Division of estate among a wife, 6 sons and 2 daughters
Fatwa No: 281659

Question

Assalaamu ‘Alaykum; Please calculate the inheritance according to the following information -Does the deceased have male relatives who are entitled to inherit: (A son) Number 6 -Does the deceased have female relatives who are entitled to inherit : (A daughter) Number 2 (A wife) Number 1 - Additional information : Aslam Alykum wa rahmatullah.my question is thete is one family and a wife asks the question that her husband had a shop which is under kafeel system in Kuwait. Where he use to pay rent to the kafeel and all income was his own. Now he dies and one son is running the shop and taking all income and spending in the shop too. In total he have 6 sons and 2 daughter and 1 wife. Now the son who was running the shop is selling it and he received kd 22000 after selling the shop. The questionis that will this 22000 be distributed among sons daughters and wife? They are saying that one son was running the shop so he should get more share but when he was running the shop he use to get income alone he never shares it with other brothers. Kindly advice

Answer

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, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His Slave and Messenger.

If the deceased did not leave any other heirs entitled to inherit except those mentioned in the question, then the wife gets one eighth of the estate because of the existence of children. 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 residue of the estate should be divided among the six sons and two daughters by virtue of Ta‘seeb (i.e. 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); the male gets double the share of the female. Allaah The Exalted says (what means): {Allaah instructs you concerning your children: for the male, what is equal to the share of two females.}[Quran 4:11]

Hence, the estate should be divided into sixteen shares; the wife gets one eighth (two shares), each son gets two shares, and each daughter gets one share.

As for the shop, the information provided in the question is not clear enough. What we can rightly say is that if all the heirs entitled to inherit are adults, they have the right to reach a mutual understanding and agree together on whatever they wish regarding the division of the money received in return for the shop. In case of dispute, they are advised to refer the case to (trustworthy) scholars in their community to whom they should directly explain the problem in detail so as to make all the circumstances clear enough; hopefully, those scholars can advise them and help them reach a suitable solution upon which they can all agree. Otherwise, they are advised to refer their dispute to a legitimate Islamic court, as it is the concerned authority responsible for the settlement of Muslims' disputes.

Allaah Knows best.

Related Fatwa