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Fatwa CenterDivision of inheritance among a mother, 3 daughters, and 2 sisters
Question
Assalaamu alaykum. Please calculate the inheritance according to the following information: - Does the deceased have female relatives who are entitled to inherit: (A mother [of the deceased]) (A daughter) Number 3 (A full sister) Number 2 - The Information about pregnant women from the relatives of the deceased are: (The wife of his full brother's son) - Information about the deceased’s debts: (Debts to people) - Additional information: The wife of the deceased is a christian.
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, sallallaahu ʻalayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
A Christian wife has no share in her deceased husband's estate because the non-Muslim does not inherit from the Muslim. The Kuwaiti Encyclopedia of Islamic Jurisprudence reads, “Difference in religion is one of the impediments of inheritance given the fact that inheritance is inherently based on mutual support (based on having the same faith). Hence, a non-Muslim is not entitled to inherit from a Muslim according to the scholarly consensus...”
No share is allocated for the unborn child either, because if it turns out to be a girl, then the daughter of the deceased's full brother is not among the eligible heirs in the first place. If it turns out to be a boy, then the son of the deceased's full brother is excluded from the inheritance by the existence of the deceased's full sister, who will inherit in this case by virtue of taʻseeb (i.e. by virtue of having a paternal relation with the deceased and not having an allotted share, so she gets what is left after the allotted shares have been distributed). In both cases the unborn child has no share in the inheritance.
As long as the deceased is liable for debts, then those must be repaid first before distributing the estate among the eligible heirs entitled to inherit because the settlement of all financial liabilities and debts is given priority over the right of the heirs to the estate; Allaah, The Exalted, says (what means): {...After any bequest he (may have) made or debt...} [Quran 4:11]
The Kuwaiti Encyclopedia of Islamic Jurisprudence reads, “It is incumbent on the heirs to deduct all debts to people from the estate before dividing it among them according to the scholarly consensus; Allaah, The Exalted, says (what means): {...after any bequest he (may have) made or debt...} [Quran 4:11] in order to clear his liability, or that his skin becomes cool as stated in the hadeeth.”
After the repayment of the debts, the remainder of the estate should be distributed among the rightful heirs as per the sharee'ah. If the deceased left behind no other eligible heirs except his mother, three daughters, and two full sisters, then the deceased's mother is entitled to one-sixth of the estate as a fixed share because the deceased has descendants as well as siblings entitled to inherit. Allaah, The Exalted, says (what means): {And if he had brothers (or sisters), for his mother is a sixth...} [Quran 4:11] The deceased's daughters get two-thirds of the estate as a fixed share; Allaah, The Exalted, says (what means): {...But if there are (only) daughters, two or more, for them is two thirds of one's estate...} [Quran 4:11]
The remainder is for the deceased's two full sisters by virtue of taʻseeb because the deceased's full sisters are treated in the same way as ʻasabah (i.e. paternal relative entitled to inherit what remains after other heirs get their fixed shares) in this case (i.e. in the presence of the deceased's daughter[s]). It is confirmed that the Prophet, sallallaahu ʻalayhi wa sallam, gave the (full) sister the remainder of the inheritance after the share of the daughter and the son's daughter. The hadeeth was narrated on the authority of Huzayl ibn Shurahbeel 
and reported by Al-Bukhari. It is for this reason that the scholars included the full sister (or the sister from the father's side in case there is no full sister) among the heirs who inherit by taʻseeb if the deceased's descendants are females. In this case, she takes whatever remains of the inheritance after its division as stated in Ar-Rahbiyyah (Poem on Islamic Laws of Inheritance).
Thus, the estate should be divided into thirty-six shares; the deceased's mother gets one-sixth (six shares); the three daughters get two-thirds (twenty-four shares), each eight shares; and each full sister gets three shares.
Allaah knows best.
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