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Fatwa CenterAn heir is entitled to due share even if he dies before division of estate
Question
Kindly advise on the following situation: 1. My grandfather died in 1979, leaving the following heirs: 1 wife, 2 sons, and 5 daughters. 2. The above heirs did not distribute the estate according to sharee'ah (as I was not born at the time, I am not sure why they did not distribute it--it may have been by agreement that they will all not yet take their share but continue to grow the business or it may have been some other reason). In fact, the estate was not distributed at all. 3. My mother, who was alive at the time of my grandfather's death (her father), died in 1995. 4. My mother's brothers and sisters--the other children of my grandfather--say that myself and my siblings now have no right to inherit our mother's portion because she died. Please note that my mother died after her father. 5. To summarize, do we have the right to our mother's portion of the assets? 6. Finally, if we do have a right to my mother's share, and some of the estate has been earning rental income since 1995, the year my mother died, do we have a right to request the rental income that would have been my mother's share should be paid back to us for all 19 years (from her death to now)?
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 
is His slave and messenger.
According to the agreement of Muslim scholars, the death of an heir before the division of the estate does not entail the loss of the right to their share of the estate of the deceased whom they were entitled to inherit from. Therefore, you do not lose the right of your mother in the inheritance of her father just because of her death. So, you deserve her share along with its revenue which comes from rent fees and so on.
However, you should know that a Fatwa is not enough regarding matters of dispute and disagreement especially in matters of inheritance; rather, such matters are to be solved through Islamic courts or by resorting to Islamic arbitration.
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