Guides
Worked examples and plain explanations of how Islamic inheritance is divided.
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Individual shares
A wife's share in Islamic inheritance
A wife's share is one of the simplest rules in Faraid and one of the most often misapplied, usually in the same two ways: giving each of several wives a full…
4 min read
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Rules and doctrines
Who is excluded from Islamic inheritance
Relatives who expected a share and received nothing always want to know why. The answer is almost never arbitrary: Faraid has a precise set of exclusion rules…
4 min read
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The basics
What is Faraid?
Faraid — from farida, an obligatory portion — is the branch of Islamic law that decides who inherits from an estate and exactly how much. In Urdu it is usually…
4 min read
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Individual shares
A son's share in Islamic inheritance
Unlike a daughter, a wife or a mother, a son has no fixed fraction. There is no verse giving him a half or a third. He is a residuary — he takes whatever…
3 min read
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Islamic wills by country
What makes a will Sharia-compliant
A will that satisfies the fiqh but fails the local formalities is worthless. A will that satisfies the formalities but ignores the fiqh distributes the estate…
4 min read
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Islamic wills by country
Muslim inheritance rules in Canada and Australia
Canada and Australia sit in the same position as the UK and the US: Islamic shares are not applied by default, a valid will is what makes them take effect, and…
4 min read
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Individual shares
A mother's share in Islamic inheritance
A mother's share looks like the simplest rule in Faraid and contains the single most commonly misapplied one. Two sentences cover the ordinary cases; the third…
3 min read
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Islamic wills by country
Islamic wills in the USA
Inheritance in the United States is state law, not federal. There is no single American answer to any of this, and the one thing that is true everywhere is…
4 min read
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Islamic wills by country
Islamic wills in the UK
A Muslim who dies in England or Wales without a will does not have their estate divided according to Faraid. It is divided by the intestacy rules, which have…
5 min read
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The basics
Islamic inheritance law explained
Islamic inheritance — faraid — is not a percentage split decided by the family. It is a fixed system: the Qur'an names certain heirs and gives each of them a…
5 min read
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The basics
How inheritance is divided in Islam
This is the practical version: what to do, in order, with a pen and the actual numbers. For the reasoning behind each step, read Islamic inheritance law…
4 min read
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Individual shares
Do grandchildren inherit in Islam?
This is the hardest question in Faraid to answer kindly, because the classical rule often gives nothing to the children of a son who died young — and those are…
4 min read
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Work out your own case
Enter the surviving heirs and see each share, with the reason for it.
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