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How the estate divides
Enter what was left and who survives. Funeral costs, debts and any bequest come out first; the rest is shared by the fixed shares of Sūrat al-Nisāʾ. An example family is filled in.
Every rule citedḤanafī, Mālikī, Shāfiʿī or Ḥanbalī. Not a fatwa and not a legal will.
Without a valid will, state law decides.If a Muslim dies without a will that is valid in their state, the estate is divided by that state’s intestacy law, not by these shares. A spouse and children often receive very different amounts. Write a will with an estate attorney that directs the estate to be divided by the Islamic shares. Accounts with a named beneficiary and jointly owned property usually pass outside a will, and some states give a spouse rights a will cannot override; ask your attorney how to bring everything in line with the shares.
| Heir | Share | Receives |
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The four schools on this family
Covers spouses, children, son’s children, parents, grandparents and siblings. If nephews, uncles, cousins or a daughter’s children survive, ask a scholar. Then write a legal will in your state so the shares can be carried out.
How this is worked out
- Order of payment
- Funeral, then debts, then bequests up to a third, then the heirs. al-Sirājiyyah (al-Sajāwandī), opening chapter
- Bequests
- At most a third, and never to an heir. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2742; Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2870 (ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ)
- The shares
- The fixed shares of children, parents, spouses and siblings. Qurʾān, al-Nisāʾ 4:11; Qurʾān, al-Nisāʾ 4:12; Qurʾān, al-Nisāʾ 4:176
- The remainder
- To the nearest male relative, and to sisters alongside daughters. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6732; Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6736
- ʿAwl
- Shares reduced in proportion when they exceed the estate. Ruling of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb with the Companions; al-Sirājiyyah, chapter on ʿawl
- Radd
- What happens to a leftover, school by school. al-Ikhtiyār (Ḥanafī); Kashshāf al-Qināʿ (Ḥanbalī); al-Dasūqī on al-Sharḥ al-Kabīr (Mālikī); Nihāyat al-Muḥtāj (Shāfiʿī)
- The four schools
- al-Mawṣilī, al-Ikhtiyār li-Taʿlīl al-Mukhtār (Ḥanafī), Kitāb al-Farāʾiḍ; al-Dasūqī, Ḥāshiyah ʿalā al-Sharḥ al-Kabīr, with Mukhtaṣar Khalīl (Mālikī), Bāb al-Farāʾiḍ; Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī, Tuḥfat al-Muḥtāj, with al-Nawawī’s Minhāj (Shāfiʿī), Kitāb al-Farāʾiḍ; Ibn Qudāmah, al-Mughnī, and al-Buhūtī, Kashshāf al-Qināʿ (Ḥanbalī), Kitāb al-Farāʾiḍ