Islamic Inheritance Explained: Shares, Asaba, Awl and Radd

When someone dies, Islamic law fixes who inherits and how much. Most Sunni Muslims in South Asia, Turkey and Central Asia follow the Hanafi school, and several countries apply it in their courts. This guide explains the idea in plain English, so you can understand the numbers before you speak to a scholar or a lawyer.

Be honest about the limits: this is the Sunni Hanafi method. Shia Muslims follow Jafari law, which groups heirs differently, and other Sunni schools differ on some cases. Local family law can add rules, with Pakistan as an example below. Treat the result of any calculator as a starting point.

What happens before shares are divided

Inheritance applies to what remains after these, in order:

1. Funeral and burial costs (reasonable ones).
2. Debts of the deceased, including unpaid dower (haq mehr) owed to a wife.
3. A will (wasiyyat), but only up to one-third of the remaining estate, and not in favour of someone who is already an heir unless the other heirs agree.

Only then is the rest split among the heirs.

Two kinds of heirs

1. Fixed-share heirs (Ashab al-Furud)

The Quran gives these heirs specific fractions. The main ones in the Hanafi system:

Heir	Share
Husband	1/2 if no children; 1/4 if there are children (or grandchildren through a son)
Wife (or wives, sharing equally)	1/4 if no children; 1/8 if there are children
Mother	1/6 if there are children or two or more siblings; otherwise 1/3
Father	1/6 if there are children; with a son, he takes just the 1/6. With only daughters, he takes 1/6 plus any remainder
One daughter (no son)	1/2
Two or more daughters (no son)	2/3 together
Full sister, in some cases	1/2 alone or 2/3 for two or more, when there are no children, father or paternal grandfather

Other fixed-share heirs include the son's daughter, the grandmother and the half-siblings from the mother's side, who each follow their own rules.

2. Residuary heirs (Asaba)

Once the fixed shares are paid, whatever is left goes to the asaba, the closest male relatives on the father's side. The order of priority is roughly: sons, then son's sons, then father, then paternal grandfather, then full brothers, then half-brothers (paternal), then their sons, then paternal uncles and their sons. A closer heir blocks a farther one.

When a son and a daughter inherit together, the daughter becomes a residuary alongside the son, and each son gets twice the share of each daughter. The logic traditionally given is that men carry financial duties of maintenance, while a woman's inheritance is her own to keep.

Worked example

Ahmed dies leaving 12,000,000 after funeral costs, debts and any will. He leaves a wife, a mother, and two sons and one daughter. No father survives.

• Wife: 1/8 (there are children) = 1,500,000.
• Mother: 1/6 (there are children) = 2,000,000.
• Remaining: 12,000,000 - 3,500,000 = 8,500,000, which goes to the children.
• Children's units: each son takes 2 parts and the daughter 1 part, so 5 parts in all. One part = 1,700,000. Each son gets 3,400,000 and the daughter 1,700,000.

Check: 1.5M + 2M + 3.4M + 3.4M + 1.7M = 12M.

Awl: when shares add up to more than the whole

Sometimes the fixed fractions add up to more than 1. Example: a woman dies leaving a husband and two full sisters. The husband gets 1/2 and the two sisters get 2/3 together. 1/2 + 2/3 = 3/6 + 4/6 = 7/6, which is more than the estate.

The solution is awl (proportional reduction). Everyone's share is scaled down so that the total is 1. Here the estate is split in 7 parts: the husband gets 3/7 and the sisters get 4/7 together. Nobody gets their full theoretical share, but everybody is reduced by the same proportion.

Radd: when there is something left over

The opposite case: the fixed shares add up to less than 1 and there are no residuary relatives. For example, a deceased woman leaves only a mother and a daughter. The daughter takes 1/2 and the mother 1/6, a total of 4/6. The remaining 2/6 has nowhere to go.

Under the Hanafi view the surplus is returned (radd) to the fixed-share heirs in proportion to their shares, usually excluding the husband or wife. Here the daughter and mother share in the ratio 3:1, so the daughter ends up with 3/4 and the mother with 1/4. If only a spouse is left with no other heir, scholars have special rules, and it is a case to take to a scholar.

Local law and practical points (Pakistan as an example)

Rules differ by country. These points describe Pakistan; check the law where you live.

• Grandchildren of a predeceased child: Under Section 4 of the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance 1961, if a son or daughter dies before the parent, that child's children are entitled to the share their parent would have received. This differs from classical Hanafi rules, where such grandchildren are often blocked by living uncles. This rule is the law of the land for those cases.
• Daughters and sisters: Women have a legal right to their share, and withholding it is a serious wrong. Pakistan has laws and tribunals to enforce women's property rights. If family members pressure a woman to "forgive" her share, she is entitled to take legal advice.
• Gifts in life (hiba): A person can gift property while alive, but it must be a real transfer of ownership and possession, not a trick to deprive heirs.
• Paperwork: Property is not divided by this arithmetic alone. You need the death certificate, a legal heirs' certificate or succession certificate, and then mutation (inteqal) of land in the revenue records. Rules vary by province. Land shares are often expressed in marla and kanal, which you can convert with the land area converter.

Common mistakes

• Dividing equally among all children. In Islamic law, daughters get half of a son's share, not an equal one.
• Treating the eldest son as the "head" who controls everyone's share. Every heir owns their share.
• Forgetting the wife's dower or the deceased's debts.
• Assuming a will can override the shares. It cannot, beyond the one-third limit.
• Forgetting that the estate may also include Zakat due, unpaid loans and other claims.

To test a family situation, try the Islamic inheritance calculator, then confirm the result with a scholar or a court before anyone signs anything.