INHERITANCE SUBROGATION THEORY IN THE ISLAMIC AND THE IRANIAN ‎LAW

Subrogation is an institution in western legal systems which has its roots in Roman Law. It has been conceived as a legal fiction, justifying a few of the rules in the law of obligations. One important embodiment of this theory is the transmission of obligations and the survival of the contract after the death of one of the parties to it. The Iranian Civil Code uses the term denoting this concept (qa’im-maqami) in articles 219 and 231 of it, without defining it. The Iranian legal doctrine, however, influenced by the French doctrine, has adopted subrogation as an Iranian law institution and suggested a few definitions. The same term has also been used in fiqh to signify the relation between the devisor and the heirs. A closer study of the texts, however, proves that the meaning of this term in fiqh is different from that in western legal systems. Even though many of the rules of western systems, justified by invoking subrogation, have counterparts in Islamic law, their bases in the latter is not subrogation. It is contended here, therefore, that the inheritance subrogation in the sense embraced by western legal systems, does not exist in the Islamic law.