Inheritance of wife, one daughter and two grandsons Fatwa No: 145707
- Fatwa Date:26-12-2010
Assalaamu ‘Alaykum; Please calculate the inheritance according to the following information ۞-Does the deceased have male relatives who are entitled to inherit: (grandson (from the son)) Number 2 (A full brother) Number 1 ۞-Does the deceased have female relatives who are entitled to inherit : (A daughter) Number 1 (A wife) Number 1 (A full sister) Number 2 ۞- The will which the deceased left behind and that is related to his inheritance is : Leave my entire wealth to my daughter and wife
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.
If the deceased left all his wealth by will for his wife and his daughter, then this is a will for an heir and we have already issued many Fataawa clarifying that a will for an heir is not effective unless all other heirs approve of it provided they are sane adults as the Prophet said: “Allaah has given everyone who has right what is due to him, so there is no will for an heir.” [Ahmad, At-Tirmithi, Abu Daawood, and Ibn Maajah] Ad-Daaraqutni reported the Hadeeth with the following addition at its end: “…Unless all the heirs approve of it.” For more benefit, please refer to Fataawa 116588 and 121128.
Therefore, if all the heirs do not agree to approve of the will, then that will is not valid, and so, the inheritance should be divided according to the Sharee’ah.
Hence, if the deceased did not leave any other heirs except those mentioned in the question, then his wife gets one-eighth of the inheritance as her legal share due to the existence of the child of the deceased as Allaah Says (what means): {But if you leave a child, then for them [i.e. the wives] is an eighth of what you leave, after any bequest you [may have] made or debt.}[Quran 4:12]
His daughter gets a half as her legal share as Allaah Says about the existence of one daughter (what means): {And if there is only one, for her is half.}[Quran 4:11]
The remainder should be divided amongst the sons of the son [i.e. grandsons] by Ta’seeb (by virtue of having a paternal relation with the deceased and not having an allotted share, so they get what is left after the allotted shares have been distributed); dividing the share equally between them as the Prophet said: “Give the prescribed share of inheritance to those who are liable for it and the remainder [of it] is for the nearest male blood relative." [Al-Bukhari and Muslim]
However, the full-brother and the two full-sisters do not get anything from the inheritance because they are prevented from inheritance by the existence of the grandsons. Ibn Al-Munthir said: “The scholars agreed in a consensus that the full-brothers and full-sisters and the half brothers and sisters from the father’s side only, do not inherit if there is a son or a grandson or even a great grandson.”
Therefore, the inheritance should be divided into 16 shares, the wife gets one-eighth, which is 2 shares, the daughter gets half of the inheritance which is 8 shares, and each grandson gets 3 shares.
Allaah Knows best.