Faraidh — the Islamic Law of Inheritance
Fara'id ("obligatory shares") is the branch of fiqh that governs how a Muslim's estate is divided after death — and one of the very few areas of Islamic law where the Quran itself spells out exact numbers, rather than leaving the detail to later scholarly derivation.
Also spelledFaraid, Fara'id, Fara'idh
Primary sourceQuran 4:11–14
Two heir categoriesFixed-share heirs + residuary heirs
Calculator on this pageNone — by design (see below)
What faraidh is
Faraidh (also written fara'id or faraid, from faridah, "an obligatory portion") is the Islamic law of inheritance — the set of rules that determine who inherits from a deceased Muslim, and exactly how much each heir receives. It is widely regarded by scholars as one of the most detailed and precisely specified areas of fiqh, for a simple reason: in most areas of Islamic law, the Quran lays down broad principles and leaves scholars to derive detailed rulings through reasoning (ijtihad) applied to the Quran and Sunnah. Inheritance is different. Here, the Quran itself states the actual shares — halves, thirds, quarters, sixths, eighths — in plain arithmetic terms, for specific classes of relatives.
The Quran states the shares itself
The core of faraidh comes from two consecutive ayat near the start of Surah An-Nisa, which open by fixing the shares of children and parents:
Qur'an — the shares of children
يُوصِيكُمُ ٱللَّهُ فِىٓ أَوْلَـٰدِكُمْ ۖ
"Allah instructs you concerning your children: for the male, what is equal to the share of two females. But if there are [only] daughters, two or more, for them is two thirds of one's estate. And if there is only one, for her is half. And for one's parents, to each one of them is a sixth of his estate if he left children. But if he had no children and the parents [alone] inherit from him, then for his mother is one third. And if he had brothers [or sisters], for his mother is a sixth, after any bequest he [may have] made or debt. Your parents or your children — you know not which of them are nearest to you in benefit. [These shares are] an obligation [imposed] by Allah. Indeed, Allah is ever Knowing and Wise."
Quran 4:11
The very next ayah continues in the same explicit style, fixing the shares of a surviving spouse — a half or a quarter for a husband, a quarter or an eighth for a wife, depending on whether the deceased left children — and the shares of siblings inheriting from someone who left no parent or child (a case known as kalalah):
1/2 a single daughter, no son
2/3 two or more daughters, no son
1/2 husband, wife left no child
1/4 husband, wife left a child
1/4 wife, husband left no child
1/8 wife, husband left a child
1/6 each parent, deceased left a child
1/3 mother, no child and no siblings
These fractions come directly from Quran 4:11 and 4:12 — they are shown here only to illustrate how specific the Quran's own wording is, not as a way to work out any real case. Which fraction actually applies, to whom, and in what combination, depends on exactly who else survived the deceased — covered below.
"These are the limits of Allah"
Immediately after setting out the shares, the Quran frames them in unusually forceful language for a legal matter — as fixed boundaries set by Allah Himself, with an explicit warning attached to transgressing them:
Qur'an — the limits of Allah
تِلْكَ حُدُودُ ٱللَّهِ ۚ
"These are the limits [set by] Allah, and whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger will be admitted by Him to gardens [in Paradise] under which rivers flow, abiding eternally therein; and that is the great attainment."
Quran 4:13
Qur'an — the warning that follows
"And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger and transgresses His limits — He will put him into the Fire to abide eternally therein, and he will have a humiliating punishment."
Quran 4:14
Very few rulings in the Quran are followed by a promise of Paradise for observing them and a warning of the Fire for transgressing them, in the very next two ayat. Scholars point to exactly this — the explicit numbers in 4:11–12, immediately sealed by the "limits of Allah" language in 4:13–14 — as the reason inheritance is treated as uniquely non-negotiable within fiqh: a matter for careful, precise calculation according to the text, not personal preference, family pressure, or a testator's wish to freely reassign shares by will.
The basic structure, at a high level
Without attempting to calculate any specific case, the overall architecture of faraidh has two layers of heirs:
Ashab al-Furud
Fixed-share heirs — take a set fraction named in the Quran
- Surviving spouse (husband or wife)
- Parents (father and mother)
- Children — daughters take a fixed share when there is no son
- Certain siblings, in specific situations (e.g. kalalah)
- Grandparents, in the absence of parents
'Asabah
Residuary heirs — take whatever is left after fixed shares are paid
- Sons (and, with them, daughters — who then share by residue, not a fixed fraction)
- The father, in some configurations
- Brothers, then more distant male relatives through the male line
- Take nothing if the fixed shares exhaust the whole estate
Hadith — sahih
"Give the Fara'id (the shares of inheritance that are prescribed in the Quran) to those who are entitled to receive it. Then whatever remains should be given to the closest male relative of the deceased."
Sahih al-Bukhari 6732, narrated by Ibn 'Abbas
That hadith is the bridge between the two layers: pay the fixed shares the Quran names first, then hand anything left over to the nearest male relative in the paternal line. It sounds simple as a two-step rule. In practice it is not, because which fraction applies to which heir changes depending on exactly who else is alive. A few examples of how much the answer moves:
- A wife's share is 1/8 if her husband left children, but 1/4 if he did not.
- A mother's share is 1/6 if the deceased left children or two or more siblings, but 1/3 otherwise.
- A single daughter's share is 1/2 if she has no brother, but if she has a brother she stops being a fixed-share heir at all and instead shares the residue with him as 'asabah, at a ratio of one male share to two female shares.
- Siblings can be entitled to a share, a reduced share, or nothing at all, depending on whether the deceased left a father, a son, or a daughter.
Multiply this by every possible combination of spouse, parents, children, and siblings who might survive a given person, and the number of distinct scenarios becomes very large very quickly — some configurations also require a corrective step (called 'awl or radd) when the named fractions add up to more or less than the whole estate. This is genuinely specialist arithmetic, not a simple lookup table, which is exactly why deen2u does not offer an inheritance calculator.
Why there's no faraidh calculator on deen2u. This page explains the concept of faraidh and its basis in the Quran — it does not, and is not meant to, work out any individual's actual inheritance shares. Getting a real distribution right requires knowing every surviving relative precisely, applying the correct fixed shares and residue rules for that exact combination, and handling edge cases like 'awl and radd correctly. Given how much a real family's outcome depends on these details, and the real, financial consequences of getting it wrong, deen2u deliberately does not provide a do-it-yourself calculator here. For an actual estate, please consult a qualified Islamic scholar or a specialized fara'id calculation service who can review the specific family situation directly.