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 catches people out. Your own case takes a minute in the calculator.

The rule

From the Qur'an, 4:11:

• One third where the deceased left no child or grandchild, and fewer than two siblings.
• One sixth where there is any child or agnatic grandchild, or where two or more siblings survive.

"Child" here includes a daughter, and it includes a son's child. "Siblings" includes brothers, sisters, half-brothers and half-sisters of every kind.

The rule that catches people out

Siblings reduce the mother's share even when those siblings inherit nothing at all.

A man dies leaving his mother, his father and three sisters. The father excludes all three sisters — they receive not a rupee. But the mother still does not take her third:

Their presence alone is enough. Change it to a single sister and the mother goes back to a third, because the verse requires ikhwa — two or more.

This is the rule a hand calculation usually misses, because it feels wrong: how can someone who takes nothing change someone else's share? The answer is that the Qur'anic condition is about who survived, not about who inherits. There is more on this in who is excluded from Islamic inheritance.

The case of Umar

There is one configuration where the mother does not take a third of the estate even though nothing above applies. When the only survivors are a spouse, the mother and the father, she takes one third of what is left after the spouse — not a third of the whole.

These are the two cases of Umar — al-Gharrawayn. Add any fourth heir and the doctrine stops applying: with a spouse, mother, father and one son, the mother simply takes her sixth.

Worked example: a mother can take more than a third

A man dies leaving his mother and one daughter, and an estate of PKR 1,800,000.

The mother takes 1/6 and the daughter 1/2 — that is two thirds. The remaining third has no residuary heir to claim it, so under the Hanafi and Hanbali schools it is returned to them in proportion:

In the Maliki and Shafi'i schools that surplus goes to the public treasury instead, so the mother keeps her sixth and the daughter her half. The calculator shows both outcomes side by side; see awl and radd explained.

What a mother does not lose

Two things are often confused with her share and are not part of it. Her own property is hers and forms no part of her son's or daughter's estate. And anything she was genuinely given during their lifetime was a completed gift, not an advance on her inheritance.

Common questions

Does a mother inherit from a married son?

Yes. Marriage changes nothing. She takes her sixth alongside his widow and children.

What if both parents survive but there are no children?

The mother takes a third and the father takes the rest — twice her share. If a spouse also survives, see the case of Umar above, which changes the answer.

Does a grandmother take the mother's share if the mother has died?

No. A grandmother takes one sixth, shared between all grandmothers, and she is excluded entirely by the mother. A maternal grandmother is not excluded by the father; a paternal grandmother is.

Work out your own case, or read about the daughter's share and the wife's share.