Division of estate among a wife, a father, a mother and two daughters
Fatwa No: 246430

Question

Assalaamu ‘Alaykum; Please calculate the inheritance according to the following information -Does the deceased have male relatives who are entitled to inherit: (A father) (A full brother) Number 1 (A full paternal uncle) Number 3 (A cousin from a full paternal uncle) Number 8 -Does the deceased have female relatives who are entitled to inherit : (A mother) (A daughter) Number 2 (A wife) Number 1 (A full sister) Number 2

Answer

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

If the deceased did not leave any other heirs except those mentioned in the question, then his mother gets one-sixth as her legal share and his father also gets one-sixth as his legal share due to the existence of children; as Allaah says (what means): {...and for one’s parents, to each one of them is a sixth of his estate if he left children...}[Quran 4:11] His wife gets one-eighth as her legal share due to the existence of children; Allaah says (what means): {...but if you leave a child, then for them [i.e. the wives] is an eighth of what you leave, after any bequest you [may have] made or debt...}[Quran 4:12]

His daughters get two-thirds as their legal share as it was confirmed that the Prophet gave the two daughters of Sa’d ibn Ar-Rabee’ two-thirds. [Ahmad, Abu Daawood and At-Tirmithi]

Ibn Al-Munthir said: “The scholars have unananimously agreed that the two daughters get two-thirds.”

The remaining relatives are not entitled to any part of the inheritance because they are excluded due to the presence of the father.

Based on that, there is what is called in Arabic ‘Awl, which means that the shares of inheritors exceed the sum of the total inheritance and by applying the laws of ‘Awl the inheritance here should be regulated and divided into 27 shares: the mother gets 4 shares, the father gets 4 shares, the wife gets 3 shares and the two daughters get 16 shares altogether, so each one of them gets 8 shares.

Allaah Knows best.

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