My Father’s Inheritance Has Been Taken Unjustly. What Can I Do?

Answered by Shaykh Farid Dingle

Question: Assalamu alaykum

I wanted to ask a question regarding inheritance of my father as something had occurred which has made it confusing when trying to split the inheritance.

After my father passed away, the government automatically gave everything my father owned to my step-mother. After a while my family wanted to include the rest of the family into the properties (house) name, but she was hesitant. Eventually we managed to convince her to put my sisters name in, but she (step-mother) took a large majority of the property for her and her son.

The issue we are now faced with is, she has taken more than her fair share of the inheritance (father’s estate), even when including her son’s share. She has re-married and moved showing no sign of giving back the excess she had taken before she left.

How are we supposed to split the remaining inheritance if a large sum of the total inheritance left behind was taken unjustly?

Answer: Wa alaykum assalam,

If I were in your shoes, I would take the following steps:

1) Create a clear picture

Have a mufti work out the correct proportions for each inheriting family member at the time of your father’s death (Allah have mercy upon him.) If you give a complete list of all relatives alive at the time of death, we can do this for you. You might have to check to see whether or not your father left a will. If he did, he might have requested that your step-mother receive funds/assets, which might end up with her receiving 33% more than her normal percentage of 12.5%.

Once this is done, have him stamp it, or get some fatwa committee to stamp it for official use.

2) Address the problem

Either go yourself or have a respected member of the community contact your step-mother and show her what the official stamped decree was, and explain to her that inheritance rules in Islam apply within and without a Muslim country, and that Allah will punish her if she wrongfully withholds other’s God given rights.

3) Suffer being wronged

If she doesn’t listen, then you can just divide the remaining divisions proportionately:

For example:

This is what I can imagine the percentages should have been:

Wife (step-mother): 12.5% (1/8)
2 sons (you and your brothers) 58.33% (Each son getting 2 x ((7/8)/6))
2 daughters (your sisters) 29.16% (Each son daughter 1 x ((7/8)/6))

Let us say that the total inheritance (properties and funds) was 300,000 GBP.

The step-mother should have received 12.5% (37,500 GBP). She actually received 55% (165,000 GBP). The money that she has wrongfully taken from the other inheritors is: 127,500 GBP. This is what you now subtract that which was supposed to go to his offspring (in this hypothetical scenario):

300,000 GBP – 37,500 GBP – 127,500 GBP = 135000 GBP (amount left to offspring after step-mother took her share and after being wrongfully taken).

Then each of the two sons would get 33.33% of the amount left (135000 GBP) and each daughter would get 16.67%. (Again assuming the hypothetical scenario above.)

The benefit of being wronged

Although we are obliged to protect ourselves and stop people doing wrong, it often happens that the matter is not in our hands and there is nothing to do but be patient with Allah’s decree and suffer being wronged. We should be positive and remember the words of the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace), ‘The believer is continually afflicted until he meets Allah completely sinless.’ (Tirmidhi) So being wronged is an expiation for sins and means to raise in rank before Allah.

We can also learn a lesson from this whole ordeal, and that is the need for wills to be written so as to prevent family members, sometimes unwillingly, wronging others.

I pray this helps. Please feel free to contact us again with more details if necessary.

Wassalam,
[Shaykh] Farid Dingle

Shaykh Farid Dingle grew up in a convert family in Herefordshire, UK. In 2007, he moved to Jordan to pursue traditional studies. Shaykh Farid continues to live in Amman, Jordan with his wife and kids. In addition to continuing his studies he teaches Arabic and several of the Islamic sciences.

Shaykh Farid began his journey in sacred knowledge with intensives in the UK and Jordan (2004) in Shafi’i fiqh and Arabic. After years of studying Arabic grammar, Shafi’i fiqh, hadith, legal methodology (usul al-fiqh) and tafsir, Sh. Farid began specializing in Arabic language and literature. Sh. Farid studied Pre-Islamic poetry, Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, and Andalusian literature. He holds a BA in Arabic Language and Literature and continues exploring the language of the Islamic tradition.

In addition to his interest in the Arabic language Shaykh Farid actively researches matters related to jurisprudence (fiqh) which he studied with Shaykh Hamza Karamali, Shaykh Ahmad Hasanat, and continues with Shaykh Amjad Rasheed.