Islamic Inheritance Law Explained
How to distribute inheritance: who gets what, in what order, and how the shares are worked out. With a worked example and the Hanafi view throughout.
Last updated: 13 November 2026
Inheritance in one paragraph
Islamic inheritance, called faraid or mirath, is a fixed system of shares set by the Quran. When a Muslim dies, the estate is not divided by the family as they please, and it is not decided by a will. After funeral expenses, debts and a limited bequest are settled, the rest is divided among the heirs in the shares Allah set. The shares are an obligation, not a suggestion, and they apply whether the family agrees with them or not.
Two more verses complete the picture: Quran 4:12 sets the shares of husbands and wives, and Quran 4:176 covers the case where the deceased leaves neither parent nor child, known as kalalah. Verse renderings on this page follow the Sahih International translation.
The order of distribution
Nothing is divided until four things are settled, in this order:
- Funeral expenses. The cost of washing, shrouding and burying the deceased, paid from the estate.
- Debts. Every debt the deceased owed, including unpaid zakat, loans and money owed to others. Debts come before any heir gets anything.
- The bequest (wasiyyah). A will the deceased left, limited to one third of what is left after debts. A bequest cannot go to an heir unless the other heirs agree to it.
- The fixed shares. What is left is divided among the heirs in the shares below.
The order matters. If you divide the shares first and then discover a debt, the whole division was wrong. Settle debts and the bequest first, then divide what is left.
Who gets what: the fixed shares
There are two kinds of heir. Fixed-share heirs (called ashab al-furud) get a set fraction: one half, one fourth, one eighth, two thirds, one third, one sixth. Residuaries (asaba) take what is left after the fixed shares, and a son takes twice the share of a daughter. This table covers the heirs you will meet most often.
| Heir | Share | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Husband | 1/2, or 1/4 | One half if his wife leaves no children; one fourth if she leaves children. |
| Wife | 1/4, or 1/8 | One fourth if her husband leaves no children; one eighth if he leaves children. If there is more than one wife, they share the fourth or the eighth between them. |
| Father | 1/6, plus the remainder | One sixth if the deceased leaves children. If there is no son, he also takes what is left after the fixed shares. If there are no children at all, he takes the remainder. |
| Mother | 1/3, or 1/6 | One third if there are no children and no brothers or sisters. One sixth if there are children, or two or more brothers or sisters. |
| Son | Residuary | No fixed share. He takes what is left after the fixed shares, and takes twice the share of a daughter. |
| Daughter | 1/2, or 2/3, or half a son's share | One half if she is the only daughter and there is no son. Two thirds shared if there are two or more daughters and no son. With a son, she takes half his share. |
| Full brother and sister | 1/2, or 2/3, or 2:1 | When there is no child, no father and no grandfather: a full sister takes one half if alone, two thirds shared if two or more; with a full brother, they share in the ratio 2:1. |
| Maternal brother or sister | 1/6 each, up to 1/3 | One sixth each, shared up to one third between them, in the kalalah case (Quran 4:12). |
| Grandmother | 1/6 | If the mother is not alive. |
| Grandfather | Like the father | One sixth if there are children, and the remainder if there is no son. He also excludes full brothers in the Hanafi view. |
Some heirs are excluded by closer relatives. A son excludes grandchildren through him, a father excludes a grandfather, and a mother excludes a grandmother. Our inheritance calculator applies these rules for you.
Worked example
A man dies leaving an estate of Rs 1,200,000 after funeral expenses, debts and bequest are settled. His heirs are his wife, his mother, his father, one son and one daughter.
| Heir | Share | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Wife | 1/8 (children survive) | Rs 150,000 |
| Mother | 1/6 (children survive) | Rs 200,000 |
| Father | 1/6 (children survive) | Rs 200,000 |
| Remainder for son and daughter | 13/24 of the estate | Rs 650,000 |
| Son | Two thirds of the remainder | Rs 433,333 |
| Daughter | One third of the remainder | Rs 216,667 |
| Total | Rs 1,200,000 |
Check the fractions: the fixed shares add to 1/8 + 1/6 + 1/6 = 11/24, so the remainder is 13/24. The son takes two thirds of that (13/36 of the estate) and the daughter one third (13/72). The shares add up to the full estate, and the son gets exactly twice the daughter.
When the shares do not add up: awl and radd
Sometimes the fixed shares add to more than the estate, or to less. Two rules handle that.
Awl (increase of the base). When the shares add to more than one, each share is reduced in the same proportion. Example: a woman dies leaving a husband (1/2) and two full sisters (2/3). The shares add to 1/2 + 2/3 = 7/6, which is more than the estate. With awl, the base becomes 7: the husband gets 3/7 and the sisters share 4/7 between them.
Radd (return of the remainder). When the shares add to less than one and there is no residuary heir, the remainder returns to the fixed-share heirs in proportion to their shares. Example: a woman dies leaving only her mother (1/6) and her daughter (1/2). The shares add to 2/3, so one third is left. With radd, the mother ends with 1/4 and the daughter with 3/4.
The schools differ on one point here: in the Hanafi view, the remainder is not returned to the husband or the wife; in the Shafi'i, Maliki and Hanbali view, it is. Our calculator shows both views so you can see the difference.
Hanafi vs Jumhur: where they differ
- Radd to the spouse. Hanafi: the remainder is not returned to a husband or wife. Jumhur (Shafi'i, Maliki, Hanbali): it is returned to the spouse like any other fixed-share heir.
- Grandfather and full brothers. Hanafi: the grandfather excludes full brothers, just as a father does. Shafi'i and others: the grandfather shares the estate with the brothers.
- Everything else in the table above is agreed by all four schools. Where the schools agree, there is one answer; where they differ, the calculator shows both.
Gifts in life are not inheritance
This is the mistake people make most often. What a father gives his children while he is alive is a gift (hiba), not inheritance (mirath). The fixed shares apply only after death. And gifts among children must be equal: the Prophet (peace be upon him) told Nu'man ibn Bashir, who had given a gift to one son, to treat his children equally (Bukhari 2587, Muslim 1623).
So a father who wants to help his children in life should give equally. After his death, the Quranic shares take over, and those shares are not equal: a son takes twice a daughter. The two rules belong to two different times, and mixing them up is how families end up in court.
Common mistakes
- Giving the eldest son everything, or giving sons and leaving daughters out. The shares are fixed, and daughters are heirs.
- Writing a will that changes the shares. A bequest is limited to one third and cannot go to an heir without the other heirs agreeing.
- Dividing the estate before paying debts. Debts come first, and a division made before them is wrong.
- Leaving distribution for years. The estate should be divided promptly after the debts and bequest are settled.
- Treating a lifetime gift as inheritance, or the other way round. Gifts in life must be equal; shares after death follow the Quran.
- Forgetting the mother and the wife. Both are fixed-share heirs, and both are often overlooked in practice.
Work out the exact shares for your family
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