be reserved. Also a woman during the time of waiting (ʿiddat) after divorce is considered a wife of the deceased for purposes of inheritance.

There are even further rules of exclusion and inclusion of different relatives. The only "practical situations" which may cause disqualification are differences of religion and homicide. But schools of Islamic jurisprudence differed whether a Muslim can inherit from a non-Muslim or not. All the jurists agree that intentional or unjustifiable killing would exclude a person from inheritance.

Women and inheritance Edit
In Islam, women are entitled the right of inheritance, though generally, Islam allots women half the share of inheritance available to men if they inherit from the same father. For example, where the decedent has both male and female children, a son's share is double that of a daughter's. There are other circumstances where women might receive equal shares to men. For example, the share of the mother and father of a decedent who leaves children behind.Also the share of a brother who shares the same mother is equal to the share of a sister who shares the same mother, as do the shares of their descendants.

There are some who say women are entitled to equal inheritance in Islam. In seventeenth century Ottoman cities, such as Bursa, inheritance issues were commonly resolved in courts, with the defendants even being family members of women that were suing them.

Sometimes, women get double the share as that of men; for example, if there are only parents and husband, husband will receive half, father gets 1/6 and mother gets 2/6. This is according to Ibne Abbas's interpretation of verses 11, 12 of Surah An-Nisa. [Quran 4:11,12]

Also the Qur'an does not discriminate between men and women in cases of kalalah relation.Kalalah describes a person who leaves behind neither parents nor children; it also means all the relatives of a deceased except his parents and children, and it also denotes the relationships which are not through [the deceased's] parents or children. Islamic scholars hold that the original reasons for these differences are the responsibilities that are allotted to spouses. A husband in Islam must use his inheritance to support his family while a wife has no support obligations. Additionally, Arab society traditionally practiced the custom of bride price or dower rather than dowry; i.e., the man paid a gift to his wife or her family upon marriage, rather than the opposite, placing a financial burden on men where none existed on women. This custom was continued but changed materially by Islam. The divine injunction stipulated that the dowry (mahr) is due to the wife only not her family. It can also be deferred thereby reducing the burden if the husband is unable to afford the requested dowry at the time of the marriage. The wife can defer it till a stipulated date or it can become a debt on the estate when the husband dies. And give their dowries willingly to women (as an obligation), but if they, of their own accord, remit a portion of the dowry, you may enjoy it with pleasure.

ALLAH'S KNOWS BEST.....

Omo Alfa Oloka Islamic Foundation Of Nigeria

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