parents and 3/15 to the husband, and into 27 parts in the second case, giving 16/27 to the daughters, and 8/27 to the parents and 3/27 to the wife. These are not the shares specified in the Holy Qur’ān, and this is due to neglect of the spirit of the ordinance which, while allowing the whole of the residue, after taking away the shares of the parents and the husband or wife, to the children if they are all sons or sons and daughters mixed, allows them only two-thirds of the residue if they are only daughters, the rest going to the nearest male relative according to Ḥadīth. The jurists’ convention goes under the name of ‘aul. The introduction of the ‘aul is, however, due only to an infringement of the real essence of the ordinance relating to the two-thirds share of the daughters.

Similarly, the jurists treat a grandson, when the son is dead, as belonging to the second group of inheritors, whereas he really belongs to the same category as the son, because he takes the dead son’s share. Suppose a man has three sons, one of whom is dead at the time of the death of his father, but has left children. To deprive these children is to go against all rules of equity, but the jurists are of opinion that the grandsons are excluded by the living sons and are not entitled to their father’s share. In fact, if the rule were generally adopted that when a person entitled to a share in an inheritance is dead, his children shall take his place, many of the complications which are the result of juristic reasoning, would disappear. The third point on which, in my opinion, the jurists have gone against the spirit of the Holy Qur’ān, is the distinction between uterine and consanguine and full brothers which is the result of a misconception about the word kalālah and which has been fully explained above.

Ḥanafī view of inheritance law

In the Ḥanafī law of inheritance, the heirs are divided into two groups.2 The first group goes under the name aṣhāb al-farā’idz or dhawi-1-furūdz, i.e., those whose shares are specified.3 These sharers are twelve in number; four males, the father, the grandfather, the uterine brothers and the husband; the eight females, wife, daughter, son’s daughter, mother, grandmother, full sister, consanguine sister, uterine sister. The father’s share is one-sixth when the deceased