the brothers and sisters take the whole property. The explanation generally adopted is that the brothers and sisters spoken of in 4:12 are uterine, while those spoken of in 4:176 are full or consanguine. But there are strong reasons for the view that the kalālah spoken of in the two places carries a different significance; for while kalālah is generally explained by lexicologists as meaning one who has neither children nor parents, according to the Caliph ‘Umar and Ibn ‘Abbās it also means simply one who has no children (IJ-C, IV, p. 177; VI, p. 25). Now in 4:11, the Holy Qur’ān speaks of an issueless person who has parents as well as brothers or sisters, but it does not there speak of the shares of these brothers or sisters. The conclusion is evident that the share of these brothers and sisters have been mentioned elsewhere. In fact what has been left unexplained in v. 11 has been fully explained in v. 12, and the case of kalālah there is the case of inheritance of a person who has no children but who has parents as well as brothers or sisters. According to v. 11, the mother gets one-third if a person has no issue, nor brothers or sisters, and she gets one-sixth if the issueless person has brothers or sisters. This reduction of her share is evidently due to the presence of brothers or sisters, and it is these brothers or sisters, that are spoken of in v. 12, so that the kalālah of that verse is the issueless person who has parents. Thus when a person dies without issue but leaves parents, brothers and sisters, according to 4:12, get a share which is one-sixth of the deceased’s property if there is only one brother or sister, and one-third of it if there are two or more brothers and sisters. And according to 4:176, a single sister (of a male deceased) or brother (of a female deceased) is entitled to one-half, two or more sisters to two-thirds, brothers and sisters to the whole property, the male having double the share of the female. This evidently is the case in which the deceased leaves neither issue nor parents.
The case of husband or wife is also dealt with in v. 12. The husband gets one-half if the deceased wife has no issue, and one-fourth if she leaves issue. The wife gets one-fourth if the deceased husband has no issue, and one-eighth if he leaves issue. The share of the husband or the wife, being fixed like that of the portions of the parents, must be taken out first, and the rest of the property will go to the children, or in case there are no children, to brothers and sisters.