Скачать или смотреть Inheritance Under Muslim Law

Following class of persons are the heirs who are entitled to the estate of a deceased Muslim :
A. The Principal Classes
i. Sharers or Quaranic heirs
ii. Residuaries or Agnatic heirs
iii. Distant Kindred or Uterine heirs
B. Subsidiary Classes
i. Successor by Contract
ii. Acknowledge Kinsman
iii. Universal Legatee, and
iv. The State
Order of Succession : When a Muslim dies, after payment of his funeral expenses, debt and legacies, the first step taken after these statutory payments is allot the share to respective heirs. The Quranic heirs get their allotted and predetermined shares. If after distribution to the Ist class of heirs the estate is exhausted the rest of classes would get nothing, but if something remains then the residuaries would come into picture and the second step would be taken to allot their shares. The prime rule of succession is that the nearer relations exclude the remote. Therefore, in the Principal three classes, the distribution of estate would stop where it is exhausted and the rest of the classes would be excluded in order of number in which they are classified.
Position of husband and wife is peculiar. When there are no residuaries, the Quranic heirs would get the share by the rule of ‘Return’, except the husband or wife. In such a situation, the residue would not go to the distant kindred. In case the only heir is husband or wife, the residue shall also devolve on the husband or wife, after any of them had taken his or her allotted share. But court has held that when the only sharer be husband or wife, and there be no relation belonging to the class of residuares, the husband or wife will take his or her full share and the remainder of the estate will be divided among distant kindred.
Class I : The Principal Classes
Sharers or Quaranic Heirs (Heirs affiliated by marriage or affinity and blood or consanguinity) :
i. Heirs affiliated by marriage or affinity (Zowjeeat)
a. Husband,
b. Wife
ii. Heirs affiliated by blood or consanguinity (nasab)
a. Male ascendants
i. Father,
ii. True grandfather, how high soever
b. Female ascendants
i. Mother,
ii. True grandmother, how high soever
c. Female Agnatic descendants
i. Daughter
ii. Sons’ daughter, (grandfather) how low soever
d. Female Agnatic collaterals
i. Full sister
ii. Consanguine sister
e. Cognatic Collaterals
i. Uterine brother, and
ii. Uterine sister
Only twelve heirs are entitled to succeed to specific shares from the above rules. The shares of each of them have been fixed in the Quran. The twelve sharers are :
1. Husband,
2. Wife,
3. Father,
4. True grandfather how high soever
5. Mother
6. True grandmother
7. Daughter
8. Sons’s daughter, how low so ever
9. Full sister
10. Consanguine sister
11. Uterine brother, and
12. Uterine sister
Among all the heirs, the husband or the wife is related to marriage or affinity and all the other ten heirs are related by blood or consanguinity. Heirs by blood consists ascendants, descendants and collaterals. Out of twelve heirs only four heirs are males and the remaining eight are females.