Division of inheritance among a wife, a grandmother, and a son

24-1-2016 | IslamWeb

Question:

Assalaamu alaykum; Please calculate the inheritance according to the following information: - Does the deceased have male relatives who are entitled to inherit: (A son) Number 1 - Does the deceased have female relatives who are entitled to inherit: (A wife) Number 1 (A grandmother [from the mother])

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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 is His slave and Messenger.

If the deceased did not leave behind any other eligible heirs other than those mentioned in the question, then the estate should be divided as follows:

The deceased's wife gets one eighth of the estate as a fixed share because the deceased has descendants entitled to inherit, i.e. the son; Allaah, The Exalted, says about the share of the wife (what means): {...But if you leave a child, then for them is an eighth of what you leave...} [Quran 4:12]

The deceased's grandmother gets one-sixth of the estate as a fixed share because of the absence of the deceased's mother. The Prophet assigned one-sixth of the inheritance for the grandmother if the deceased did not leave a mother to inherit. [Abu Daawood and others - Ibn Khuzaymah graded it saheeh (sound)]

The deceased's son gets the remainder of the estate after deducting the shares of the wife and grandmother by virtue of taʻseeb (by virtue of having a paternal relation with the deceased and not having a prescribed share), for the Prophet said, "Give the prescribed shares of inheritance to those who are entitled to them and the remainder (of them) is for the nearest male blood relative." [Al-Bukhari and Muslim]

Hence, the estate should be divided into twenty-four shares; the wife gets one-eighth of them (three shares), the grandmother gets one-sixth (four shares), and the son gets the seventeen shares that are left.

Allaah knows best.