Can I write an Islamic will in the US?

In more detail

• Why it matters

  Under the Uniform Probate Code as Maine enacted it, a surviving spouse takes the entire estate when no descendant or parent survives, or when all the deceased’s descendants are also the spouse’s and the spouse has no other descendants; blended families divide it differently. The Qurʾān gives a wife with children an eighth, a husband with children a quarter, and the rest to the children and parents.

  Legal Information Institute (Cornell Law School), Wex: intestate succession · Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 18-C, §2-102 (Uniform Probate Code), share of spouse · Qurʾān, al-Nisāʾ 4:12

• Signing it properly

  In most states a will must have two witnesses who watch you sign it. With a self-proving affidavit, the witnesses also sign a sworn statement before a notary.

  Jeff Burtka, “Making a Self-Proving Will With a Self-Proving Affidavit”, AllLaw (Nolo)

• Up to a third, and none to an heir

  You may leave up to a third to causes and people who do not inherit; the rest goes to your heirs by the shares.

  Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2742 · Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2870 (ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ)

• Do not put it off

  It is not permissible for any Muslim who has something to will to stay for two nights without having his will written and kept ready with him.

  Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2738

• A draft to take to an attorney

  The free drafter covers your executor, debts, a bequest of up to a third, the shares for your heirs and guardianship, and gives you a typeset draft to take to an estate attorney and a scholar. It is not legal advice and not a fatwā.

  Draft an Islamic will