A New Look at Inheritance Shares of Children in the Holy Quran

In Sura al-Nisa' verse no.11 about the division of heritage among children, first it says “for the male shall be the like of the share of two females”, then the share of more than two daughters have been set as two-third and the share of one daughter has been set as half. Later the share of family members other than children namely the father and the mother have been set as one-sixth, the husband as a quarter and the wife as one-eighth. This article tries to prove that Allah (swt) has not determined the share of all heirs as a fixed amount out of the main properties rather He has determined the share of heirs other than children as a fixed amount and daughter's share as a floating amount out of the remnant of the properties. He has determined a fixed amount for the daughter or daughters if the children are comprised of sons and daughters not if the children are all daughters; because if we believe, like the famous ruling by jurists, that a specific share has been set for children if they are all daughters then the sum of shares will not equal one. In other words, the fraction will be more than one. Therefore it seems that according to the context of the verse, “for the male shall be the like of the share of two females” means that if children include boys and two daughters, boys will have a share of heritage equal to the share of two daughters i.e. two daughters will receive half of the heritage and the other half belongs to boys whether one boy or more. The next phrase in the verse, the share of children, with sons and more than two daughters have been specified that the share of daughters is two-thirds and the remaining one-third is left for sons. In the last part, the share of children including sons and one daughter has been specified that the share of the daughter is half and the other half goes to sons. If children are all sons or all daughters, they have no specific share but their share will be specified after the share of those heirs other than children have been specified and confined to a case where the deceased has children.