Sunan Ibn Majah: Chapters on Shares of Inheritance

“O Abu Hurairah. Learn about the inheritance and teach it, for it is half of knowledge, but it will be forgotten. This is the first thing that will be taken away from my nation.’”

“The wife of Sa’d bin Rabi’ came with the two daughters of Sa’d to the Prophet (ﷺ) and said: ‘O Messenger of Allah, these are the two daughters of Sa’d. He was killed with you on the day of Uhud, and their paternal uncle has taken all that their father left behind, and a woman is only married for her wealth.’ The Prophet (ﷺ) remained silent until the Verse of inheritance was revealed to him. Then the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) called the brother of Sa’d bin Rabi’ and said: ‘Give the two daughters of Sa’d two thirds of his wealth, and give his wife on eighth, and take what is left.’”

“A man came to Abu Musa Al-Ash’ari and Salman bin Rabi’ah Al-Bahili and asked them about (the shares of) a daughter, a son’s daughter, a sister through one’s father and mother. They said: ‘The daughter gets one half, and what is left goes to the sister. Go to Ibn Mas’ud, for he will concur with what we say.’ So the man went to Ibn Mas’ud, and told him what they had said. ‘Abdullah said: ‘I will go astray and will not be guided (if I say that I agree); but I will judge as the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) judged. The daughter gets one half, and the son’s daughter gets one- sixth. That makes two thirds. And what is left goes to the sister.’”

“I heard the Prophet (ﷺ) when a case was brought to him which involved the share of a grandfather. He gave him one third, or one sixth.”

“The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) ruled concerning a grandfather who was among us, that he should receive one sixth.”

“A grandmother came to Abu Bakr Siddiq and asked him for her inheritance. Abu Bakr said to her: ‘You have nothing according to the Book of Allah, and I don’t know of anything for you according to the Book of Allah, and I don’t know of anything for you according to the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ). Go back until I ask the people.’ So he asked the people and Al-Mughirah bin Shu’bah said: ‘I was present with the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) and he gave her (the grandmother) one sixth.’ Abu Bakr said: ‘Is there anyone else with you (who will corroborate what you say)?’ Muhammad bin Maslamah Al-Ansari stood up and said something like what Mughirah bin Shu’bah had said. So Abu Bakr applied it in her case.”

It was narrated from Ibn ‘Abbas that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) gave a grandmother one sixth of the inheritance.

“By Allah, I am not leaving behind any problem more difficult than the one who leaves behind an heir. I asked the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), and he never spoke so harshly to me about anything as he spoke to me about this. He jabbed his finger into my side or my chest and said: ‘O ‘Umar, sufficient for you is the Verse that was revealed in summer, at the end of Surat An-Nisa’.”

“There are three things, if the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) had clarified them, that would have been dearer to me than the world and everything in it: a person who leaves behind no heir, usury, and the caliphate.”

“I fell sick and the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) came to visit me, he and Abu Bakr with him, and they came walking. I had lost consciousness, so the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) performed ablution and poured some of the water of his ablution over me. I said: ‘O Messenger of Allah, what should I do? How should I decide about my wealth?’ Until the Verse of inheritance was revealed at the end of An-Nisa’: “If the man or woman whose inheritance is in question has left neither ascendants or descendents.” [4:12] And: “They ask you for a legal verdict. Say: ‘Allah directs (thus) about those who leave neither descendants nor ascendants as heirs.’” [4:176]

“The Muslim does not inherit from a disbeliever and the disbeliever does not inherit from a Muslim.”

“O Messenger of Allah, will you stay in your house in Makkah?” He said: “Has ‘Aqeel left us any houses?” 'Aqeel had inherited Abu Talib along with Talib. Neither Ja'far nor 'Ali inherited anything because they had been Muslims, and 'Aqeel and Talib had been disbelievers. So on account of that, Omar would say the believer does not inherit from the disbeliever. And Usamah said: the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said "The Muslim does not inherit from the disbeliever nor the disbeliever from the Muslim."

“People of two different religions do not inherit from one another.”

“Rabab bin Hudhaifah (bin Sa’eed) bin Sahm married Umm Wa’il bint Ma’mar Al-Jumahiyyah, and she bore him three sons. Their mother died and her sons inherited her houses and the Wala’ of her freed slaves. ‘Amr bin ‘As took them out to Sham, and they died of the plague of ‘Amwas. ‘Amr inherited from them, and he was their ‘Asabah.* When ‘Amr came back, Banu Ma’mar came to him and they referred their dispute with him concerning the Wala’ of their sister to ‘Umar. ‘Umar said: ‘I will judge between you according to what I heard from the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ). I heard him say: “What the son or father acquires goes to his. ‘Asabah, no matter who they are.’” So he ruled in our favour and wrote a document to that effect, in which was the testimony of ‘Abdur-Rahman bin ‘Awf, Zaid bin Thabit and someone else. Then when ‘Abdul-Malik bin Marwan was appointed caliph, a freed slave of hers (Umm Wa’il’s) died, leaving behind two thousand Dinar. I heard that that ruling had been changed, so they referred the dispute to Hisham bin Isma’il. We referred the matter to ‘Abdul-Malik, and brought him the document of ‘Umar. He said: ‘I thought that this was a ruling concerning which there was no doubt. I never thought that the people of Al-Madinah would reach such a state that they would doubt this ruling. So he ruled in our favour, and it remained like that afterwards.”

“Give his legacy to a man from his village.”

“My freed slave died, leaving behind a daughter. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) divided his wealth between myself and his daughter, giving me half and her half.”

“The killer does not inherit.”

“A woman inherits from the blood money and wealth of her husband, and he inherits from her blood money and wealth, so long as one of them did not kill the other. If one of them killed the other deliberately, then he or she inherits nothing from the blood money or wealth. If one of them killed the other by mistake, he or she inherits from the other’s wealth, but not from the blood money.”

“Allah and His Messenger are the guardians of the one who has no guardian, and the maternal uncle is the heir of one who has no other heir.”

“Whoever leaves behind wealth, it is for his heirs. Whoever leaves behind poor dependents and a debt, it is for us to take care of – or he said: ‘It is for Allah and His Messenger (to take care of) – I am the heir of the one who has no heir, I will pay the blood money on his behalf and inherit from him. And the maternal uncle is the heir of the one who has no heir, he pays blood money on his behalf and inherits from him.”

“The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) ruled that the sons from the same mother inherit from one another, but not sons from different mothers. A man inherits from his full brother from the same father and mother, but not his brothers from his father.”

“The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: ‘Distribute wealth among those who are entitled to shares of inheritance, according to the Book of Allah, then whatever is left over goes to the nearest male relative.’”

“A man died at the time of the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), and he left no heir except for a slave whom he had set free. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) gave the legacy to him.”

“A woman may get three types of inheritance: From her freed slave woman, a foundling whom she raised, and her child concerning whom she swore in Li’an that he was legitimate.”

“Then the Verse of Li’an was revealed, the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: ‘Any woman who attributed her child to people to whom he does not belong, then she has no relation to (the religion of) Allah, and she will never enter Paradise, and any man who rejects his child, while he recognizes him, Allah will screen Himself from him on the Day of Resurrection and disgrace him before the witnesses.’”

“It is disbelief for a man to attribute himself to someone other than his father knowingly, or to deny his connection to his father, even subtly.”*

“Whoever commits adultery with a slave woman or a free woman, his child is illegitimate, and he cannot inherit from him or be inherited from (i.e., this child cannot inherit from him).”

“Every child who is attributed to his father after his father to whom he is attributed has died, and his heirs attributed him to him after he died, he ruled that* whoever was born to a slave woman whom he owned at the time when he had intercourse with her, he should be named after the one to whom he was attributed, but he has no share of any inheritance that was distributed previously. Whatever inheritance he finds has not yet been distributed, he will have a share of it. But he cannot be named after his father if the man whom he claimed as his father did not acknowledge him. If he as born to a slave woman whom his father did not own, or to a free woman with whom he committed adultery, then he cannot be named after him and he does not inherit from him, even if the one whom he claims as his father acknowledges him. So he is an illegitimate child who belongs to his mother’s people, whoever they are, whether she is a free woman or a slave.”

“The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) forbade selling the right of inheritance or giving it away.”

The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) forbade selling the right of inheritance, or giving it as a gift.

“Whatever division of inheritance was made during the Ignorance period, stands according to the division of the Ignorance period, and whatever division of inheritance was made during Islam, it stands according to the division of Islam.”

“If the child has cired, the (funeral) prayer should be offered for him (if he dies) and he is an heir.”

“No child inherits until he raises his voice or cries.”

“I heard Tamim Ad- Dari say: ‘I said: O Messenger of Allah, what is the Sunnah concerning a man from among the People of the Book who becomes a Muslim at the hands of another man?’ He said: ‘He is the closest of all people to him in life and in death.’”