The enemies of Islam have been trying to find fault with the Quran through the verses of inheritance for several centuries. They allege that the Noble Quran gives the female in general, and the wife in particular, half of what it gives to the male in general and the husband in particular, thereby usurping the right of the woman and dealing with her wrongfully. In reply to this malicious allegation we say:
First: The claim that in Islam, the share given from the inheritance to a woman is less than the man, is invalid. Indeed, there are four cases in connection with inheritance where the female's share is equal to or even greater than the male's:
1. The first case: When the woman's share is equal to the man's, as it is in the (half) brothers and sisters from the side of the mother, each of whom takes one-sixth, whether they are male or a female, and a group (of more than two) share the third equally, in which the female's share is like the male's.
2. The second case: When only the female is the heir, and a cause of preventing the male from inheritance. A typical example is a man/woman who dies and leaves a daughter, a full sister, and a half-brother from the side of the father. The daughter takes half the inheritance, and the full sister the other half, and nothing is given to the half-brother from the side of the father, since he is prevented by the existence of a full sister, although he is a male and she is a female.
3. The third case: When a female takes more than what the male takes, such as, when a person dies and leaves a full sister or a half-sister from the side of the father; a mother, a paternal uncle or a half-brother from the side of the mother. In this case, the full sister takes half of the inheritance, the mother the third and the remaining sixth is taken by the paternal uncle or the half-brother from the side of the mother. Although in this case both the sister and the mother are females, the share of each is greater than the male's, i.e., that of the paternal uncle or the half-brother from the side of the mother.
4. The fourth case: When a female takes half of what the male takes; this happens in many instances, such as when the inheritors include a daughter along with a son; a son's daughter along with a son's son; a full sister along with a full brother; a half-sister from the side of the father along with a half-brother from the side of the father; the wife's share compared with the husband's: each female in those cases takes half of what the male takes.
What is the wisdom that lies behind this? Does this preference go back to gender or is there another reason lying behind the preference? In reply to these questions, let us say: This preference does not go back to gender, since there are some cases in which the female’s share of inheritance is equal to the male's, and other cases in which her share is greater than the male's, and many cases in which she prevents him from inheritance, as we have previously seen. Whoever thinks that the shares of the male and female heirs in the Quran are established only on the basis of the difference of gender, i.e., masculinity and femininity, has indeed fallen short of understanding the Quran. That is because the Noble Quran has distributed the shares of heirs on the basis of three criteria:
The degree of kinship between the heirs -- be they males or females -- and the deceased person: The closer the relation between them, the greater the share of inheritance is, regardless of the gender of the heirs.
The position of the generation of heirs in the sequence of generations: The young generation, who are at the beginning of their life and getting ready to receive its burdens, have shares of inheritance that are greater than the older generations that are at the end of their life and getting ready to relieve themselves of its burdens, regardless of the gender of the heirs. The daughter of the deceased inherits more than his mother, and both are females; and the daughter inherits more than the deceased's father (i.e., her grandfather), even if she is still an infant and has not seen her father, and even if the father (i.e., her grandfather) is the source of the wealth of the son (her father), from which the daughter alone takes the half. In a similar context, the son inherits more than the father, given that both are males.
The financial obligation enjoined by the Islamic Sharee‘ah (legislation) upon the heir: That is the only criterion which raises the difference of gender between the male and the female. However, this difference inflicts neither oppression nor injustice upon the female. On the contrary, it may be that the opposite is true. If the heirs are equal in the degree of kinship, and the position in the sequence of generations, e.g. the deceased's children of males and females, the disparity of financial obligation often is responsible for the disparity of shares of inheritance.
This is why this disparity between the male and the female has not been made general to all the heirs (in all cases) in the Noble Quran, but just in some cases. The demands required of the son in life and under the system of Islam are more than those required of (the daughter who is) his sister. He is the one obliged, once he becomes mature, to spend on and maintain himself, pay the dowry to his wife, bear the marital expenditure, maintenance of children as regards education, medication, clothing, etc. but the female usually gets married and is not required to pay dowry or bear expenses, since her maintenance is obligatory for her husband.