Does Islamic inheritance apply in the UK?

Does Islamic inheritance apply in the UK?

The short answer is no, not on its own. If you die in England or Wales without a valid will, your estate is divided by the intestacy rules, and those rules know nothing about Faraid. Your shares are not applied by default — they are applied because you wrote a will that directs it.

Work out what your Islamic shares would be in the calculator, then read on for what has to happen for them to take effect. This is general information, not legal advice.

What happens if you do nothing

Under the intestacy rules in England and Wales, a surviving spouse takes the personal possessions, a fixed statutory legacy, and half of anything beyond that, with the children sharing the rest. Where there are no children, a spouse can take the whole estate.

Set that beside Faraid and two differences stand out immediately:

• A widow with children takes one eighth under Faraid. Intestacy gives her a great deal more.
• Parents receive nothing under intestacy while a spouse or child survives. Under Faraid each parent is entitled to a sixth.

So a Muslim who dies intestate in the UK does not get a slightly different division. They get a different system.

Scotland is different again, with legal rights for a spouse and children that a will cannot defeat, so none of the above should be assumed north of the border.

What makes the shares take effect

A valid will, and nothing else. English law does not care whether a will is "Islamic" — it cares whether it was properly made. In writing, signed by you, with your signature made or acknowledged before two witnesses who each sign in your presence.

The most common way a home-made Islamic will fails is the witnesses. A beneficiary, or a beneficiary's spouse, must not witness it. The will stays valid; their gift is void. Asking your son or your brother's wife to sign is the single easiest way to destroy the distribution you were trying to secure.

Two things a will cannot do here

It cannot prevent a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. A spouse, a former spouse who has not remarried, a child, someone treated as a child of the family, and someone you were maintaining can all ask a court for reasonable financial provision. A distribution that leaves a widow an eighth is a realistic candidate for such a claim, and a good drafter plans around it rather than hoping.

It does not touch property passing outside the estate. A house held as beneficial joint tenants passes automatically to the survivor. A pension death benefit usually follows a nomination form. Neither is affected by your will, and for many families that is where most of the money is. If you want them inside the Islamic distribution, the ownership or the nomination has to change — not the will.

What actually to do

1. Work out your current shares with the calculator, so you know the target.
2. List what would pass outside your estate — joint property, pensions, policies in trust.
3. Instruct a solicitor who has drafted Islamic wills before, and take the share calculation with you.
4. Review after a marriage, divorce, birth or death. Marriage revokes an English will unless made in contemplation of it.

The clause-by-clause detail is in Islamic wills in the UK, and what makes a will compliant in the first place is in what makes a will Sharia-compliant.

Common questions

Do British courts recognise Sharia?

A court giving effect to an Islamic will is not applying religious law. It is enforcing the instructions a person wrote down, exactly as it would for any other will. That is precisely why the document must satisfy ordinary English requirements.

I have assets in Pakistan and in the UK. One will or two?

Take advice. Assets in two countries often need wills in each, drafted so that neither accidentally revokes the other, and domicile affects which law governs what.

My family will divide it properly anyway — do I still need a will?

Without one, the executors are obliged to follow intestacy, not the family's intentions. Adult heirs can afterwards agree to redistribute what is theirs, but that depends on every one of them agreeing, being adult, and being willing. A will removes the need.

Calculate your shares · The US equivalent