Further reading

1. Radd (Decrease of base number)
This is the opposite of ‘awl. Radd is applicable when the heirs cannot exhaust the estate, thus the base number is decreased so as to proportionately increase the share of each heir. Though there are particular heirs who are not entitled to or do not benefit from radd.

2. Inheritance of cognates (Zawul-Arham)
When rightful heirs do not exhaust the estate and radd is not applied, cognates are invited to inherit from the rest. The most popular opinion is that cognate children step into the shoes of their agnate parents. For instance, daughter’s son who is a non-heir is given the share of a daughter. Cognates are classified into 4 and they also exclude one another.

3. Munasakha (2-in-1 inheritance)
Say a man passes on leaving behind his wife and children. Before his estate is distributed, the wife also dies. Note that although the wife is absent, she will still inherit from the husband because she was alive at the time he died. So, the husband’s estate will be distributed among the wife and children. Thereafter, wife’s estate will be shared among the children. But instead of doing this one after the other, the two distributions can be at once. It’s a bit complex especially if the second deceased have heirs who are not entitled to inherit from the first deceased.

4. Takharuj (Removal)
An agreement between one of the heirs and the rest, that if he is given a specific item FROM or OUTSIDE the estate, he will relinquish his whole share of the estate.

5. Inheritance of foetus
A foetus may either be a significant or non-significant heir. Significant in the sense that if delivered alive, some heirs will be excluded. In that case, it is preferred that the estate is not shared until it is born. However, if the estate has to be distributed, some rules will apply.

6. Inheritance of a missing person
A missing person can either be the one to be inherited or the heir. If he is to be inherited his estate shall not be allotted to his heirs until he attains 70 years of age (or 90 according to some Jurists). But before then, if some rules are satisfied, the estate can be shared. On the other hand, when an important heir that can distort the sharing formulae such as a son is missing, unless he is officially pronounced dead by a court of law (after Shari’ah-accepted due process has being followed), no one will inherit from the estate of the deceased. However, if it has to apportioned, some rule will come to play.

7. Inheritance of a controversial heir
A person who claims to be an heir of a deceased such that the claim is accepted by some heirs and rejected by others is said to be a controversial heir. The estate will be distributed in such a way that those that reject the controversial heir will get their full shares, while the share of those that accept him will be deducted and given to him.

8. Inheritance of a hermaphrodite
Hermaphrodites may either be partial or total. A partial hermaphrodite is considered to be a male or female depending on the organ that is functional or more functional. However, if both are functional in the same proportion, the individual is said to be a total hermaphrodite and is given half of both male and female portions of inheritance. Hence, its number of heads is 1½.

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We have received a number of emails from those who visited this website or downloaded and read INHERITANCE IN ISLAM. Almost all of them were questions on either aspects of inheritance not covered in the book or clarifications needed regarding specific cases. Hence, we thought it wise to reproduce the emails so that others may benefit as well. As always, we welcome suggestions, criticisms and of course, more questions!

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