His uncles refuse to distribute the grandfather's estate according to the Sharee’ah
20-5-2014 | IslamWeb
Question:
My father died and have Two paternal Uncle. Three paternal Aunts were also dead but have many children. My late grand father's land properties are still not divided to distribute his children i.e my father, uncle and aunts. But verbally the property is enjoying by my two uncles and us i.e we the children of my father. Late aunts children are not enjoying the lands. The problem is my two uncle enjoying comparatively more land than to us and they are not eager to give the full right of my aunts children. We need to sell one piece of land and we told our uncle to settle the issue according to shariah law. But they agree only to give them only a part other wise they will not settle the issue and that is why we are also deprive to acquire our right and not able to sell the land. It is to be noted that the children of my aunts are not fully convinced but if they are given partial right they will not disagree. We tried to make my uncles understand but failed on the ground that my uncles look after the aunts and my father in absence of my grand father. What can we do now whether we agree with my uncle to get our rights or not? if not agreed we may have to suffer a lot financially as we we cant sell the land.
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
It is not permissible for your two uncles to refrain from dividing the inheritance according to the Sharee’ah and thus deny the due rights of some people; and they have no right to oblige your cousins to renounce some of their rights and only take a portion of them.
In our view, in order to preserve the affection and keep ties of kinship, you should seek the help of some righteous people who could convince your uncles to accept the division of inheritance, or the heirs to agree on a given matter even if some of them renounced all or part of their rights.
If this is not possible, then the matter should be taken to the Sheree'ah court or to an authority that acts on its behalf.
Allaah Knows best.