Died leaving a wife, 4 daughters, 5 grandsons and a full-brother's son Fatwa No: 237067
- Fatwa Date:4-2-2014
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 5 (A nephew from a full brother) Number 1 -Does the deceased have female relatives who are entitled to inherit : (A daughter) Number 4 (A wife) Number - The will which the deceased left behind and that is related to his inheritance is : All his property is given to his daughters
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.
The will of the deceased for his daughters is invalid since his daughters are already among the heirs. It cannot be fulfilled unless other heirs permit it. If the other heirs did not willingly agree to fulfill the will, the daughters should be given only their fixed shares in the inheritance. Please, refer to Fataawa 116588 and 119243 regarding the will for the heirs.
The dear questioner forgot to mention how many wives the deceased had; therefore, we shall assume that he had one wife, as is often the case, and distribute the inheritance accordingly. Thus, the deceased left behind a wife, four daughters, five grandsons, and a full-brother's son and these are the only heirs. Therefore, the wife shall have one-eighth of the estate as a fixed share because the deceased has offspring entitled to inheritance. Allaah, The Exalted, says (what means): {…But if you leave a child, then for them is an eighth of what you leave, after any bequest you [may have] made or debt…}[Quran 4:12]
The daughters shall be given two-thirds as a fixed share; Allaah, The Exalted, says (what means): {… But if there are [only] daughters, two or more, for them is two thirds of one's estate…}[Quran 4:11]
The rest of the estate is to be distributed among the grandsons equally by means of Ta‘seeb (i.e. by virtue of having a paternal relation with the deceased and not having a specific allotted share). The Prophet said: "Give the prescribed shares of the inheritance to those who are entitled to them and whatever remains should be given to the closest male relative of the deceased." [Al-Bukhari and Muslim] In this case, the full-brother's son shall not receive any share in the inheritance because the deceased had male sons entitled to inheritance; he is excluded by the existence of the grandsons. Ibn Al-Munthir wrote, "Muslim jurists unanimously agreed that full-brothers and full-sisters and half-brothers and half-sisters from the father's side do not inherit if the deceased has a son or a grandson or even a great grandson. They do not even inherit if the father is alive."
Therefore, the inheritance shall be divided into twenty-four shares; the wife gets one-eighth, i.e. three shares, the four daughters get two-thirds, i.e. sixteen shares, each one gets four shares. The rest of the shares are five shares; each of the five grandsons gets one share.
Allaah Knows best.