Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, Verse 7

﴿لِّلرِّجَالِ نَصِيبٞ مِّمَّا تَرَكَ ٱلۡوَٰلِدَانِ وَٱلۡأَقۡرَبُونَ وَلِلنِّسَآءِ نَصِيبٞ مِّمَّا تَرَكَ ٱلۡوَٰلِدَانِ وَٱلۡأَقۡرَبُونَ مِمَّا قَلَّ مِنۡهُ أَوۡ كَثُرَۚ نَصِيبٗا مَّفۡرُوضٗا ٧﴾
“For men is a share of what the parents and close relatives leave, and for women is a share of what the parents and close relatives leave, be it little or much - an obligatory share.” (4:7)

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Simple Explanation

1. Summary

Men and women, adults and children, have a right to inherit from their parents and relatives according to Allah’s law. The right applies whether the estate is small or large. These are shares Allah has imposed, and no one may deprive an heir of what is rightfully theirs.

2. Historical Context

Before this reform, the ability to fight could determine who inherited. Qatādah describes women being given no inheritance,^[1] and other early explanations include young children among those excluded.^[2] A share went to the man who could thrust with the spear and fight with the sword.^[3]

Several accounts describe a bereaved woman and children whose estate was taken by male relatives. The household details appear in several forms: the woman’s name,^[4] the deceased’s name, the children and the relatives who took the property. One form names Aws ibn Suwayd and a single daughter;^[5] another names Aws ibn Thābit and three daughters;^[6] a third names Aws ibn Thābit with two daughters and a young son.^[7] The relatives’ names also appear in more than one form.^[8] A separate report from Jābir concerns Saʿd b. al-Rabīʿ’s two daughters; Abū Dāwūd corrects the narration that names their father as Thābit b. Qays.^[9] Riḍā identifies the account of Aws b. Thābit’s two daughters and young son as transmitted through al-Kalbī and Abū Ṣāliḥ, an isnād he calls the weakest route from Ibn ʿAbbās.^[10]

Across those accounts, the practice being corrected is clear. Physical strength and military service had been made grounds for excluding women and children. The verse begins the reform by establishing their right. It names men, gives women a complete declaration of their own entitlement, and includes the estate whether little or much. Family custom no longer decides whether a woman or child is allowed to inherit.

3. Word-by-Word Analysis

Arabic	Transliteration	Root	Type	Meaning
لِّلرِّجَالِ	li-l-rijāli	ر-ج-ل	Preposition + definite plural noun	for the men
نَصِيبٞ	naṣībun	ن-ص-ب	Indefinite singular noun	a share
مِّمَّا	mimmā	none	Preposition + relative word	from what
تَرَكَ	taraka	ت-ر-ك	Form I past verb	left behind
ٱلۡوَٰلِدَانِ	al-wālidāni	و-ل-د	Definite dual noun	the two parents
وَٱلۡأَقۡرَبُونَ	wa-l-aqrabūna	ق-ر-ب	Conjunction + definite plural elative	and the close or nearer relatives
وَلِلنِّسَآءِ	wa-li-l-nisāʾi	none	Conjunction + preposition + definite suppletive plural	and for the women
نَصِيبٞ	naṣībun	ن-ص-ب	Indefinite singular noun	a share
مِّمَّا	mimmā	none	Preposition + relative word	from what
تَرَكَ	taraka	ت-ر-ك	Form I past verb	left behind
ٱلۡوَٰلِدَانِ	al-wālidāni	و-ل-د	Definite dual noun	the two parents
وَٱلۡأَقۡرَبُونَ	wa-l-aqrabūna	ق-ر-ب	Conjunction + definite plural elative	and the close or nearer relatives
مِمَّا	mimmā	none	Preposition + relative word	from what
قَلَّ	qalla	ق-ل-ل	Doubled Form I past verb	was little
مِنۡهُ	minhu	none	Preposition + pronoun	of it
أَوۡ	aw	none	Coordinating particle	or
كَثُرَۚ	kathura	ك-ث-ر	Form I past verb	was much
نَصِيبٗا	naṣīban	ن-ص-ب	مَنْصُوب (manṣūb), an accusative singular noun	as an allotted share
مَّفۡرُوضٗا	mafrūḍan	ف-ر-ض	اسْم مَفْعُول مَنْصُوب (ism mafʿūl manṣūb), an accusative passive participle	imposed and binding

Naṣīb is a portion assigned to someone. Mafrūḍ adds the ideas of delimitation and obligation. Together they show that the right is real and cannot be cancelled by family preference.^[1]

The final word does not state every fraction in this verse. It makes the entitlement binding.^[2]

4. Understanding the Verse

The detailed inheritance laws recognize two ways of receiving a share. Some heirs receive a prescribed fraction, such as a half or a sixth. Others receive the residue after the fixed shares have been accounted for; what they receive therefore depends on who else inherits. These are the residuary heirs, العَصَبَة (al-ʿaṣaba). This verse establishes the binding right that both forms of inheritance fulfill.

لِّلرِّجَالِ نَصِيبٞ “For men is a share.” (4:7)

The opening recognizes a man’s entitlement while setting a limit on his control. Being the eldest, the strongest or the person already holding the property does not make the whole estate his. He receives the share the inheritance law assigns to him.

مِّمَّا تَرَكَ ٱلۡوَٰلِدَانِ وَٱلۡأَقۡرَبُونَ “Of what the parents and close relatives leave.” (4:7)

The property left by the deceased becomes an estate with rights attached to it. Funeral expenses, debts, valid bequests and inheritance must be handled in their lawful order. The relatives are not free to divide everything among themselves before those rights are addressed.

“Parents and close relatives” names the family source of the estate. The detailed rules identify which relatives inherit, what they receive and when a nearer heir excludes a more distant one. Kinship is not the only cause of inheritance: marriage is another, and a third is the bond between a freed slave and the person who freed him. Those causes are established elsewhere.

وَلِلنِّسَآءِ نَصِيبٞ “And for women is a share.” (4:7)

The verse now gives women a complete clause of their own. It could have named men and women together in one short statement. Instead it repeats the declaration, establishing women as holders of the right in their own standing.^[1] Their inheritance is not something men may choose to grant or withhold.^[2]

The parallel wording establishes the right for both groups; the amounts follow the detailed rules.^[3] Relationship and family configuration matter. A two-to-one allocation applies in some arrangements, while maternal siblings share equally.^[4]

مِّمَّا تَرَكَ ٱلۡوَٰلِدَانِ وَٱلۡأَقۡرَبُونَ “Of what the parents and close relatives leave.” (4:7)

The source of the women’s share is stated again. Her entitlement comes directly from the deceased’s estate, not as charity taken from a man’s portion or as a reward for good conduct. Al-Qushayrī explains that the inheritance rule recognizes the relevant relationship rather than ranking the heirs by virtue or sin. From that legal point he draws a spiritual reflection: the share is ابْتِدَاءُ عَطِيَّةٍ مِنْ قِبَلِ اللَّهِ, “in its origin a gift from Allah.” His reflection concerns the character of the giving; the legal rules determine who inherits and who is barred.^[5]

The independent right also changes the balance of power within a household. Ibn ʿĀshūr observes that the old custom kept vulnerable relatives dependent upon the strong and therefore subject to their direction:

وَإِبْقَاءَهُمْ عَالَةً عَلَى أَشِدَّائِهِمْ حَتَّى يَكُونُوا فِي مَقَادَتِهِمْ
“They kept them dependent upon their powerful men so that they would remain under their lead.”

By giving a widow, daughter or child a share fixed by Allah, the verse removes one means by which possession of family wealth could become control over a vulnerable relative.^[6]

مِمَّا قَلَّ مِنۡهُ أَوۡ كَثُرَۚ “Be it little or much.” (4:7)

An estate does not have to reach a minimum size before an heir’s right matters.^[7] Cash, land, jewellery, household goods, a business interest and unpaid wages must all be considered, because the right reaches every part of what was left.^[8] Nor may a powerful heir reserve his preferred assets, such as the horses and weapons, and divide only what remains.^[9]

A house makes the distinction between ownership and division especially clear. An heir can own a share in it even when cutting it into separate parts would make it useless. The right must be acknowledged; how to realize it is a further question. Sale, a buyout, useful physical division or continued shared ownership are different ways of dealing with the property, not reasons to deny the share.^[10]

نَصِيبٗا مَّفۡرُوضٗا “An obligatory share.” (4:7)

The verse closes by identifying the share as an obligation imposed by Allah.^[11] Family members cannot replace that law with custom, affection, anger or their own judgment of who needs or deserves the property most. The detailed verses provide the amounts. Here the entitlement is secured before the calculation begins.

5. Thematic Connections in the Qurʾān

﴿وَٱبۡتَلُواْ ٱلۡيَتَٰمَىٰ حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَا بَلَغُواْ ٱلنِّكَاحَ فَإِنۡ ءَانَسۡتُم مِّنۡهُمۡ رُشۡدٗا فَٱدۡفَعُوٓاْ إِلَيۡهِمۡ أَمۡوَٰلَهُمۡۖ﴾
“And test the orphans [in their abilities] until they reach marriageable age. Then if you perceive in them sound judgement, release their property to them” (4:6).

Verse 4:6 protects property already owned by an orphan. Verse 4:7 secures one way in which that property may arise: inheritance.

﴿وَإِذَا حَضَرَ ٱلۡقِسۡمَةَ أُوْلُواْ ٱلۡقُرۡبَىٰ وَٱلۡيَتَٰمَىٰ وَٱلۡمَسَٰكِينُ فَٱرۡزُقُوهُم مِّنۡهُ وَقُولُواْ لَهُمۡ قَوۡلٗا مَّعۡرُوفٗا ٨﴾
“And when [other] relatives and orphans and the needy are present at the [time of] division, then provide for them [something] out of the estate and speak to them words of appropriate kindness” (4:8).

Verse 4:7 declares the binding right of an heir. Verse 4:8 addresses relatives and vulnerable people who may be at the division without holding a share in that particular family: some are blocked by a nearer heir, and some belong to the class of remote blood relatives whose inheritance is treated differently among the legal schools.^[1] Those with assigned rights receive them, and those present without a share receive a recommended provision instead.^[2] It is given from the estate, and it is not a share of it.^[3] The second verse therefore keeps broad family concern from being confused with the technical list of heirs.^[4] Kindness is owed to both; only one of the two groups inherits.^[5]

﴿يُوصِيكُمُ ٱللَّهُ فِيٓ أَوۡلَٰدِكُمۡۖ لِلذَّكَرِ مِثۡلُ حَظِّ ٱلۡأُنثَيَيۡنِۚ﴾
“Allah instructs you concerning your children: for the male, what is equal to the share of two females” (4:11).

Verse 4:7 announces entitlement. Verses 4:11 and 4:12 supply detailed shares and conditions. Verse 4:176 later completes the sūrah's treatment of a childless person's siblings.

﴿وَأُوْلُواْ ٱلۡأَرۡحَامِ بَعۡضُهُمۡ أَوۡلَىٰ بِبَعۡضٖ فِي كِتَٰبِ ٱللَّهِۚ﴾
“But those of [blood] relationship are more entitled [to inheritance] in the decree of Allah” (8:75).

This verse ends earlier forms of succession based on migration and alliance. Jurists hold several positions on whether its general kinship priority also proves inheritance for remote blood relatives who have no named share in 4:11–12. The strongest conclusion requires the detailed inheritance proofs to determine which kinship relationships become legal claims.

6. Gems and Subtleties

Gem 1

The right is established before its amount is stated.

Al-Zarkashī describes the verse as مُجْمَلَة (mujmala), undetailed. It declares the right without specifying every eligible heir, fraction, residuary entitlement or exclusion. For those details he points to يُوصِيكُمُ اللَّهُ فِي أَوْلَادِكُمْ, “Allah instructs you concerning your children,” at 4:11.^[1]

That order gives the general declaration work of its own. Before anyone calculates a portion, they must recognize that men and women possess an inheritance right. The later calculation determines what is due; it does not leave the family free to decide whether the right exists.

Gem 2

“Little or much” closes a loophole.

The phrase prevents particular kinds of property from being reserved for particular heirs, such as horses and weapons for the men (al-Ālūsī).^[2] It also directs attention to what can be overlooked beside the largest assets: a ring, a tool, a refund or a small balance. Their size does not place them outside the estate or make another heir’s share in them disappear.

7. Contemporary Applications

Secure the estate before anyone treats it as personal property.

After a death, one relative may already have the house key, bank card, vehicle or family jewellery. That access makes it easy to continue using or distributing things before the estate has been identified. Possession does not establish sole ownership. First identify and protect the property so that debts, valid bequests and the heirs’ rights can be dealt with before anyone treats the contents as their own.

Do not erase small claims.

The house may receive careful attention while a salary payment, refund, online asset or small account is overlooked. Those items may also belong partly to an heir who is absent when the family sorts through the estate. Include them in the account of what was left. The effort required to identify or divide an item may affect how it is handled, but it does not cancel the right.

Separate ownership from physical division.

When the main asset is a house or shop, the family may see only two possibilities: leave it with the person using it, or divide it in a way that destroys its usefulness. Shared ownership supplies the starting point, not that false choice. The heirs may consider a sale, a consensual buyout, a useful division or continued joint ownership.^[1] The estate and the applicable law determine the available method. Recognize everyone’s share first, then decide how the property should be handled.

Establish the share before discussing a later transfer.

An heir’s ownership arises before a later gift, release, sale or settlement is considered.^[2] Calculate the estate and explain the share before asking an heir what should happen to it. A later transfer is a separate transaction governed by its own rulings; this verse establishes the inheritance right and does not, by itself, decide every condition of that later act.

See inheritance within family responsibility.

In a family where one relative pays the bills or undertakes most of the care, it can seem natural to expect that person’s inheritance to follow the same responsibility. Sayyid Quṭb places inheritance within just such a system of support and mutual protection.^[3] Classical jurists also connected maintenance with relationships that can produce inheritance,^[4] and explained shared blood-money liability through mutual aid.^[5]

But the person responsible for support and the person entitled to inherit are not always the same. The legal examples distinguish maintenance, mutual liability and heirship rather than treating them as one calculation.^[6] A family should therefore identify each responsibility on its own terms. Providing support does not automatically determine a share, and receiving a share does not establish every form of support liability.

8. Common Misconceptions

Wrong: “Islam always gives a woman half of what a man receives.”

Correct: Verse 4:7 gives no ratio. It establishes an inheritance right for men and women, while the detailed shares change with the heir’s relationship and with the other heirs present.

The familiar two-to-one ratio applies in particular arrangements, such as a son with a daughter. It cannot be turned into a measure of human worth. In the same inheritance law, a son may receive more than his father, and a daughter more than her mother or father. The difference follows from the legal position in that estate, not from the value of the person.^[1]

A modern survey counts more than thirty arrangements in which a woman receives the same as a comparable man, more than him, or something when he receives nothing, against four specified arrangements in which she receives half.^[2] The principle does not depend upon the count, but the examples make it visible:

A mother and father each receive one sixth when the deceased leaves a son.^[3]
When a woman dies leaving only her husband and one daughter, the daughter’s fixed share is one half and the husband’s is one quarter.^[4] The treatment of the surplus follows the schools’ rules on radd, the return of residue.^[5]
A son’s daughter can receive one sixth in an estate in which a son’s son in the same place receives nothing because no residue remains.^[6]

Wrong: “Every blood relative must inherit because the verse says ‘close relatives.’”

Correct: Kinship begins the inquiry; it does not finish it. The detailed law distinguishes fixed-share heirs, residuaries and remote blood relatives, and it applies rules of priority and exclusion. A person can remain a close relative while a nearer heir prevents him from receiving in that estate. The detailed law, not kinship vocabulary by itself, determines whether that person inherits.

Wrong: “If an object cannot be divided usefully, the person holding it may keep it.”

Correct: “Little or much” brings every part of the estate within the heirs’ rights; it does not require a house, shop or vehicle to be cut into useless pieces.^[7] Before division, the heirs hold undivided shares across the estate.^[8] A lawful sale, valuation, buyout, useful partition or continued shared ownership may realize those shares. Possession of the keys does not create sole ownership.

Wrong: “A wealthy, estranged or sinful heir may be excluded because another relative deserves the property more.”

Correct: Inheritance is not an award for conduct or need. Al-Qushayrī illustrates this with two sons in the same legal position, one dutiful and the other sinful: their moral difference does not change the inheritance rule.^[9] Recognized legal impediments and rules of exclusion remain a separate matter; the family may not invent a new impediment from preference, anger or an estimate of merit.

Wrong: “An expected heir can sign away the inheritance before death.”

Correct: The share arises when its owner dies; before that event, an expected heir owns no inheritance share to transfer. Once the estate exists, ownership comes before any later gift, sale, release or settlement. The hadith

إِنَّ اللَّهَ قَدْ أَعْطَى كُلَّ ذِي حَقٍّ حَقَّهُ، فَلَا وَصِيَّةَ لِوَارِثٍ
“Allah has given every holder of a right his right, so there is no bequest for an heir,”

prevents a deathbed arrangement from redirecting the assigned shares without the later consent recognized by the law.^[10] The separate conditions governing a later transfer are not supplied by this verse and must be established from their own rulings.

9. Points for Reflection

Why does the Qurʾān establish the inheritance right before it states a single fraction?
What does the complete repetition of the women’s clause add beyond silently including them in a statement made about men?
How can control of family wealth become control over a dependent relative, and what changes when that relative owns an independently protected share?
If the estate is one house, shop or vehicle, what does it mean to recognize every heir’s ownership before deciding whether to sell it, divide it, buy out a share or continue owning it together?

Deeper Study for Specialists

1. The Questions This Verse Raises

Question	Central issue	Practical consequence	Author's Conclusion
1. Which relatives inherit?	The broad language of kinship and the legally defined classes of heirs are related but not identical.	It determines who can enter an estate and in what order.	الْأَقْرَبُونَ is broad, but not every relative inherits; the Qurʾān, Sunnah, and inheritance hierarchy define the right and its limits.
2. What does “an obligatory share” establish?	A binding right must be distinguished from the later calculation of its amount.	It explains why equal standing as rights holders does not require equal fractions in every class.	Verse 4:7 establishes the right; 4:11–12 and 4:176 calculate the shares.
3. How do inheritance and bequests fit together?	The detailed inheritance verses develop 4:7, while 2:180 raises the separate law of bequests.	It prevents an heir’s assigned share from being confused with a deathbed bequest.	Heirs take their assigned inheritance; non-heir relatives may receive bequests under the separate rules governing them.
4. When does ownership arise?	Vesting at death, undivided ownership, practical realization, and later transfer are separate stages.	It protects an heir’s right even when the estate is one house, shop, or other indivisible asset.	Ownership arises at death; division, sale, buyout, continued joint ownership, and later transfer deal with that ownership afterward.
5. Does kinship determine the amount?	Relationship begins the inquiry, but legal class, capacity, exclusion, reduction, and residue complete it.	It explains why relatives of similar apparent closeness may receive different amounts.	Blood relationship establishes an initial claim; the inheritance structure determines the final amount.
6. Is one occasion of revelation established?	The excluded groups and old social practice are clearer than the identity of one household.	It controls how confidently the historical setting may be narrated.	The practice being abolished is confirmed; no single household report is established as the exclusive occasion.
7. Is inheritance payment for family support?	Maintenance, blood-money liability, and inheritance may involve overlapping relatives but remain distinct rulings.	It prevents a moral rationale from being turned into a false legal equation.	Reciprocal support helps explain the family setting; each duty still has its own proof and limits.
8. Why can a maternal grandmother inherit when her husband may not?	Ordinary closeness differs from the legally relevant connecting line.	It explains how fixed-share heirs, remote kindred, return, and treasury rules affect the result.	A qualifying maternal grandmother may take a fixed share; the maternal grandfather belongs to a different legal class.

Q1. Which relatives are included, and which of them inherit?

Three questions arise:

Language: whom can الْأَقْرَبُونَ (al-aqrabūn), “the nearer relatives,” describe?
Entitlement: what proof admits a class of relatives to inheritance?
Allocation: if that class inherits, how is its portion worked out?

A maternal aunt is a relative. That fact alone does not show whether she inherits in the presence of other heirs, what proof establishes her right, or how an amount would be assigned. The positions concern the second and third questions.

Position	Core Argument	Principal holders	Evidence
1. General kinship wording establishes a right for remote blood relatives	The verse can establish entitlement generally even though another proof provides the amount	Al-Jaṣṣāṣ; the Kūfan position as presented by Ibn ʿĀshūr; al-Qāsimī develops its proofs	4:7; the priority of blood relationship in 8:75 and 33:6; the practice of the Companions رضي الله عنهم; analogy; the priority of kin over the public treasury
2. The wording is broad, but the detailed law orders and limits it	Remote kin enter only after fixed-share heirs and agnatic residuaries, or the nearest-male rule controls the remainder	Ibn al-ʿArabī; al-Saʿdī; related explanations recorded by Ibn ʿĀshūr	The general word is retained while the detailed inheritance texts determine priority
3. A class without an assigned share needs a more particular proof	The general wording does not by itself admit every remote relative	Al-Shāfiʿī; Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī; the restrictive Mālikī position recorded by Ibn ʿĀshūr	“An imposed share” must be established through the recognized inheritance proofs; an unlimited lexical comparison does not define a legal class
4. Particular proof may admit a limited exception	The maternal uncle inherits when no other heir exists, but the general verses do not establish the rest of the remote classes	Al-Shanqīṭī	Specific hadith evidence for the maternal uncle; rejection of the general wording as sufficient proof for every class

The Argument for Broad Entitlement. The verse says:

﴿لِّلرِّجَالِ نَصِيبٞ مِّمَّا تَرَكَ ٱلۡوَٰلِدَانِ وَٱلۡأَقۡرَبُونَ وَلِلنِّسَآءِ نَصِيبٞ مِّمَّا تَرَكَ ٱلۡوَٰلِدَانِ وَٱلۡأَقۡرَبُونَ﴾
“For men is a share of what the parents and close relatives leave, and for women is a share of what the parents and close relatives leave.” (4:7)

This position argues that the broad wording establishes a foundational right for remote blood relatives, such as aunts, uncles, and daughters' children. The reasoning operates in two distinct steps: the general text grants the baseline entitlement, while outside proofs—like hadith, athar, legal agreement, or analogy—determine the specific amount. Even if the verse was revealed about a single household, its sweeping language cannot be confined to that specific event (al-Jaṣṣāṣ).^[1]

The same side also relies on the Qurʾānic rule:

﴿وَأُوْلُواْ ٱلۡأَرۡحَامِ بَعۡضُهُمۡ أَوۡلَىٰ بِبَعۡضٖ فِي كِتَٰبِ ٱللَّهِۚ﴾
“Those of blood relationship are more entitled to one another in the Book of Allah” (8:75).

Lexically, this wording cannot be restricted strictly to male agnates (al-ʿaṣaba); it inherently encompasses all blood relations (al-Shawkānī).^[2]

Ultimately, this is a comprehensive legal framework, not just a vocabulary debate. The general verse opens the door, and secondary proofs, such as the practice of the Companions رضي الله عنهم, hadith, analogy, and the priority of actual relatives over the public treasury, provide the exact measurements (al-Qāsimī).^[3]

The objection from the detailed inheritance law. The opposing view argues that the detailed allocations must strictly govern these general expressions. The Shāfiʿī reply recorded by al-Rāzī gives two reasons. First, 4:7 describes a prescribed, quantified share, while dhawū al-arḥām have no quantified share by consensus. Second, if “near relatives” meant anyone closer than someone else, most of humanity would enter through its common descent from Adam. On this interpretation, the expression means those nearest of all: parents and children.^[4] Therefore, kinship priority only applies to those whose inheritance is already legally established (al-Shāfiʿī)^[5] meaning the mandate in 8:75 is tethered directly to the specific shares prescribed in Sūrat al-Nisāʾ (al-Wāḥidī).^[6]

This objection does not deny that a maternal aunt is family. It denies that lexical inclusion alone proves she inherits. The issue is the movement from a true description, "relative," to a legal consequence, "heir."

Views that preserve the breadth but control the result. Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما relates that the Prophet ﷺ said:

أَلْحِقُوا الْفَرَائِضَ بِأَهْلِهَا، فَمَا بَقِيَ فَهُوَ لِأَوْلَى رَجُلٍ ذَكَرٍ
“Give the prescribed shares to those entitled to them; what remains belongs to the nearest male relative.”^[7]

This Prophetic rule provides a practical way to organize the verse’s broad kinship expression: it gives fixed-share heirs their rights first, then directs the remainder to the nearest male agnate. By applying this sequence, remote kin are included in principle, but they are strictly placed after fixed-share heirs and agnatic residuaries in practice (Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-Saʿdī).^[8] Ultimately, the restrictive Mālikī view and the broader Kūfan view are simply two different ways of applying this same prioritization (Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[9] These explanations successfully preserve the difference between a word’s wide lexical range and the strict order in which legal claims are satisfied.

A second approach demands specific evidence, arguing that the broad language of 4:7 and 8:75 is not enough to establish every remote class on its own. Under this view, a remote relative inherits only if a particular hadith explicitly grants them a share. ʿĀʾishah رضي الله عنها relates that the Prophet ﷺ said:

الْخَالُ وَارِثُ مَنْ لَا وَارِثَ لَهُ
“The maternal uncle inherits from one who has no heir.”^[10]

Al-Tirmidhī calls the narration from ʿĀʾishah gharīb and records that some transmitted it mursal, without naming her. Abū Dāwūd records a fuller hadith from al-Miqdām b. Maʿdīkarib رضي الله عنه, whose isnād al-Albānī grades ḥasan. On this evidence, the maternal uncle inherits when no other heir exists, but the general Qurʾānic verses are not extended to other remote classes without separate proof (al-Shanqīṭī).

Allocation after admission. Once a remote class is admitted, another question begins. Al-Shanqīṭī records eleven categories and two systems for arranging them.^[11]

أَهْلُ التَّنْزِيل (ahl al-tanzīl) place each remote claimant in the position of the ordinary heir through whom the relationship runs, then give the claimant what that connecting heir would have received.
أَهْلُ الْقَرَابَة (ahl al-qarāba) rank the remote claimants directly by proximity, using an order comparable to that used among the agnates.

This first method (ahl al-tanzīl) produces a critical consequence: there is no universal male-female ratio for remote kin. Instead, the ratio strictly follows the connecting class. If the original link dictates a two-to-one ratio for males, the remote descendants inherit that exact ratio; if the link is a maternal sibling, males and females share equally (Ibn ʿUthaymīn).^[12]

The precise legal vocabulary sets strict boundaries around who actually inherits. Inheritance is triggered by three causes: lineage, marriage, and الْوَلَاء (al-walāʾ), the tie left by emancipation. Within this system, clear distinctions are made between fixed shares, residuary succession, and cases where a person approaches an estate through multiple capacities (al-Baghawī).^[13] Remote blood relatives are strictly defined by exclusion, they are those who are neither fixed-share heirs nor agnatic residuaries (al-Nasafī),^[14] because the Quran assigns them no specific share (al-Qurṭubī).^[15] The foundational rule remains absolute: while kinship is a cause for inheritance, not every blood relative is an entitled heir (al-Thaʿlabī).^[16]

Parents, grandparents and spouses. The word الْوَالِدَانِ (al-wālidān, parents) carries both a strict immediate sense and a broader usage encompassing mediated ascendants (al-Ālūsī).^[17] However, this lexical breadth does not mean a grandparent inherits alongside a nearer heir. Structurally, the verse simply names the immediate parents as a specific category before mentioning the wider genus of close kin (al-Rāzī, al-Saʿdī).^[18]

Similarly, spouses receive detailed shares, but marriage operates as a distinct cause of inheritance separate from descent (Ibn ʿUthaymīn, al-Baghawī).^[19] Scholars discuss whether spouses are intended by the “covenant” category mentioned later in 4:33: some affirm it (Muḥammad ʿAbduh),^[20] others list multiple possibilities (Abū Ḥayyān),^[21] and some reject the spouse connection entirely (al-Ālūsī).^[22] Yet the immediate legal reality holds firm regardless of how that specific lexical question is settled. Marriage, lineage, and clientage remain three separate paths to an estate.^[23]

Conclusion. The term الْأَقْرَبُونَ (al-aqrabūn) extends beyond a strict list of fixed-share heirs, but it is the broader legal system that dictates who actually inherits, who takes priority, and who is excluded. The most balanced interpretation avoids two extremes: assuming every relative gets a share, or assuming this general wording has no legal weight. Ultimately, the verse establishes a baseline of family entitlement, leaving the Qurʾān, the Sunnah, and detailed inheritance law to map its exact boundaries.

The phrase نَصِيبًا مَفْرُوضًا (naṣīban mafrūḍan) answers two questions, but not in the same place. Verse 4:7 first establishes that men and women have an enforceable right in an estate. The later inheritance verses establish how much each receives.

Al-Ṭabarī gathers the force of the phrase in four words:

حِصَّةً مَفْرُوضَةً وَاجِبَةً، مَعْلُومَةً مُؤَقَّتَةً
“A share imposed and binding, known and delimited.”^[24]

The root ف ر ض carries the idea of marking or cutting a boundary into something. Applied here, it means that the heir’s right has been fixed by Allah and placed beyond the family’s discretion. It is not a request that the stronger relatives show generosity after they have taken possession of the estate (Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, al-Ālūsī, Ibn Fāris).^[25]

That does not mean every fraction is contained in the word mafrūḍan. The verse announces a binding entitlement in general; 4:11–12 and 4:176 later assign fixed fractions and explain who takes a residue. A residuary heir’s amount may therefore change with the other heirs present, even though the underlying right remains binding (Ibn ʿUthaymīn, al-Shanqīṭī).^[26]

The distinction between فَرْض (farḍ) and وَاجِب (wājib) belongs to a separate technical discussion. In Ḥanafī legal terminology, farḍ is established by decisive proof and wājib by proof that is not decisive; in much Shāfiʿī usage, the two words may function as legal synonyms. That distinction matters when jurists ask whether a disputed class of remote relatives has been admitted by sufficient proof. It does not turn the clearly established shares of recognized heirs into optional claims (Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, al-Ālūsī).^[27]

The deliberate parallel phrasing for men and women serves a specific legal function. Allah did not say merely that “the relatives” have a share and leave women hidden within the group. He repeated the complete ruling: وَلِلرِّجَالِ نَصِيبٌ, “for men is a share,” and وَلِلنِّسَاءِ نَصِيبٌ, “for women is a share.” The two clauses therefore establish equal standing as holders of a divinely assigned right. They do not promise the same numerical amount in every legal class (al-Ṣābūnī).^[28] Maternal brothers and sisters, for example, share equally, whereas sons and daughters are governed by a two-to-one ratio. Sex alone does not calculate an inheritance; the claimant’s class and the heirs present do (Ibn ʿUthaymīn).^[29] The repetition is deliberate: it confirms women’s right in a complete clause of its own and overturns the earlier practice of excluding them (al-Shawkānī, Ibn ʿUthaymīn, al-Ṣābūnī).^[30]

Conclusion. Mafrūḍan makes the inheritance right binding and delimited. The repeated clauses place men and women under the same divine source of entitlement, while the detailed inheritance law determines the amount due to each heir.

Q3. How do 4:7, the detailed inheritance verses, and the earlier bequest command fit together?

This topic requires disentangling two separate questions. The first is how 4:7 relates to 4:11–12 and 4:176, which concerns the movement from a general right to specific shares. The second is what remains of the command in 2:180 to make a bequest for parents and relatives, which tests the boundary between inheritance and a bequest.

Verse 4:7 announces that men and women possess an obligatory share but does not calculate it. Verses 4:11–12 and 4:176 then name heirs, assign fractions, and regulate the residue. The later verses therefore explain and measure the right already established; they do not repeal women’s and children’s entitlement (al-Shawkānī, al-Shanqīṭī).^[31] This order also has a moral wisdom. A society accustomed to excluding women and young children first heard the principle, then received its arithmetic. The general declaration prepared people to accept the detailed reform (Ibn ʿĀshūr, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī).^[32]

An early statement transmitted from al-Shāfiʿī uses نَسْخ (naskh) for the later shares’ control of the earlier statement.^[33] He continues to use 4:7 and restricts kinship priority to those who receive “according to what Allah assigned for them.” Whatever scope naskh has in this statement, the reasoning treats the detailed verses as controlling the earlier general expression; it does not abolish the right of women and children.

The bequest command of 2:180 raises a different problem. If its compulsory bequest covered people who later received assigned inheritance shares, the later law removed the need for a second deathbed allocation to those same heirs. This is the basis for saying that the earlier obligation ended with the inheritance verses (al-Ṣābūnī).^[34]

The texts can also be reconciled by separating their beneficiaries. Legal heirs receive the portions Allah assigned; relatives who do not inherit remain possible recipients of a bequest. The inheritance verses then govern one class without cancelling the field of the other (Muḥammad ʿAbduh, Rashīd Riḍā, al-Ṭabarī).^[35] On the majority treatment, the original obligation no longer remains, but a recommended bequest to non-heir relatives does. A narrower position keeps a limited duty toward them, especially where the inheritance law leaves them without a share (Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[36] A different construction takes the “testament” in 2:180 as Allah’s own direction, later expressed through the assigned shares; on that reading, the verse anticipates the inheritance law rather than competing with it (al-Qāsimī).^[37]

This reconciliation upholds both texts: assigned heirs take by inheritance, while a relative outside the heir classes may receive a bequest under its own rules. The Sunnah then places a firm boundary around the first field. Abū Umāmah al-Bāhilī رضي الله عنه relates that the Prophet ﷺ said:

إِنَّ اللَّهَ قَدْ أَعْطَى كُلَّ ذِي حَقٍّ حَقَّهُ، فَلَا وَصِيَّةَ لِوَارِثٍ
“Allah has given every holder of a right his right, so there is no bequest for an heir.”^[38]

Practically, the hadith stops anyone from using a will to enrich one heir at the expense of the others. Theoretically, it acts as the primary restriction on the bequest verse, sparking the classic juristic debate over whether a Sunnah text can restrict or supersede the Qurʾān (al-Ṭaḥāwī).^[39] It does not decide several further questions: whether the change should be called naskh or specification, whether a bequest to a non-heir relative remains obligatory or recommended, and how amount and consent are regulated (Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[40]

The ordinary ceiling is one third of the estate.^[41] A bequest to an heir depends on the legally recognized consent of the other heirs, and the time at which they consent has legal consequences.^[42] Cases with no legal heir have their own rulings.^[43] These remaining conditions show why simply stating'the bequest verse was abrogated' is not precise enough to settle a real estate.

Conclusion. The detailed inheritance verses explain and specify the right announced in 4:7. The Prophetic rule removes heirs from the ordinary field of deathbed bequests, while non-heir relatives remain lawful recipients within the bequest rules. Whether 2:180 leaves a recommendation or a limited obligation toward such relatives is a further juristic question; it does not alter the inheritance entitlement established here.

Three legal facts must be kept apart. At death, the share vests: it passes into the heir’s ownership. The estate may remain undivided while each heir owns a fraction of the whole. Division, sale, buyout, continued joint ownership, or a later transfer are separate ways of dealing with that ownership; none of these options require breaking the property apart.

At death, the recognized heirs acquire their inheritance rights automatically. No heir owned a fraction during the deceased’s lifetime, but after death an heir cannot prevent ownership from arising merely by saying, “I do not want it.” A refusal made before ownership arises is therefore not the same as a gift or release made afterward (al-Bayḍāwī, Abū al-Suʿūd, Mufti Muḥammad Shafīʿ).^[44]

Before division, each heir owns an undivided fraction across the estate. The right is not confined to whichever object happens to be in that person’s hands. The verse repeats “from what” was left so that no group can reserve the valuable land, businesses, or cash for itself and satisfy others from a less desirable class of assets. The entitlement reaches every part of the property and applies whether the estate is small or large (Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Zuḥaylī).^[45]

Undivided ownership does not require a house to be cut into unusable rooms or a vehicle into physical pieces. The heirs may sell and distribute the price, value the property and arrange a buyout, divide it where useful division is possible, or continue to own it jointly. One juristic position permitted compelled physical division even when the separated part would lose usefulness, reasoning from the heir’s right in every part of the estate. Ibn Abī Laylā and Abū Thawr refused a division that destroys benefit or harms one owner unequally; Ibn al-Mundhir preferred this second treatment, and sale can replace a destructive partition (al-Qurṭubī).^[46] The governing Prophetic maxim is:

لَا ضَرَرَ وَلَا ضِرَارَ
“There is to be no harm and no returning of harm.”^[47]

Once ownership has passed to the heir, a later sale, gift, release, or settlement is governed by the rules of that separate transaction. It cannot be applied retroactively to claim the heir never inherited. Inheritance transfers the right first; the owner’s later disposal is a separate legal act (Mufti Muḥammad Shafīʿ).^[48]

Conclusion. Death vests the inheritance right, common ownership extends it across the undivided estate, and a useful division or sale realizes it. A later transfer is an act of the heir as owner. Neither an impractical physical division nor an earlier refusal erases the assigned share.

Q5. Why does blood relationship not settle the amount?

Relationship identifies the family connection. The amount depends on the claimant’s legal class, the capacity through which the claim is made, the nearer heirs present, and the residue left after fixed shares. Several examples show why those questions cannot be replaced by the single observation that two people are relatives.

A daughter and a brother are both close to the deceased, but they approach the estate differently. The daughter receives her fixed share; a full or paternal brother may take what remains as the nearest male agnate (al-Jaṣṣāṣ).^[49] Replace the brother with a full or paternal sister and the reasoning changes again. Under the majority position, the sister may become a residuary with the daughter. Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما and Ibn al-Zubayr رضي الله عنه held that the presence of a child bars her in that setting. The disagreement concerns the sister’s legal capacity beside a daughter, not whether both are relatives (al-Qurṭubī).^[50] Maternal siblings belong to another class and are barred by descendants altogether (Ibn ʿUthaymīn).^[51]

The same precision is needed with ascendants. A father bars the relevant siblings. Ibn ʿUthaymīn extends that bar to the grandfather, while al-Shanqīṭī treats only the father’s bar as beyond question in his discussion; the grandfather with siblings remains a separate juristic issue. A sentence such as “a parent bars siblings” would conceal the distinction (Ibn ʿUthaymīn, al-Shanqīṭī).^[52]

Reduction and exclusion may also occur in the same estate. Several siblings can reduce the mother from one third to one sixth even though the father then prevents those siblings from inheriting. In the standard result, the father receives the remainder. Ibn ʿAṭiyyah introduces the contrary allocation among anomalous opinions: the siblings take the amount by which they reduced the mother. He reports this allocation from Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما, and also reports the opposite from him. Qatādah explains the standard allocation through the father’s duty to maintain them. The example shows that causing another heir’s fraction to fall does not necessarily make the person who caused the reduction a recipient (Ibn ʿAṭiyyah).^[53]

One person may even approach the estate through two capacities. Suppose two men are paternal cousins of the deceased, but one is also his maternal brother. ʿAlī رضي الله عنه and Zayd b. Thābit رضي الله عنه first give that man the maternal brother’s fixed sixth, then divide the agnatic residue between the two cousins. ʿUmar رضي الله عنه and Ibn Masʿūd رضي الله عنه are reported to give him the whole estate, reasoning that the claimant with a fixed share has the stronger right. The case turns on whether the two capacities remain distinct or combine to control the whole result (al-Jaṣṣāṣ, Abū Ḥayyān).^[54]

Conclusion. While blood relationship establishes the initial claim, it does not dictate the final amount. The precise inheritance a relative receives is governed entirely by their legal class, their capacity, the mechanics of exclusion and reduction, and the distribution of the residue.

Q6. Is one household securely established as the occasion of revelation?

The historical practice corrected by the verse is clearer than the identity of one household. Women and young children were denied inheritance because the old custom favored those able to fight, defend the clan’s property, and take spoils. One early formulation says that only a person who “thrust with the spear and fought with the sword” inherited (Ibn ʿAṭiyyah).^[55] Al-Zajjāj adds the same criterion in fuller form: the inheritor thrust with lances, defended the property, and took the spoils.^[56]

Against that common background, the household details vary. One account names Umm Kaḥlah, Aws b. Suwayd, and one daughter.^[57] Another names Umm Kujjah, Aws b. Thābit, three daughters, and the paternal cousins Suwayd and ʿArfajah, who took the property.^[58] Al-Suyūṭī preserves another form in which Aws b. Thābit leaves two daughters and a young son.^[59] Al-Zajjāj names no one and speaks only of a woman, her daughters, their deceased father, and two paternal uncles.^[60] Even the two male relatives appear under more than one pair of names (al-Thaʿlabī).^[61] Jābir رضي الله عنه reports a separate case concerning Saʿd b. al-Rabīʿ’s two daughters. Abū Dāwūd corrects the narration that names their father as Thābit b. Qays.^[62]

These are variants to be assessed, not pieces of one story to be assembled. Taking a widow’s name from one account, the number of children from another, and the relatives’ names from a third would create a household no source actually gives.

The account naming Aws b. Thābit, two daughters and a young son is transmitted through al-Kalbī, from Abū Ṣāliḥ, from Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما. Riḍā calls this isnād the weakest route from Ibn ʿAbbās. The shorter account from Qatādah concerns the custom itself: women were denied inheritance. Ḥikmat Bashīr Yāsīn grades its isnād ḥasan.^[63] Al-Zajjāj’s account has no isnād or grade at this point; it is useful for the shape of the old custom.^[64]

Conclusion. The verse clearly abolished a practice that excluded women and young children under a fighting criterion. No single set of household names and relationships is established strongly enough to be presented as the exclusive occasion of revelation.

Q7. Is inheritance a payment for supporting the family?

Inheritance belongs to a family order in which relatives bear responsibilities toward one another. That relationship helps explain the law’s moral setting, but it does not turn inheritance into wages for whoever provided support.

Three bodies of law remain distinct. Maintenance concerns who must provide for a person unable to provide for himself or herself. Blood-money liability may place payment on the offender’s paternal liability group. Inheritance determines who receives an estate through fixed shares or residuary succession. The people named by those rules sometimes overlap, but the rules are not interchangeable. A maternal uncle may have a maintenance duty while a paternal cousin inherits. In another maintenance setting, a child’s mother may possess an inheritance right while the child’s father bears the nursing expense under a separate rule. Jurists may connect maintenance to agnation, prohibited-degree kinship, parenthood, the child’s own property, the treasury, or another legally defined basis. Heirship alone does not decide it (al-Jaṣṣāṣ, al-Shāfiʿī).^[65]

The connection nevertheless has substance. Reciprocal family duties place inheritance within widening circles of support rather than treating the estate as an isolated windfall (Sayyid Quṭb).^[66] Jurists also connected maintenance of an incapable relative with the same family relationship that may later produce inheritance (Ibn ʿĀshūr).^[67] Blood-money liability rests on mutual protection and assistance within its own legally defined الْعَاقِلَة (al-ʿāqilah), the agnatic group assigned to share certain blood-money payments (al-Jaṣṣāṣ, Ibn al-Jawzī).^[68] These rationales explain why family responsibility matters; they do not erase the separate conditions of each rule.

The distribution itself is established by a hadith of Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh رضي الله عنه. A woman brought the two daughters of Saʿd b. al-Rabīʿ رضي الله عنه to the Prophet ﷺ after their paternal uncle had taken the estate. The Prophet ﷺ instructed him:

أَعْطِ ابْنَتَيْ سَعْدٍ الثُّلُثَيْنِ، وَأَعْطِ أُمَّهُمَا الثُّمُنَ، وَمَا بَقِيَ فَهُوَ لَكَ
“Give the two daughters of Saʿd two thirds, give their mother one eighth, and what remains is yours.”^[69]

Al-Zajjāj relates an account without an isnād in which two paternal uncles receive the residue and then ask:

فَقَالَا: فَمَنْ يَتَوَلَّى الْقِيَامَ بِأَمْرِهِمَا؟ فَأَمَرَهُمَا النَّبِيُّ ﷺ أَنْ يَتَوَلَّيَا ذَلِكَ
“They asked, ‘Who will undertake their care?’ The Prophet ﷺ instructed the two of them to undertake it.”^[70]

In this account, the two men who receive the residue are also charged with the girls’ care.

Conclusion. Reciprocal support is part of the wisdom of a family inheritance system. Maintenance, blood-money liability, and inheritance nevertheless remain separate legal responsibilities, each established and limited by its own proofs.

Q8. Why can a maternal grandmother inherit when her husband may not?

Common speech treats a maternal grandfather and maternal grandmother as equally close to their grandchild. In inheritance law, however, the decisive question is not emotional or numerical closeness, but the connecting line through which each person reaches the deceased.

Relative	Connecting line	Legal class
Grandfather with no woman in the line	Father’s father and upward	جَدٌّ صَحِيحٌ (jadd ṣaḥīḥ): may enter the fixed-share or residuary system
Grandfather connected through a woman	Mother’s father	جَدٌّ فَاسِدٌ (jadd fāsid): outside the direct male-line grandfather class; considered separately under remote-kindred rules
Grandmother with no father between two mothers	Mother’s mother, or a qualifying paternal line	جَدَّةٌ صَحِيحَةٌ (jadda ṣaḥīḥa): may qualify for the grandmother’s share
Grandmother whose line contains a father between two mothers	Such as the mother of the mother’s father	جَدَّةٌ فَاسِدَةٌ (jadda fāsida): outside the qualifying grandmother class

Al-Sarakhsī states the controlling definitions:

الْجَدُّ الْفَاسِدُ مَنْ يَتَّصِلُ إِلَى الْمَيِّتِ بِأُمٍّ، وَالْجَدَّةُ الْفَاسِدَةُ مَنْ يَدْخُلُ فِي نِسْبَتِهَا أَبٌ بَيْنَ أُمَّيْنِ
“A jadd fāsid is one who reaches the deceased through a mother, and a jadda fāsida is one in whose line a father falls between two mothers.”^[71]

Ibn al-Mundhir records agreement, among the scholars whose views he knew, that a grandmother whose line contains a father between two mothers does not inherit through the grandmother rule.^[72] The table therefore describes legal pathways, not the worth of one grandparent over another.

A single family shows the result. A married couple have a daughter, and that daughter has a child. If the child dies, the woman reaches the deceased as mother’s mother: her line runs through mother to mother, so she qualifies as a legal grandmother. Her husband reaches the deceased as mother’s father: a woman stands in his connecting line, so he is not the grandfather who enters the fixed-share or agnatic-residuary system.

Suppose no other entitled heir remains. Under الرَّدّ (al-radd), the return of the surplus to fixed-share heirs, the grandmother may receive the balance after her prescribed sixth and thus take the whole estate. Under the position that directs the surplus to the public treasury, she receives her sixth and the remainder goes to the treasury.^[73] Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Sulṭān draws attention to the striking comparison that the inheriting woman and the non-inheriting man are often wife and husband. The legal result, however, rests on the classical rules of connecting lines and return, not on that modern comparison.^[74]

The maternal grandfather then enters the separate question of ذَوُو الْأَرْحَام (dhawū al-arḥām), remote blood relatives. The Ḥanafīs and Ḥanbalīs may admit that class when no fixed-share heir or agnatic residuary remains, whereas under Mālik’s and al-Shāfiʿī’s positions that class does not inherit.^[75] In the example above, neither treatment gives the maternal grandfather a share: under radd, the grandmother takes the surplus; under the treasury treatment, the treasury takes it.^[76]

The number of qualifying grandmother lines is itself a further juristic discussion. Mālik admits two and their mothers; al-Awzāʿī and Aḥmad admit three; Ibn Masʿūd رضي الله عنه and Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما admit four.^[77] That disagreement concerns how far the valid lines extend, not the basic distinction between the mother’s mother and the mother’s father.

Conclusion. Ordinary closeness does not determine an inheritance class. The maternal grandmother reaches the deceased through a qualifying female line and may enter as a fixed-share heir. The maternal grandfather reaches the deceased through a woman and falls outside the fixed-share and agnatic grandfather classes; any claim he may have must come through the separate remote-kindred rules.

2. How the Commentators Read This Verse

Commentator	Distinctive contribution
Al-Qushayrī (d. 465 AH / 1072 CE)	Al-Qushayrī begins from a legal fact: two sons in the same position inherit alike even when one is dutiful and the other sinful. He then draws an ishārī reflection from it. Inheritance begins as a gift attached to a recognized relationship; it is not wages paid for superior conduct. He sets this beside Allah’s description of giving the Book as an inheritance to chosen servants who are then described as occupying different moral ranks in 35:32.^[1] The reflection does not alter the inheritance law or erase its recognized impediments. Its point is about divine giving: the gift can precede the later distinction among those who receive it.
Muḥammad ʿAbduh (d. 1323 AH / 1905 CE)	Muḥammad ʿAbduh reads 4:7 within the passage’s continuing protection of orphans. An orphan’s property commonly reaches the child through inheritance from parents and relatives. Verse 4:6 commands the guardian to deliver that property when the orphan becomes capable of managing it; 4:7 explains one way the child acquired it; and 4:10 returns to the warning against consuming it.^[2] On this account, the subject has moved into inheritance without leaving the orphan behind. Entitlement and guardianship answer two stages of the same problem: the law first establishes what belongs to the child, then regulates the adult entrusted with it.
Mufti Muḥammad Shafīʿ (d. 1396 AH / 1976 CE)	Mufti Muḥammad Shafīʿ asks why inheritance follows legal nearness rather than whichever relative presently appears poorest or most useful. Need can change from month to month, estimates of usefulness depend on human judgment, and family pressure can reshape both. If either controlled inheritance, every death would reopen the question of who deserved the estate most. Kinship and degree provide a stable rule known before preference and pressure enter the room.^[3]

Commentator

Distinctive contribution

Al-Qushayrī (d. 465 AH / 1072 CE)

Al-Qushayrī begins from a legal fact: two sons in the same position inherit alike even when one is dutiful and the other sinful. He then draws an ishārī reflection from it. Inheritance begins as a gift attached to a recognized relationship; it is not wages paid for superior conduct. He sets this beside Allah’s description of giving the Book as an inheritance to chosen servants who are then described as occupying different moral ranks in 35:32.^[1]

The reflection does not alter the inheritance law or erase its recognized impediments. Its point is about divine giving: the gift can precede the later distinction among those who receive it.

Muḥammad ʿAbduh (d. 1323 AH / 1905 CE)

Muḥammad ʿAbduh reads 4:7 within the passage’s continuing protection of orphans. An orphan’s property commonly reaches the child through inheritance from parents and relatives. Verse 4:6 commands the guardian to deliver that property when the orphan becomes capable of managing it; 4:7 explains one way the child acquired it; and 4:10 returns to the warning against consuming it.^[2]

On this account, the subject has moved into inheritance without leaving the orphan behind. Entitlement and guardianship answer two stages of the same problem: the law first establishes what belongs to the child, then regulates the adult entrusted with it.

Mufti Muḥammad Shafīʿ (d. 1396 AH / 1976 CE)

Mufti Muḥammad Shafīʿ asks why inheritance follows legal nearness rather than whichever relative presently appears poorest or most useful. Need can change from month to month, estimates of usefulness depend on human judgment, and family pressure can reshape both. If either controlled inheritance, every death would reopen the question of who deserved the estate most. Kinship and degree provide a stable rule known before preference and pressure enter the room.^[3]

3. Iʿrāb: Grammatical Structure

The word table follows the Dār al-Ṣaḥābah Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān al-Karīm.^[1] Ṣāfī supplies the separate description of the attached pronoun in “of it” and the six clause relationships.^[2]

The two main clauses have the same construction. Each names the recipients first, “for men” and “for women,” and then states that they have a share. In grammatical terms, the prepositional phrase supplies the fronted predicate and “a share” is the delayed subject.^[3] The closing phrases then describe the estate as little or much and the share as obligatory.

Arabic writes a one-letter preposition or conjunction joined to the word it governs, and the three occurrences of مِمَّا (mimmā) are each the preposition مِنْ (min) with the relative مَا (mā) after it, the nūn assimilating into the mīm in speech and in writing alike. Each of those pieces takes a row of its own below, which is what makes both واوs (wāw) visible.

Word	Grammar	What it does
لِ li	حرف جرّ ḥarf jarr Preposition	The "for" that assigns, and it comes before the thing assigned
الرِّجَالِ al-rijāli	مجرور majrūr In jarr because the preposition governs it	With the preposition it makes a جارّ ومجرور (jārr wa-majrūr) standing where the predicate would, and placed first
نَصِيبٌ naṣībun	مبتدأ مؤخّر مرفوع mubtadaʾ muʾakhkhar marfūʿ A delayed subject in rafʿ	Names the share assigned to the recipients stated first
مِنْ min	حرف جرّ ḥarf jarr Preposition	"From." It opens the source the share comes out of
مَا mā	موصول في محلّ جرّ mawṣūl fī maḥall jarr A relative word in the jarr position	"What." The phrase attaches to an omitted qualifier of نَصِيبٌ, so it describes the share
تَرَكَ taraka	فعل ماض fiʿl māḍin Past verb	"Left." It states the leaving and names nobody's intention
الْوَالِدَانِ al-wālidāni	فاعل مرفوع بالألف fāʿil marfūʿ bi-l-alif The verb’s subject, in rafʿ, marked by the dual alif	The two the property came from
وَ wa	عاطفة ʿāṭifa The joining "and"	Adds a second group to the subject of تَرَكَ
الْأَقْرَبُونَ al-aqrabūna	معطوف مرفوع بالواو maʿṭūf marfūʿ bi-l-wāw Joined to الْوَالِدَانِ, in rafʿ, marked by the wāw	The wider family, named beside the parents as a second source of estates
وَ wa	عاطفة ʿāṭifa The joining "and"	Joins the women's clause to the men's. Not a new sentence, and not a subordinate one
لِ li	حرف جرّ ḥarf jarr Preposition	The same "for" as the first clause, said again where a pronoun would have done the work
النِّسَاءِ al-nisāʾi	مجرور majrūr In jarr because the preposition governs it	The women, standing where the men stood
نَصِيبٌ مِمَّا تَرَكَ الْوَالِدَانِ وَالْأَقْرَبُونَ naṣībun mimmā taraka al-wālidāni wa-l-aqrabūna	مثل إعراب ما قبله mithl iʿrāb mā qablah Its grammar is that of what came before it	Word for word as the first clause. The Dār al-Ṣaḥābah Iʿrāb writes مثل (mithl), "like it", and moves on
مِنْ min	حرف جرّ ḥarf jarr Preposition	The third "from", the preposition said a third time
مَا mā	موصول في محلّ جرّ mawṣūl fī maḥall jarr A relative word in the jarr position	Names the estate a third time through a clause that gives its two extremes, little and much
قَلَّ qalla	فعل ماض fiʿl māḍin Past verb, its subject a hidden pronoun	"Was little." The hidden subject goes back to the property
مِنْ min	حرف جرّ ḥarf jarr Preposition	Attached to قَلَّ
هُ hu	ضمير في محلّ جرّ ḍamīr fī maḥall jarr A pronoun in the jarr position	"Of it", pointing back to what was left
أَوْ aw	عاطفة ʿāṭifa The joining "or"	Sets the two ends of the scale beside each other
كَثُرَ kathura	معطوفة على ما قبلها maʿṭūfa ʿalā mā qablahā Joined to قَلَّ, and built like it	"Was much." Together the opposed terms span the full range of estate sizes, so size does not affect entitlement
نَصِيبًا naṣīban	حال ḥāl A description of state, from the subject of قَلَّ or كَثُرَ	Closes the verse on a portion already imposed; the Dār al-Ṣaḥābah baseline relates this state to whatever was little or much
مَفْرُوضًا mafrūḍan	نعت منصوب naʿt manṣūb An adjectival qualifier of نَصِيبًا, in naṣb	Says of the share that it has been cut to size and made binding

Clause	Position
لِلرِّجَالِ نَصِيبٌ مِمَّا تَرَكَ الْوَالِدَانِ وَالْأَقْرَبُونَ “For men is a share of what parents and close relatives leave.”	استئنافيّة istiʾnāfiyya. Opens a new sentence and holds no position of its own
تَرَكَ الْوَالِدَانِ وَالْأَقْرَبُونَ “Parents and close relatives left”; completing the first مَا, “what.”	صلة الموصول ṣilat al-mawṣūl. Completes the first relative word; it has no independent position of rafʿ, naṣb or jarr
وَلِلنِّسَاءِ نَصِيبٌ مِمَّا تَرَكَ الْوَالِدَانِ وَالْأَقْرَبُونَ “And for women is a share of what parents and close relatives leave.”	معطوفة على الاستئنافيّة maʿṭūfa ʿalā al-istiʾnāfiyya. Joined to the opening sentence and likewise has no independent position of rafʿ, naṣb or jarr
تَرَكَ الْوَالِدَانِ وَالْأَقْرَبُونَ “Parents and close relatives left”; completing the second مَا.	صلة الموصول ṣilat al-mawṣūl. The second relative's clause
قَلَّ مِنْهُ “Was little of it.”	صلة الموصول ṣilat al-mawṣūl. The third relative's clause
أَوْ كَثُرَ “Or was much.”	معطوفة على جملة قلّ maʿṭūfa ʿalā jumlat qalla. Joined to the clause before it

The closing word is singular although the verse has named shares for both men and women. Ibn ʿĀshūr explains that نَصِيب (naṣīb), “share,” is used generically here. The ending describes the kind of entitlement already established in both clauses, rather than counting separate portions.^[4]

Where the grammar changes the meaning

نَصِيبًا (naṣīban), the word that closes the verse.

The final naṣīban is مَنْصُوب (manṣūb), marked here by its -an ending. The grammatical question is what gives it that position. Does it describe a state, name an act of allotment, or depend on a verb understood from the sentence? Al-Samīn al-Ḥalabī separates five explanations.^[5] Al-ʿUkbarī records four without naming their holders.^[6]

The table begins with the Dār al-Ṣaḥābah baseline used in the word-by-word analysis, then sets out the alternatives.

Grammatical analysis	What it means
حال من فاعل قلَّ أو كثُر ḥāl min fāʿil qalla aw kathura A description of state, of whatever was little or much	The estate itself standing in the condition of an imposed share. The Dār al-Ṣaḥābah baseline analysis
حال مؤكِّدة ḥāl muʾakkida A confirming description, of the نَصِيبٌ already named	An entitlement already given, now set before the reader as imposed. Al-Zajjāj's and Makkī's, and Ṣāfī's preference^[7]
واقع موقع المصدر wāqiʿ mawqiʿ al-maṣdar Standing in the place of a maṣdar, a noun naming the action	The act of granting named, rather than the thing granted. Al-Farrāʾ's, and al-Akhfash is reported with him^[8]
النصب بإضمار فعل al-naṣb bi-iḍmār fiʿl In naṣb through an understood verb	An assignment made, with the assigner not named
مصدر صريح maṣdar ṣarīḥ A maṣdar, naming the act of allotment	The allotting itself, in the manner of he allotted it an allotting

Al-Zamakhsharī gives a sixth explanation: الاختصاص (al-ikhtiṣāṣ), specification, with an understood أَعْنِي (aʿnī), “I mean,” before the word. Abū Ḥayyān objects that the noun in this construction must be definite, whereas نَصِيبًا is indefinite.^[9] Darwīsh likewise sees no need for this account.^[10] The objection concerns the conditions of the construction, not the intelligibility of the proposed sense. “I mean an obligatory share” is understandable; that alone does not satisfy the grammatical requirement.

Why this matters. On the circumstantial explanations, the phrase describes the share as imposed. The verbal-noun explanations express allotment, while the omitted-verb explanation supplies an act such as “He assigned them a share.” The grammatical account changes, but each expresses the same binding entitlement. “An obligatory share” remains a suitable English rendering. These alternatives do not produce different inheritance rights.

مِمَّا (mimmā), the third "of what".

The estate has already been named in each of the two main clauses. The third “of what” returns to that same property and expressly includes what is little and what is much. The question is how this added phrase connects with the wording before it.

One account treats it as a restatement of the estate; the other treats it as a description of the property’s condition.

One account treats the third phrase as a substitution, بَدَل (badal), for the earlier expression, with the preposition repeated. Al-Samīn records both this construction and the circumstantial alternative.^[11] Al-Zamakhsharī analyzes it as a substitution,^[12] and al-ʿUkbarī records the two analyses side by side.^[13] Abū Ḥayyān explains the effect of the substitution: the restatement comes by way of emphasis and sets out the estate in its two quantities, little and much.^[14]

Abū al-Baqāʾ gave another analysis, preserved by Abū Ḥayyān. On this analysis the phrase is circumstantial, حَال (ḥāl), and what it describes is not the phrase before it but the unstated thing that was left behind: what they left, in the state of being little or much.^[15]

Why this matters. The substitution account restates what was left by specifying its two quantities, little and much. Abū Ḥayyān explains that restatement as emphasis. The circumstantial account attaches the quantity description to the property understood after “left.” Both include the small estate and the large one, and both can be rendered “whether it is little or much.” The difference is in the grammatical connection, not in whether either size carries an inheritance right.

4. Ṣarf: Roots and Morphology

ن-ص-ب, for نَصِيب. The word for “share” occurs three times. Its pattern, فَعِيل (faʿīl), can carry the sense of something acted upon, as in قَتِيل (qatīl), “one who has been killed,” and جَرِيح (jarīḥ), “one who has been wounded.” The lexical evidence identifies that sense here: a نَصِيب is a portion set out for someone, not simply whatever he chooses to take.

Ibn Fāris defines the word as a portion of a thing,^[1] and Ibn Manẓūr gives the same basic sense.^[2] Al-Rāghib makes the designation explicit: the portion is الْمَنْصُوب (al-manṣūb), set up and marked out.^[3] Asās al-Balāghah likewise describes a share distinctly set apart from the rest.^[4]

Other words from ن-ص-ب concern setting something upright or planting it visibly; a boundary stone is نُصْب (nuṣb). This lexical connection helps explain the idea of an allotted portion as something set out and marked. In the verse, the first two occurrences of “share” are the subjects of the parallel clauses. The third is manṣūb, closing the verse by describing the entitlement already stated for both groups. The recognised holder’s share is not left to another relative’s discretion.

ف-ر-ض, for مَفْرُوضًا. The closing word is an ism mafʿūl, a passive participle on the pattern مَفْعُول (mafʿūl): it describes something upon which an act has been performed. Here the share has been imposed. The word is manṣūb because it qualifies نَصِيبًا, “a share.”

Ibn Fāris begins with a physical act: cutting or notching something, leaving a mark in it. He then connects that sense with an obligation imposed by Allah, which likewise has defined limits.^[5]

Lisān al-ʿArab keeps all three senses side by side, appointed, cut out, bounded.^[6] Al-Rāghib presses the decisiveness of the assigning.^[7] Al-Samīn gathers the three that matter for this verse: determined, delivered in full, and known.^[8]

“Obligatory” conveys that the entitlement is binding. The root of مَفْرُوض (mafrūḍ) also carries the idea of a portion marked out and delimited. Together, these senses describe a share imposed by Allah whose boundaries the family does not set for itself. The right is already binding here, although the individual amounts are given in the detailed inheritance rulings.

ت-ر-ك, for تَرَكَ. Ibn Fāris centres the root on letting go of a thing and leaving it behind.^[9] Al-Rāghib takes the step that matters here. The noun تَرِكَة (tarika), from the same root, is precisely what a man leaves behind him after death.^[10]

The verb says what the deceased left behind, not whom he chose to enrich. That distinction matters for inheritance: the property becomes the estate from which the heirs receive their rights under the law. Their entitlement does not depend on his having chosen to make each of them a gift.

ق-ر-ب, for الْأَقْرَبُونَ. The stem أَقْرَب (aqrab) is an elative, the form أَفْعَل (afʿal) that ordinarily means more or most of something, used here as a noun: the nearer ones, the nearest. Ibn Fāris gives the root the sense of what is not far, and extends it directly to the person who is near to you by kinship rather than by distance.^[11] Al-Rāghib cites this very verse under that relational sense.^[12]

The comparative form raises a legal question: nearer than whom? Relative nearness alone does not identify a bounded class of heirs. Al-Rāzī’s objection concerns precisely that gap between the breadth of the expression and the particular entitlement that must be established. The morphology explains why the question arises; the legal proofs determine the answer.

ر-ج-ل, and the different formation of النِّسَاء. The nouns for men and women occupy matching positions in the verse, but their plurals are formed differently.

رِجَال (rijāl) is the broken plural of رَجُل (rajul), “man,” on the pattern فِعَال (fiʿāl). Ibn Fāris records this plural family,^[13] and al-Rāghib identifies the contextual sense as the males of humankind.^[14]

For النِّسَاء (al-nisāʾ), “women,” the singular is امْرَأَة (imraʾa), “woman.” The two words do not share a root: Lisān al-ʿArab and al-Rāghib explain that the plural comes from different wording.^[15] It therefore cannot be obtained by applying a plural pattern to the singular’s own stem.^[16]

The two nouns are formed in different ways but stand in parallel declarations of entitlement. Their grammatical symmetry in the sentence does not require the same morphological relationship between singular and plural.

The three remaining roots.

Root	Pattern	What the pattern does
و-ل-د w-l-d, for الْوَالِدَانِ (al-wālidāni)	فَاعِل fāʿil Ism fāʿil, a noun naming the doer, here in the dual	Names the one who begets, and a masculine dual covers a masculine and a feminine together: the father, the mother, and the two of them as الْوَالِدَانِ.^[17] The form does not mean two fathers. Whether it reaches past them to a grandparent must be decided by the legal proofs
ق-ل-ل q-l-l, for قَلَّ (qalla)	فِعْل ماضٍ مجرَّد مضاعَف fiʿl māḍin mujarrad muḍāʿaf Bare Form I perfect, doubled root	Describes the estate itself as little; its hidden subject returns to what was left.^[18]
ك-ث-ر k-th-r, for كَثُرَ (kathura)	فِعْل ماضٍ مجرَّد fiʿl māḍin mujarrad Bare Form I perfect	Describes the same estate as much. Together the opposed verbs span the range from small estates to large ones.^[19]

Why الْوَالِدَانِ names both parents. Ibn ʿAṭiyyah explains that the masculine dual gathers the father and the mother because the child comes from both. He cites this complete rajaz expression as it is transmitted in his tafsir:

بِحَيْثُ يَعْتَشُ الْغُرَابُ الْبَائِضُ
“Where the egg-laying raven builds its nest.”

The expression uses the grammatically masculine noun الْغُرَاب, “raven,” for a bird identified through the female act of laying an egg, الْبَائِض, “egg-laying.” Ibn ʿAṭiyyah cites that usage by analogy: the masculine dual الْوَالِدَانِ does not mean “two fathers,” but gathers the father and mother as the two parents.^[20]

5. Balāghah: Rhetorical Analysis

Opening a new sentence rather than continuing the last (الاسْتِئْنَاف الابْتِدَائِيّ, al-istiʾnāf al-ibtidāʾī)

Where it is. لِلرِّجَالِ, “for men,” opens the verse without a connecting واو, wāw, “and.”

The plain way. A connecting “and” would make the link to the preceding instruction explicit. Instead, after the directions to guardians in 4:6, the verse begins with a fresh declaration of inheritance rights.

What it does. Ibn ʿĀshūr calls the opening اسْتِئْنَافٌ ابْتِدَائِيٌّ, “an independent opening sentence.”^[1] He also explains its connection with what surrounds it: the declaration follows the protection of orphan property and prepares for the detailed inheritance laws.^[2]

The effect. The reader encounters the entitlement as a declaration in its own right. The independent sentence remains connected to the passage’s concern with property and its protection: first the orphan’s existing property, then the right by which an heir receives an estate.

Saying it at more length than the sense requires (الإِطْنَاب, al-iṭnāb)

Where it is.

﴿لِّلرِّجَالِ نَصِيبٞ مِّمَّا تَرَكَ ٱلۡوَٰلِدَانِ وَٱلۡأَقۡرَبُونَ وَلِلنِّسَآءِ نَصِيبٞ مِّمَّا تَرَكَ ٱلۡوَٰلِدَانِ وَٱلۡأَقۡرَبُونَ﴾
“For men is a share of what parents and close relatives leave, and for women is a share of what parents and close relatives leave.” (4:7)

The second clause repeats the first clause’s construction and names the source of the estate again.

The plain way. Al-Shawkānī writes out the shorter alternative himself:

وَلَمْ يَقُلْ: لِلرِّجَالِ وَالنِّسَاءِ نَصِيبٌ
“He did not say: for men and women is a share.”^[3]

A single statement could have named both groups; the verse gives each a complete clause.

What it does. Al-Zuḥaylī names the figure:

وَيُوجَدُ إِطْنَابٌ فِي قَوْلِهِ: لِلرِّجَالِ نَصِيبٌ ... وَلِلنِّسَاءِ نَصِيبٌ
“There is expansion in His saying: for men is a share … and for women is a share.”^[4]

The general principle is the one al-Suyūṭī transmits from al-Zamakhsharī: where a subject calls for detail, the speaker develops it fully.^[5]

Al-Shawkānī explains the purpose here:

لِلْإِيذَانِ بِأَصَالَتِهِنَّ فِي هَذَا الْحُكْمِ، وَدَفْعِ مَا كَانَتْ عَلَيْهِ الْجَاهِلِيَّةُ مِنْ عَدَمِ تَوْرِيثِ النِّسَاءِ
“to announce their independent standing in this ruling, and to overturn the practice of the Jāhiliyyah of not allowing women to inherit.”^[6]

Al-Ṣābūnī likewise connects the repetition with confirming their right.^[7]

The effect. The women’s clause repeats the whole declaration of entitlement rather than attaching women to a statement made principally about men. It gives them their own stated share and names its source in full. That complete parallel is especially forceful against the former practice of excluding them. The right is affirmed for both groups; its detailed amounts come later.

Strengthening what is said (التَّوْكِيد, al-tawkīd)

Where it is. The third مِمَّا, “of what,” opens مِمَّا قَلَّ مِنْهُ أَوْ كَثُرَ, “whether it is little or much,” after مِمَّا تَرَكَ, “of what they left.”

The plain way. “What parents and close relatives leave” already names the estate generally. The verse could move from that general description to “an obligatory share.” Instead it expressly includes both the little and the much.

What it does. Abū Ḥayyān explains the later phrase as a substitute for the earlier one, with the preposition repeated:

لِأَنَّ الْبَدَلَ جَاءَ عَلَى سَبِيلِ التَّوْكِيدِ
“because the substitution came by way of emphasis.”^[8]

The estate is named again through its two quantities. The circumstantial alternative is set out in the grammar discussion; both accounts connect the quantity range to the same property.^[9]

The effect. The express mention of quantity prevents the general phrase from being treated as though it concerned only substantial property. An heir’s right does not disappear because an item or an estate is small.

Setting a word against its opposite (الطِّبَاق, al-ṭibāq)

Where it is. قَلَّ and كَثُرَ, “was little” and “was much.”

The plain way. The estate could have been named without stating its size. Here the verse puts the two opposed quantities beside one another.

What it does. Al-Zuḥaylī identifies the pairing:

يُوجَدُ طِبَاقٌ بَيْنَ قَوْلِهِ: قَلَّ وَكَثُرَ
“There is contrast between His words: was little and was much.”^[10]

The opposed terms express the range of estate sizes. Al-Ālūsī also comments on their order:

وَتَقْدِيمُ الْقَلِيلِ عَلَى الْكَثِيرِ مِنْ بَابِ لَا يُغَادِرُ صَغِيرَةً وَلَا كَبِيرَةً إِلَّا أَحْصَاهَا
“Putting the little before the much is of the same manner as ‘it leaves out neither a small deed nor a great one without counting it.’”^[11]

The effect. The small estate receives explicit attention before the large one. Neither end of the range supplies an excuse for withholding a share; even what might be dismissed as too little to matter remains within the right the verse establishes.

Leaving a word out (الحَذْف, al-ḥadhf), where the missing word is known

Where it is. مَفْرُوضًا, “made obligatory,” is a passive participle. It describes the share without expressly naming the One who imposes it.

The plain way. In 4:11 the inheritance provisions close with فَرِيضَةً مِنَ اللَّهِ, “an obligation from Allah.” There the One who imposes the obligation is named expressly.

What it does. Ibn ʿUthaymīn explains the omission by the fact that its meaning is known:

جَوَازُ حَذْفِ مَا يُعْلَمُ ... فَالْفَارِضُ هُوَ اللهُ
“the permissibility of omitting what is known … for the One who imposes is Allah.”^[12]

The passive description conveys an imposed share, while its divine source is understood.

The effect. The verse closes by describing the entitlement as binding. The family administering the estate is dealing with a share Allah has imposed, not deciding whether to create a right for its holder.

The shape of the whole verse

Ibn ʿĀshūr explains the placement in both directions:

وَهُوَ جَارٍ مَجْرَى النَّتِيجَةِ لِحُكْمِ إِيتَاءِ أَمْوَالِ الْيَتَامَى، وَمَجْرَى الْمُقَدِّمَةِ لِأَحْكَامِ الْمَوَارِيثِ
“It runs as the conclusion to the ruling on handing over the orphans’ property, and as the introduction to the rulings of inheritance.”^[13]

The preceding verses protect property already owned by a vulnerable person. This verse states the right by which men and women inherit property from parents and relatives. The detailed allocations follow. Ibn ʿĀshūr explains why the right is stated generally before its amounts: this order prepares people to receive the inheritance rulings.^[14] The verse connects the protection of property with the recognition of those entitled to it.

6. Qirāʾāt: The Readings

Neither Ibn al-Jazarī’s al-Nashr nor Ibn Jinnī’s al-Muḥtasab records a verse-specific qirāʾah for 4:7.^[1]

These grammatical and legal positions concern how the wording is explained, not a verse-specific qirāʾah recorded by these two works.

And Allah knows best.

Notes

Historical Context

ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Tafsīr, 1/437, through Maʿmar from Qatādah; al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān, 6/430. Qatādah said: كَانُوا لَا يُوَرِّثُونَ النِّسَاءَ, “They used not to let women inherit.” Ḥikmat Bashīr Yāsīn records this athar from al-Ṭabarī with a ḥasan isnād (al-Ṣaḥīḥ al-Masbūr, 2/10). ↩
Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, 3/871–872, from Saʿīd b. Jubayr through Abū Zurʿah, Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Bukayr, Ibn Lahīʿah and ʿAṭāʾ b. Dīnār: كَانُوا لَا يُوَرِّثُونَ النِّسَاءَ وَلَا الْوِلْدَانَ الصِّغَارَ شَيْئًا, “They used not to let women or young children inherit anything.” Aḥmad b. Ṣāliḥ says that ʿAṭāʾ’s tafsīr from Saʿīd is a written ṣaḥīfa, with no evidence that he heard it from Saʿīd. Abū Ḥātim explains that Saʿīd wrote his tafsīr at ʿAbd al-Malik’s request. ʿAṭāʾ found that written tafsīr in the dīwān, the official records, and transmitted it from Saʿīd mursal (Ibn Abī Ḥātim, al-Jarḥ wa-l-Taʿdīl, 6/332). ↩
Ibn ʿAṭiyyah, al-Muḥarrar al-Wajīz, 2/12, reports this explanation from Qatādah, ʿIkrimah and Ibn Zayd: لَا يَرِثُ إِلَّا مَنْ طَاعَنَ بِالرُّمْحِ وَقَاتَلَ بِالسَّيْفِ, “None inherits except one who has thrust with the spear and fought with the sword.” ↩
Ibn al-Mundhir, Tafsīr, 2/577, no. 1404, through ʿAlī b. al-Mubārak, Zayd, Ibn Thawr and Ibn Jurayj. Ibn Jurayj quotes an unnamed freedman of Ibn ʿAbbās who names Umm Kulthūm and the daughter of Umm Kaḥlah. He then reports that other, unnamed authorities identify the widow as Umm Ḥujjah. ↩
Ibn ʿAṭiyyah, al-Muḥarrar al-Wajīz, 2/12, attributes this account to ʿIkrimah: Umm Kaḥlah’s husband, Aws b. Suwayd, died leaving a daughter, whose paternal uncle took the estate. Ibn ʿAṭiyyah gives no isnād here. ↩
Al-Baghawī, Maʿālim al-Tanzīl, 1/571–572, ed. ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Mahdī, records the account of Aws b. Thābit, his widow Umm Kujjah, their three daughters and the paternal cousins Suwayd and ʿArfajah. He gives no isnād in the account. ↩
Abū al-Shaykh, from Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما, as collected by al-Suyūṭī, al-Durr al-Manthūr, 2/438–439: Aws b. Thābit left two daughters and a young son; the paternal cousins Khālid and ʿArfaṭah took the estate. Al-Suyūṭī does not give the isnād here. ↩
Al-Thaʿlabī, al-Kashf wa-l-Bayān, Dār al-Tafsīr printing, 10/90–93, identifies the two men as the deceased’s paternal cousins and executors, and attributes the names Qatādah and ʿArfaṭah to al-Kalbī, and Suwayd and ʿArfajah to another, unnamed authority. His wording is: فقال الكلبي: قتادة وعَرْفطة، وقال غيره: سويد وعرفجة, “Al-Kalbī said: Qatādah and ʿArfaṭah; another said: Suwayd and ʿArfajah.” ↩
Al-Tirmidhī, Sunan, 3/598–599, no. 2092, Abwāb al-Farāʾiḍ, chapter on daughters’ inheritance, ed. Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf, from Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh رضي الله عنه. Al-Tirmidhī grades it ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ, saying that he knows it only through ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. ʿAqīl, from whom Sharīk also narrates it. Ibn Mājah, Sunan, 2/908, no. 2720, ed. Muḥammad Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Bāqī, and Aḥmad, Musnad, Muʾassasat al-Risālah printing, 23/108–109, no. 14798, also record Jābir’s account. Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, 3/120–121, nos. 2891–2892, ed. Muḥyī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, corrects the first narration’s name: the girls were Saʿd b. al-Rabīʿ’s daughters, not Thābit b. Qays’s; Thābit was killed at al-Yamāmah. He calls the narration naming Saʿd more correct. Al-Albānī grades both asanīd ḥasan (Ṣaḥīḥ Sunan Abī Dāwūd, Ghiras printing, 8/247–250). He considers the incorrect name most likely an error by Ibn ʿAqīl, since the transmitters below him are reliable and accurate, while several other transmitters give Saʿd’s name correctly. Al-Albānī grades this report ḥasan in Irwāʾ al-Ghalīl, 6/121–122, no. 1677. He considers Ibn ʿAqīl’s narrations ḥasan when he does not contradict others. ↩
Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā, Tafsīr al-Manār, 4/323, identifies the account of Aws b. Thābit’s two daughters and young son as transmitted by Abū al-Shaykh and Ibn Ḥibbān in al-Farāʾiḍ, through al-Kalbī, Abū Ṣāliḥ and Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما. Riḍā states: وطريق الكلبي عن أبي صالح هي أوهى الطرق عن ابن عباس وأضعفها, “The route of al-Kalbī from Abū Ṣāliḥ is the frailest and weakest of the routes from Ibn ʿAbbās.” ↩

Word-by-Word Analysis

Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān, 6/429–431: حِصَّةً مَفْرُوضَةً وَاجِبَةً، مَعْلُومَةً مُؤَقَّتَةً "A share imposed and binding, known and delimited." ↩
Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, 1/50–52: وَإِنَّمَا نَصَّ عَلَى نَصِيبِ النِّسَاءِ بِهَذِهِ الصِّيغَةِ الْمُسَاوِيَةِ لِنَصِيبِ الرِّجَالِ تَأْكِيدًا لِحَقِّهِنَّ "He stated the women's share explicitly in this wording, the same as the wording for the men's share, only to confirm their right." and الْمُرَادُ أَنَّهُ مُحَتَّمٌ، وَلَيْسَ الْمُرَادُ أَنَّهُ مُقَدَّرٌ "What is meant is that it is binding; what is meant is not that it is a set amount.". لَا فَرْقَ بَيْنَ الْقَلِيلِ وَالْكَثِيرِ "There is no difference between the small and the large." ↩

Understanding the Verse

Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Ṣābūnī, Rawāʾiʿ al-Bayān, 1/435–438: فَصَّلَ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى الْحُكْمَ بِطَرِيقِ الْإِطْنَابِ "Allah, exalted is He, set out the ruling in detail by way of iṭnāb (amplification)." ↩
Al-Shawkānī, Fatḥ al-Qadīr, 1/493: لِلْإِيذَانِ بِأَصَالَتِهِنَّ فِي هَذَا الْحُكْمِ، وَدَفْعِ مَا كَانَتْ عَلَيْهِ الْجَاهِلِيَّةُ مِنْ عَدَمِ تَوْرِيثِ النِّسَاءِ "To make known that they hold an original right in this ruling, and to reject what the Jāhiliyyah was upon, of not letting women inherit.". وَقَدْ أَجْمَلَ اللَّهُ سُبْحَانَهُ فِي هَذِهِ الْمَوَاضِعِ قَدْرَ النَّصِيبِ الْمَفْرُوضِ، ثُمَّ أَنْزَلَ قَوْلَهُ: يُوصِيكُمُ اللَّهُ فِي أَوْلادِكُمْ فبين مِيرَاثُ كُلِّ فَرْدٍ "Allah stated the measure of the obligatory share in summary in these places, then sent down His words ‘Allah instructs you concerning your children’, and made plain the inheritance of each individual.". وَأَفْرَدَ سُبْحَانَهُ ذِكْرَ النِّسَاءِ بَعْدَ ذِكْرِ الرِّجَالِ، وَلَمْ يَقُلْ: لِلرِّجَالِ وَالنِّسَاءِ نَصِيبٌ "And He, glorified is He, singled out the mention of the women after the mention of the men, and He did not say: for men and women there is a share." ↩
Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Ṣābūnī, Ṣafwat al-Tafāsīr, 1/238: الْجَمِيعُ فِيهِ سَوَاءٌ يَسْتَوُونَ فِي أَصْلِ الْوِرَاثَةِ وَإِنْ تَفَاوَتُوا فِي قَدْرِهَا "All are equal in it. They are equal in the principle of inheritance, even if they differ in its amount." ↩
Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, 1/50–52. ↩
Al-Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif al-Ishārāt, 1/315: حكم الميراث لا يختلف بالفضل والمنقبة، ولا يتفاوت بالعيب والنقص والذنب فلو مات رجل وخلف ابنين تساويا فى الاستحقاق وإن كان أحدهما برا تقيا والآخر فاجرا عصيّا "The ruling of inheritance does not differ by merit and distinction, nor is it graded by defect, deficiency or sin. Were a man to die leaving two sons, they would be equal in entitlement even if one of them were dutiful and God-fearing and the other dissolute and disobedient." His reason: وَالْمَعْنَى فِيهِ أَنَّ الْمِيرَاثَ ابْتِدَاءُ عَطِيَّةٍ مِنْ قِبَلِ اللَّهِ، فَيَتَسَاوَى فِيهِ الْبَرُّ وَالْفَاجِرُ "the sense of it is that inheritance is, in its origin, a gift from Allah, so the upright and the dissolute stand equal in it." He then draws the point across to faith, citing ثُمَّ أَوْرَثْنَا الْكِتَابَ الَّذِينَ اصْطَفَيْنَا مِنْ عِبَادِنَا at 35:32, where those made to inherit the Book are afterwards sorted into ظَالِمٌ لِنَفْسِهِ and the rest: the gift comes first, the sorting after. Al-Qushayrī speaks of sin as a moral grade. He is silent on the recognised legal impediments to inheritance, difference of religion and the killing of the deceased among them. ↩
Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/247: وَمُنَاسَبَةُ تَعْقِيبِ الْآيِ السَّابِقَةِ بِهَا: أَنَّهُمْ كَانُوا قَدِ اعْتَادُوا إِيثَارَ الْأَقْوِيَاءِ وَالْأَشِدَّاءِ بِالْأَمْوَالِ، وَحِرْمَانَ الضُّعَفَاءِ، وَإِبْقَاءَهُمْ عَالَةً عَلَى أَشِدَّائِهِمْ حَتَّى يَكُونُوا فِي مَقَادَتِهِمْ "And the fitness of following the preceding verses with this one is that they had grown used to favouring the strong and the powerful with the property, and to depriving the weak, and to keeping them dependent upon their powerful men so that they would be under their lead." ↩
Al-Saʿdī, Taysīr al-Karīm al-Raḥmān, p. 165; Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, 1/50–52. ↩
Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/250: لِقَصْدِ تَعْمِيمِ مَا تَرَكَ الْوَالِدَانِ وَالْأَقْرَبُونَ وَتَنْصِيصٌ عَلَى أَنَّ الْحَقَّ مُتَعَلِّقٌ بِكُلِّ جُزْءٍ مِنَ الْمَالِ "To make general whatever the parents and near relatives left, and as an explicit statement that the right attaches to every part of the property.". وَحَيْثُ أُرِيدَ بِنَصِيبٍ الْجِنْسُ جَاءَ الْحَالُ مِنْهُ مُفْرَدًا "And since the generic sense was intended by naṣīb, the circumstantial qualifier from it came in the singular." ↩
al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-Maʿānī, 2/421: دَفْعُ تَوَهُّمِ اخْتِصَاصِ بَعْضِ الْأَمْوَالِ بِبَعْضِ الْوَرَثَةِ كَالْخَيْلِ وَآلَاتِ الْحَرْبِ لِلرِّجَالِ "To remove the false notion that certain kinds of property belong to certain heirs alone, such as horses and the weapons of war going to the men.". أَنَّ لِكُلٍّ مِنَ الْفَرِيقَيْنِ حَقًّا مِنْ كُلِّ مَا جَلَّ وَدَقَّ "that each of the two groups has a right in all that is great and all that is small" and وَتَقْدِيمُ الْقَلِيلِ عَلَى الْكَثِيرِ مِنْ بَابِ لَا يُغَادِرُ صَغِيرَةً وَلَا كَبِيرَةً إِلَّا أَحْصَاهَا "And putting the little before the much is of the same kind as: it leaves nothing small or great except that it has enumerated it." ↩
Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 5/48: لَيْسَ فِي الْآيَةِ تَعَرُّضٌ لِلْقِسْمَةِ "The verse does not take up division." and وَالْأَظْهَرُ سُقُوطُ الْقِسْمَةِ فِيمَا يُبْطِلُ الْمَنْفَعَةَ وَيُنْقِصُ الْمَالَ "The more apparent view is that division falls away in whatever destroys the benefit and reduces the property." ↩
Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, 1/52: جَوَازُ حَذْفِ مَا يُعْلَمُ، وَتُؤْخَذُ مِنْ قَوْلِهِ: ﴿مَفْرُوضًا﴾، فَالْفَارِضُ هُوَ اللهُ، لَكِنْ حُذِفَ وَبُنِيَ الْوَصْفُ لِلْمَفْعُولِ لِلْعِلْمِ بِهِ "The permissibility of omitting what is known. It is taken from His words ﴿مَفْرُوضًا﴾ (mafrūḍan), for the one who imposes is Allah, but it was omitted and the descriptive term was built for the passive because it is known." ↩

Thematic Connections in the Qurʾān

Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Ṣābūnī, Rawāʾiʿ al-Bayān, 1/434: الْأَقْرِبَاءُ الَّذِينَ لَا يَرِثُونَ لِكَوْنِهِمْ مَحْجُوبِينَ، أَوْ لِكَوْنِهِمْ مِنْ ذَوِي الْأَرْحَامِ "The relatives who do not inherit because they are blocked from inheriting, or because they are among the dhawū al-arḥām." ↩
Ibn al-ʿArabī, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 1/428–429: fixed heirs receive their assigned rights while present non-heirs receive recommended provision. ↩
al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 5/49. ↩
al-Saʿdī, Taysīr al-Karīm al-Raḥmān, p. 165. ↩
Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, 1/53. ↩

Gems and Subtleties

Al-Zarkashī, al-Burhān fī ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān, 2/192, in the chapter on knowing the Qurʾān's interpretation: فَإِنَّ هَذِهِ الْآيَةَ مُجْمَلَةٌ لَا يُعْلَمُ مِنْهَا مَنْ يَرِثُ مِنَ الرِّجَالِ وَالنِّسَاءِ بِالْفَرْضِ وَالتَّعْصِيبِ وَمَنْ يَرِثُ وَمَنْ لَا يَرِثُ ثُمَّ بَيِّنَهُ فِي آيَةٍ أُخْرَى "For this verse is undetailed; one does not learn from it who among the men and the women inherits by fixed share and by residuary claim, nor who inherits and who does not. Then He made it plain in another verse." ↩
Al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-Maʿānī, 2/421. ↩

Contemporary Applications

Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 5/48. ↩
Al-Bayḍāwī, Anwār al-Tanzīl, 2/61, and Abū al-Suʿūd, Irshād al-ʿAql al-Salīm, 2/147, in the same words: وَفِيهِ دَلِيلٌ عَلَى أَنَّ الْوَارِثَ لَوْ أَعْرَضَ عَنْ نَصِيبِهِ لَمْ يَسْقُطْ حَقُّهُ "In it is a proof that if the heir turns away from his share, his right does not lapse." ↩
Sayyid Quṭb, Fī Ẓilāl al-Qurʾān, trans. Adil Salahi, vol. 3, pp. 36–38: “gain is commensurate with liability”, and the placing of reciprocal inheritance within family duties and widening circles of social security. ↩
Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 2/436, reports one construction of Q2:233 as مِنَ الْمُوَاسَاةِ الْوَاجِبَةِ "part of the obligatory muwāsāh (support given to others)". ↩
Ibn al-Jawzī, Zād al-Masīr, 1/448, describes the liability group as making the payment عَلَى طَرِيقِ الْمُوَاسَاةِ "by way of muwāsāh (support given to others)". ↩
Al-Jaṣṣāṣ, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 2/112 and 3/195–196, distinguishes maintenance and mutual-liability classes from the inheritance class. al-Shāfiʿī material compiled by al-Bayhaqī, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān li-l-Shāfiʿī, p. 240, states that maintenance is not assigned solely by heirship. ↩

Common Misconceptions

Muḥammad ʿImāra, introduction to Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Sulṭān, Mīrāth al-Marʾa wa-Qaḍiyyat al-Musāwāt. He sets out three things that govern a share: the degree of kinship, the position of the heir’s generation in the sequence of generations, and the financial burden the Law obliges that heir to bear for others. Only the third of the three turns on sex. His own illustration of the second: فالبنت ترث أكثر من الأم - وكلتاهما أنثى - بل وترث أكثر من الأب؛ والابن يرث أكثر من الأب - وكلاهما من الذكور “the daughter inherits more than the mother, and both are female; indeed she inherits more than the father; and the son inherits more than the father, and both are male.” The two cases in the text are the ordinary working of 4:11: where a man leaves a father and a son the father takes a sixth and the son takes the residue, and where he leaves a daughter and a mother the daughter takes a half and the mother a sixth. ↩
Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Sulṭān, Mīrāth al-Marʾa wa-Qaḍiyyat al-Musāwāt, Dār Nahḍat Miṣr, Cairo, 1st ed. February 1999, introduction, third chapter and closing summary, with an introduction by Muḥammad ʿImāra. His four half-share comparisons are a daughter with a son; the mother with the father where there are no children or spouse; a full or paternal sister with her corresponding brother; and a wife with a husband. The comparisons use the order of agnatic priority لغرض المقابلة فقط, “for the purpose of comparison only,” rather than applying that order to every heir. His third chapter states: أكثر الفروض في القرآن الكريم هو الثلثان, “the largest of the fixed portions in the Qurʾān is two thirds,” and فترث النساء في سبعة عشرة حالة بالفرض، بينما يرث الرجال في ست حالات بالفرض فقط, “women inherit by fixed share in seventeen cases, while men inherit by fixed share in six only.” His closing summary states: بهذا الاستقراء الذي أورد أكثر من ثلاثين حالة تأخذ فيها المرأة مثل الرجل أو أكثر منه أو ترث هي ولا يرث نظيرها من الرجال، في مقابلة أربع حالات محددة ترث فيها المرأة نصف الرجل, “by this survey, more than thirty cases in which the woman takes the like of the man’s share, or more than it, or in which she inherits and her male counterpart does not, against four specified cases in which she inherits half the man’s.” ↩
al-Islām Suʾāl wa-Jawāb, fatwā no. 135065, قد ترث المرأة مثل الرجل وأكثر منه, “A woman may inherit like a man and more than him,” §2, 5 Ramaḍān 1430 / 26 August 2009. ↩
al-Islām Suʾāl wa-Jawāb, fatwā no. 135065, قد ترث المرأة مثل الرجل وأكثر منه, “A woman may inherit like a man and more than him,” §3, 5 Ramaḍān 1430 / 26 August 2009. ↩
Ibn Qudāma, al-Mughnī, 9/49, on الرَّدّ al-radd, the return of a surplus to the fixed-share heirs. He reports it from ʿUmar رضي الله عنه, ʿAlī رضي الله عنه, Ibn Masʿūd رضي الله عنه and Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما, and from Abū Ḥanīfa and his companions, and states it as the Ḥanbalī position: وَالَّذِي ذَكَرَ الْخِرَقِيُّ أَظْهَرُ فِي الْمَذْهَبِ وَأَصَحُّ “what al-Khiraqī stated is the more evident position in the school, and the sounder.” Against it, he reports from Zayd b. Thābit رضي الله عنه: وَذَهَبَ زَيْدُ بْنُ ثَابِتٍ إِلَى أَنَّ الْفَاضِلَ عَنْ ذَوِي الْفُرُوضِ لِبَيْتِ الْمَالِ، وَلَا يُرَدُّ عَلَى أَحَدٍ فَوْقَ فَرْضِهِ. وَبِهِ قَالَ مَالِكٌ، وَالْأَوْزَاعِيُّ، وَالشَّافِعِيُّ “Zayd b. Thābit held that what exceeds the fixed shares belongs to the treasury, and nothing is returned to anyone above his share; and so said Mālik, al-Awzāʿī and al-Shāfiʿī.” Al-Shāfiʿī states it himself in al-Umm, 4/80, and directs the surplus to جَمَاعَةِ الْمُسْلِمِينَ مِنْ أَهْلِ بَلَدِهِ “the body of the Muslims of his own town”. A spouse never takes by return: فَأَمَّا الزَّوْجَانِ، فَلَا يُرَدُّ عَلَيْهِمَا بِاتِّفَاقٍ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْعِلْمِ “as for the two spouses, nothing is returned to them, by the agreement of the people of knowledge”, al-Mughnī, 9/49. Regarding an account that ʿUthmān رضي الله عنه returned a surplus to a husband, Ibn Qudāma suggests that the husband may also have been an agnate or blood relative and received it on that footing, or may have been paid from the treasury rather than as an heir. Al-Rūyānī, Baḥr al-Madhhab, 7/506, notes that the Shāfiʿīs allow the return where no functioning treasury exists. ↩
al-Islām Suʾāl wa-Jawāb, fatwā no. 135065, قد ترث المرأة مثل الرجل وأكثر منه "a woman may inherit like a man and more than him", dated 5 Ramaḍān 1430 / 26 August 2009, which sets out all four categories with their fractions. The son's-daughter case is given there in full: فإن بنت الإبن ترث السدس، فى حين لو أن المرأة تركت ابن ابن بدلاً من بنت الابن لكان نصيبه صفراً؛ لأنه كان سيأخذ الباقي تعصيباً، ولا باقي "the son's daughter inherits a sixth, whereas had the woman left a son's son instead of a son's daughter his share would be zero, because he would have taken the residue as a residuary, and there is no residue." ↩
Al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-Maʿānī, 2/421. ↩
Wahbah al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-Munīr, 4/266: حَقُّ الْإِرْثِ ثَابِتٌ فِي قَلِيلِ التَّرِكَةِ وَكَثِيرِهَا، وَهُوَ حَقٌّ مُشَاعٌ لِجَمِيعِ الْوَرَثَةِ "The right of inheritance is established in the small part of the estate and in the large, and it is a right held in common by all the heirs." ↩
Al-Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif al-Ishārāt, 1/315. ↩
Al-Tirmidhī, Sunan, 3/620–621, no. 2120, Abwāb al-Waṣāyā, chapter on no bequest for an heir, ed. Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf, from Abū Umāmah al-Bāhilī رضي الله عنه through Ismāʿīl b. ʿAyyāsh and Shuraḥbīl b. Muslim. Al-Tirmidhī grades it ḥasan. Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, 3/114, no. 2870, ed. Muḥyī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, records the same brief wording from Abū Umāmah. Ibn Mājah, Sunan, 2/905–906, nos. 2713–2714, ed. Muḥammad Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Bāqī, records it from Abū Umāmah and Anas b. Mālik رضي الله عنهما respectively. Al-Tirmidhī also records the hadith from ʿAmr b. Khārijah (3/621–623, no. 2121), grading it ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ. He notes other asanīd from Abū Umāmah and quotes Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī’s distinction: Ismāʿīl b. ʿAyyāsh’s narrations from Syrian transmitters are more sound than his solitary narrations from transmitters of Iraq and the Hijaz. ↩

The Questions This Verse Raises

Al-Jaṣṣāṣ, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 2/366–369: الْعَمَّاتُ وَالْخَالَاتُ ... مِنَ الْأَقْرَبِينَ "Paternal aunts and maternal aunts … are among the near relatives." then لَمَّا كَانَ قَوْلُهُ نَصِيبٌ مُجْمَلًا غَيْرَ مَذْكُورِ الْمِقْدَارِ فِي الْآيَةِ "Since His words 'a share' were mujmal, with the amount not mentioned in the verse" and finally فَدَلَّ مِنْ هَذِهِ الْجِهَةِ عَلَى إِثْبَاتِ مَوَارِيثِ ذَوِي الْأَرْحَامِ "So from this angle it indicated the establishing of the inheritance of the dhawū al-arḥām." ↩
Al-Shawkānī, Fatḥ al-Qadīr, 2/376: فَيَتَنَاوَلُ كُلَّ قَرَابَةٍ "So it takes in every kinship." ↩
al-Qāsimī, Maḥāsin al-Taʾwīl, 7/2384–2385, preserves the general-right argument, objection, the practice of the Companions رضي الله عنهم, and treasury preference. ↩
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb, 9/502–503. The argument for including dhawū al-arḥām is reported from Abū Bakr al-Rāzī; the two replies are introduced as those of “our companions,” the Shāfiʿīs. ↩
Al-Bayhaqī, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān li-l-Shāfiʿī, pp. 179–181: relatives receive عَلَى مَا فَرَضَ لَهُمْ "according to what He has prescribed for them". ↩
al-Wāḥidī, al-Basīṭ, 10/273: فِي كِتَابِ اللَّهِ in the Book of Allah refers here to the shares prescribed in Sūrat al-Nisāʾ. ↩
Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, Sultani printing, 8/150, no. 6732, Kitāb al-Farāʾiḍ, chapter on a child’s inheritance from his father and mother, from Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, 3/1233, no. 2 (1615), Kitāb al-Farāʾiḍ, chapter on giving the prescribed shares to those entitled to them, ed. Muḥammad Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Bāqī, records the same wording. Ibn al-ʿArabī, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 2/443, applies this hadith to the general kinship expression. ↩
al-Saʿdī, Taysīr al-Karīm al-Raḥmān, p. 168: remote kin enter after fixed-share heirs and agnates. ↩
Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 10/93, preserves the Mālikī and Kūfan divergence. ↩
Al-Tirmidhī, Sunan, 3/607–608, no. 2104, Abwāb al-Farāʾiḍ, chapter on the maternal uncle’s inheritance, ed. Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf, from ʿĀʾishah رضي الله عنها. Al-Tirmidhī calls it gharīb and notes that some transmitted it mursal, without naming her. Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, 3/123, no. 2899, ed. Muḥyī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, records the longer wording from al-Miqdām b. Maʿdīkarib رضي الله عنه: وَالْخَالُ وَارِثُ مَنْ لَا وَارِثَ لَهُ، يَعْقِلُ عَنْهُ وَيَرِثُهُ, “The maternal uncle is the heir of one who has no heir; he bears his blood-money liability and inherits from him.” Al-Albānī grades this isnād ḥasan (Ṣaḥīḥ Sunan Abī Dāwūd, Ghiras printing, 8/254–255). He acknowledges criticism of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭalḥah and an alternative isnād, explaining that the alternative strengthens the hadith. Al-Shanqīṭī, Aḍwāʾ al-Bayān, 2/491–499, assesses the evidence and concludes at 2/498: أَظْهَرُ الْأَقْوَالِ دَلِيلًا عِنْدِي أَنَّ الْخَالَ يَرِثُ مَنْ لَا وَارِثَ لَهُ، دُونَ غَيْرِهِ مِنْ ذَوِي الْأَرْحَامِ, “The clearest position in proof, in my view, is that the maternal uncle inherits from one who has no heir, but not the other remote kindred.” ↩
al-Shanqīṭī, Aḍwāʾ al-Bayān, 2/495–499, lists eleven remote-kindred categories and explains the connecting-heir and proximity systems used to arrange them. ↩
Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, 1/97–106, applies the connecting-heir method and distinguishes a two-to-one connecting class from maternal siblings, among whom ذُكُورُهُمْ وَإِنَاثُهُمْ فِي الْمِيرَاثِ سَوَاءٌ "Their males and their females are equal in inheritance." ↩
Al-Baghawī, Maʿālim al-Tanzīl, 1/574, separates fixed share, residuary succession, and the three causes: وَصَارَتِ الْوِرَاثَةُ بِأَحَدِ الأمور الثلاثة: بالنسب والنكاح أو الولاء "And inheritance came to be by one of three things: by lineage, by marriage, or by walāʾ." He then explains walāʾ: وَبِالْوَلَاءِ: أَنَّ الْمُعْتِقَ وَعَصَبَاتِهِ يَرِثُونَ الْمُعْتَقَ "And by walāʾ: that the one who freed him and his agnates inherit from the freed slave." ↩
al-Nasafī, Madārik al-Tanzīl, 1/339: remote kin are those who are neither fixed-share heirs nor agnatic residuaries. ↩
Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 8/59–60: وَهُمْ مَنْ لَا سَهْمَ لَهُ مِنْ كِتَابِ اللَّهِ تَعَالَى مِنْ قَرَابَةِ الْمَيِّتِ وَلَيْسُوا عَصَبَةً "They are those of the deceased's relatives who have no share from the Book of Allah, exalted is He, and who are not ʿaṣabah (agnatic heirs)." ↩
al-Thaʿlabī, al-Kashf wa-l-Bayān, 10/106: kinship is a cause, but لَيْسَ كُلُّ قَرِيبٍ يَرِثُ "Not every relative inherits." ↩
Al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-Maʿānī, 2/420: immediate-parent and broader-ascendant constructions are preserved with blocking as the control. ↩
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb, 9/502–503 (for the staged-reform explanation, the two school answers, the structural point that the parents are a kind within the wider genus, and the Ḥanafī farḍ/wājib distinction) and 9/509. أَثْبَتَ ... عَلَى سَبِيلِ الْإِجْمَالِ "He established … by way of a general statement." and الِانْتِقَالُ عَنِ الْعَادَةِ شَاقٌّ "Moving away from what is customary is hard." al-Saʿdī, Taysīr al-Karīm al-Raḥmān, p. 165. ↩
Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, 1/284, treats marriage as a separate inheritance cause. ↩
Tafsīr al-Manār, 5/53, Muḥammad ʿAbduh's voice: الْوَالِدَانِ وَالْأَقْرَبُونَ وَالَّذِينَ عَقَدَتْ أَيْمَانُكُمْ ... وَالْأَزْوَاجُ "The parents and the near relatives, and those with whom your right hands have made a pact … and the spouses." ↩
Abū Ḥayyān, al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ, 3/621 and 5/360, records marriage among several 4:33 constructions. ↩
al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-Maʿānī, 3/23, objects to the spouse explanation there. ↩
Al-Baghawī, Maʿālim al-Tanzīl, 1/574, separates fixed share, residuary succession, and the three causes: وَصَارَتِ الْوِرَاثَةُ بِأَحَدِ الأمور الثلاثة: بالنسب والنكاح أو الولاء "And inheritance came to be by one of three things: by lineage, by marriage, or by walāʾ." He then explains walāʾ: وَبِالْوَلَاءِ: أَنَّ الْمُعْتِقَ وَعَصَبَاتِهِ يَرِثُونَ الْمُعْتَقَ "And by walāʾ: that the one who freed him and his agnates inherit from the freed slave." ↩
Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān, 6/429–431. ↩
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb, 9/509, relates farḍ to marking and delimitation; al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-Maʿānī, 2/421–422, records delimitation, a portion cut out, and divine obligation; Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lughah, 4/488–489: يَدُلُّ عَلَى تَأْثِيرٍ فِي شَيْءٍ مِنْ حَزٍّ أَوْ غَيْرِهِ “It points to making an impression in a thing, by a notch or otherwise.” ↩
Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, 1/50–52: الْمُرَادُ أَنَّهُ مُحَتَّمٌ، وَلَيْسَ الْمُرَادُ أَنَّهُ مُقَدَّرٌ “What is meant is that it is binding; what is meant is not that it is a set amount.” Al-Shanqīṭī, Aḍwāʾ al-Bayān, 1/362, directs the reader to the later inheritance verses for the amounts. ↩
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb, 9/502–503, and al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-Maʿānī, 2/421–422, record the Ḥanafī technical distinction between farḍ and wājib and the contrasting usage that treats them as legal synonyms. ↩
Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Ṣābūnī, Ṣafwat al-Tafāsīr, 1/238: الْجَمِيعُ فِيهِ سَوَاءٌ يَسْتَوُونَ فِي أَصْلِ الْوِرَاثَةِ وَإِنْ تَفَاوَتُوا فِي قَدْرِهَا "All are equal in it. They are equal in the principle of inheritance, even if they differ in its amount." ↩
Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, 1/97–106. Under the connecting-heir method he distinguishes classes governed by a two-to-one ratio from maternal siblings, among whom ذُكُورُهُمْ وَإِنَاثُهُمْ فِي الْمِيرَاثِ سَوَاءٌ, ‘their males and females are equal in inheritance.’ ↩
Al-Shawkānī, Fatḥ al-Qadīr, 1/493, says the separate clause establishes women’s original right and rejects their earlier exclusion. Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, 1/50–52: وَإِنَّمَا نَصَّ عَلَى نَصِيبِ النِّسَاءِ بِهَذِهِ الصِّيغَةِ الْمُسَاوِيَةِ لِنَصِيبِ الرِّجَالِ تَأْكِيدًا لِحَقِّهِنَّ “He stated the women’s share explicitly in this wording, the same as the wording for the men’s share, to confirm their right.” Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Ṣābūnī, Rawāʾiʿ al-Bayān, 1/435–438, identifies the repeated structure as iṭnāb (amplification). ↩
Al-Shawkānī, Fatḥ al-Qadīr, 1/493, says 4:7 states the obligatory share generally before 4:11 explains individual inheritances. Al-Shanqīṭī, Aḍwāʾ al-Bayān, 1/362, likewise says the amount is not given here but is explained in the inheritance verses. ↩
Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/247–250, treats 4:7 as a general introduction that prepared people for the detailed inheritance law. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb, 9/502–503: الِانْتِقَالُ عَنِ الْعَادَةِ شَاقٌّ “Moving away from what is customary is hard.” ↩
al-Bayhaqī, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān li-l-Shāfiʿī, pp. 178–179: al-Shāfiʿī restricts kinship priority to those receiving عَلَى مَا فَرَضَ لَهُمْ "according to what He assigned for them" and uses نَسْخ naskh, abrogation, for the control exercised by the later assigned shares. ↩
Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Ṣābūnī, Ṣafwat al-Tafāsīr, 1/105: كَانَ هَذَا وَاجِبًا قَبْلَ نُزُولِ آيَةِ الْمَوَارِيثِ ثُمَّ نُسِخَ بِآيَةِ الْمَوَارِيثِ "This was obligatory before the verse of inheritance was revealed, then it was abrogated by the verse of inheritance." ↩
Tafsīr al-Manār, 2/109–111: آيَةُ الْمَوَارِيثِ لَا تُعَارِضُ آيَةَ الْوَصِيَّةِ "The verse of inheritance does not contradict the verse of bequest." Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān, 3/124–126 and 6/469, allows assigned heirs to inherit while non-heir relatives remain within the bequest field. ↩
Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 2/149–151, distinguishes the majority treatment, which removes the obligation while retaining a recommendation, from a narrower position preserving a duty for non-heir relatives. ↩
al-Qāsimī, Maḥāsin al-Taʾwīl, 2/15–16, gives the authorial construction on which the testament of 2:180 is Allah's own. ↩
Al-Tirmidhī, Sunan, no. 2120, ed. Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf, from Abū Umāmah al-Bāhilī رضي الله عنه. ↩
al-Ṭaḥāwī, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 1/63–64, makes the Prophetic report the operative restriction and discusses Qurʾān-Sunnah abrogation. ↩
Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 2/149–151, separates the chronology of the rulings from the distinct questions of beneficiaries, amount, and retained recommendation. ↩
Al-Shāfiʿī material compiled by al-Bayhaqī, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān li-l-Shāfiʿī, p. 71, gives the one-third boundary. ↩
al-Jaṣṣāṣ, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 1/208–209 and 3/33–34, requires approval after death for excess. ↩
al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 2/261 and 2/265–266, sets out the positions on an estate with no heir and on an heir’s consent. ↩
Al-Bayḍāwī, Anwār al-Tanzīl, 2/61, and Abū al-Suʿūd, Irshād al-ʿAql al-Salīm, 2/147: وَفِيهِ دَلِيلٌ عَلَى أَنَّ الْوَارِثَ لَوْ أَعْرَضَ عَنْ نَصِيبِهِ لَمْ يَسْقُطْ حَقُّهُ “In it is proof that if the heir turns away from his share, his right does not lapse.” Mufti Muḥammad Shafīʿ, Maʿārif al-Qurʾān, English trans., 2/329–332, explains that inheritance transfers ownership automatically at death and that a later disposal is a separate act. ↩
Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/250, says the right attaches to every part of the property. Wahbah al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-Munīr, 4/266: وَهُوَ حَقٌّ مُشَاعٌ لِجَمِيعِ الْوَرَثَةِ “It is a right held in common by all the heirs.” ↩
Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 5/48, records the competing treatments: one transmission from Mālik, Ibn Kinānah, al-Shāfiʿī, and a related Abū Ḥanīfah rule permit compelled physical division even if an individual part loses usefulness; Ibn Abī Laylā and Abū Thawr refuse a division that destroys benefit or harms one owner unequally; Ibn al-Mundhir prefers the latter, and Ibn al-Qāsim transmits an anti-harm rule from Mālik. Al-Qurṭubī concludes: وَالْأَظْهَرُ سُقُوطُ الْقِسْمَةِ فِيمَا يُبْطِلُ الْمَنْفَعَةَ وَيُنْقِصُ الْمَالَ “The more apparent view is that division falls away in whatever destroys the benefit and reduces the property.” ↩
Ibn Mājah, Sunan, 2/784, no. 2341, ed. Muḥammad Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Bāqī, from Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما through Jābir al-Juʿfī: لَا ضَرَرَ وَلَا ضِرَارَ, “There is to be no harm and no returning of harm.” ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad records the maxim from ʿUbādah b. al-Ṣāmit رضي الله عنه within a longer hadith in Zawāʾid al-Musnad (Musnad Aḥmad, Muʾassasat al-Risālah printing, 37/436–438, no. 22778). Al-Albānī judges the hadith ṣaḥīḥ through its combined asanīd (al-Silsilah al-Ṣaḥīḥah, 1/498–503, no. 250). He cites Ibn Rajab’s statement that most critics weakened Jābir al-Juʿfī in Ibn Mājah’s isnād. He also identifies disconnection and an unknown transmitter in the separate ʿUbādah isnād; after examining the mursal narration and the connected asanīd from seven Companions, he quotes al-Nawawī’s conclusion that they strengthen one another and Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ’s judgment that their combined strength makes the hadith ḥasan. ↩
Mufti Muḥammad Shafīʿ, Maʿārif al-Qurʾān, English trans., 2/329–332. He states that inheritance transfers ownership automatically at death; an heir’s refusal does not prevent ownership from arising, while a later gift, sale or distribution is a separate act governed by its own rules. ↩
Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān, 7/723–725, distinguishes a sister's fixed and residuary capacities. al-Jaṣṣāṣ, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 3/27, gives a daughter one half and the residue to the brother: أَنْ نُعْطِيَ الْبَاقِيَ الْأَخَ لِأَنَّهُ أَوْلَى عَصَبَةٍ ذَكَرٍ "that we give the remainder to the brother, because he is the nearest male agnate". ↩
al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 6/28–29, records the majority and the Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما and Ibn al-Zubayr رضي الله عنه dissent. ↩
Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, 2/536–541, distinguishes the sibling classes and explains that maternal siblings are barred by the deceased’s descendants. ↩
Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, 2/536–541, distinguishes male descendants, female descendants, the father, and the grandfather, and extends the sibling bar to the grandfather. Al-Shanqīṭī, Aḍwāʾ al-Bayān, commentary on 4:11, distinguishes the undisputed bar by the father from the juristic discussion of the grandfather with siblings. ↩
Ibn ʿAṭiyyah, al-Muḥarrar al-Wajīz, 2/17, reports the opposing allocation as the saying of من لا يعد قوله إلا في الشذوذ "one whose statement is counted only among the anomalous": إِنَّهُمْ يَحُطُّونَ وَيَأْخُذُونَ مَا يَحُطُّونَ لِأَنْفُسِهِمْ مَعَ الْأَبِ "They reduce, and they take what they reduce for themselves along with the father." He then notes, concerning Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما, روي عن ابن عباس، وروي عنه خلافه "it is reported from Ibn ʿAbbās, and the contrary is reported from him as well." He gives Qatādah's rationale as وَإِنَّمَا أَخَذَهُ الْأَبُ دُونَهُمْ، لِأَنَّهُ يَمُونُهُمْ وَالنَّفَقَةُ عَلَيْهِمْ "The father took it rather than them only because he provides for them and the maintenance is spent on them." ↩
Abū Ḥayyān, al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ, 3/524–526, records the two outcomes for paternal cousins when one is also a maternal brother. Al-Jaṣṣāṣ, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 3/27, preserves the separation of capacities attributed to ʿAlī رضي الله عنه and Zayd b. Thābit رضي الله عنه: فَقَالَ عَلِيٌّ وَزَيْدٌ لِلْأَخِ مِنَ الْأُمِّ السُّدُسُ وَمَا بَقِيَ فَبَيْنَهُمَا نِصْفَانِ "ʿAlī and Zayd said: the maternal brother gets the sixth, and what remains is between the two of them in halves." He then gives the result attributed to ʿUmar رضي الله عنه and Ibn Masʿūd رضي الله عنه: وَقَالَ عُمَرُ وَعَبْدُ اللَّهِ الْمَالُ لِلْأَخِ مِنَ الْأُمِّ وَقَالَا ذُو السَّهْمِ أَحَقُّ مِمَّنْ لَا سَهْمَ لَهُ "ʿUmar and ʿAbd Allāh said: the property goes to the maternal brother. And the two of them said: the one with a fixed share has a better right than the one who has no share." ↩
Ibn ʿAṭiyyah, al-Muḥarrar al-Wajīz, 2/12. ↩
Al-Zajjāj, Maʿānī al-Qurʾān wa-Iʿrābuhu, 2/15: كانت العرب لا تُورِّثُ إِلا منْ طَاعن بالرماحِ وزاد عن المال وحاز الغنيمة “The Arabs used not to let anyone inherit except one who thrust with the lances, drove attack away from the property, and took the spoil.” ↩
ʿIkrimah, as reported by Ibn ʿAṭiyyah, al-Muḥarrar al-Wajīz, 2/12. ↩
Al-Baghawī, Maʿālim al-Tanzīl, 1/571–572, ed. ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Mahdī. ↩
Abū al-Shaykh, from Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما, as collected by al-Suyūṭī, al-Durr al-Manthūr, 2/438–439. ↩
Al-Zajjāj, Maʿānī al-Qurʾān wa-Iʿrābuhu, 2/15. His unnamed household form gives a woman, her daughters, their deceased father, and العمَّان, “the two paternal uncles.” ↩
Al-Thaʿlabī, al-Kashf wa-l-Bayān, Dār al-Tafsīr printing, 10/90–93. ↩
Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, 3/120–121, nos. 2891–2892, ed. Muḥyī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, from Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh رضي الله عنه. ↩
Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā, Tafsīr al-Manār, 4/323. Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān, 6/430–431, transmits Qatādah’s account through ʿAbd al-Razzāq and Maʿmar; Ḥikmat Bashīr Yāsīn grades its isnād ḥasan in al-Ṣaḥīḥ al-Masbūr, 2/10. ↩
Al-Zajjāj, Maʿānī al-Qurʾān wa-Iʿrābuhu, 2/15. ↩
Al-Jaṣṣāṣ, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 2/112 and 3/195–196, distinguishes maintenance from mutual-liability and inheritance classes. Al-Shāfiʿī material compiled by al-Bayhaqī, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān li-l-Shāfiʿī, p. 240, states that maintenance is not assigned solely by heirship. The juristic discussion considers agnation, prohibited-degree kinship, parenthood, the child’s property, and public provision under their own rules. ↩
Sayyid Quṭb, Fī Ẓilāl al-Qurʾān, trans. Adil Salahi, 3/36–38. ↩
Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 2/436. ↩
Al-Jaṣṣāṣ, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 2/112 and 3/195–196, distinguishes the mutual-liability group from the inheritance class. Ibn al-Jawzī, Zād al-Masīr, 1/448, describes the group as paying عَلَى طَرِيقِ الْمُوَاسَاةِ “by way of mutual support.” ↩
Al-Tirmidhī, Sunan, 3/598–599, no. 2092, ed. Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf; Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, 3/120–121, nos. 2891–2892, ed. Muḥyī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd. Ibn Mājah, Sunan, 2/908, no. 2720, ed. Muḥammad Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Bāqī; Aḥmad, Musnad, Muʾassasat al-Risālah printing, 23/108–109, no. 14798. ↩
Al-Zajjāj, Maʿānī al-Qurʾān wa-Iʿrābuhu, 2/15. ↩
Al-Sarakhsī, al-Mabsūṭ, 30/24, in باب الفاسد من الأجداد والجدات “the chapter on fāsid grandfathers and grandmothers”: الْجَدُّ الْفَاسِدُ مَنْ يَتَّصِلُ إِلَى الْمَيِّتِ بِأُمٍّ وَالْجَدَّةُ الْفَاسِدَةُ مَنْ يَدْخُلُ فِي نِسْبَتِهَا أَبٌ بَيْنَ أُمَّيْنِ. He identifies the mother’s father as the one-generation instance of that grandfather class. Al-Jurjānī, al-Taʿrīfāt, p. 74, states the corresponding definitions. ↩
Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 5/71, quoting Ibn al-Mundhir: وَكُلُّ جَدَّةٍ إِذَا نُسِبَتْ إِلَى الْمُتَوَفَّى وَقَعَ فِي نَسَبِهَا أَبٌ بَيْنَ أُمَّيْنِ فَلَيْسَتْ تَرِثُ، فِي قَوْلِ كُلِّ مَنْ يُحْفَظُ عَنْهُ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْعِلْمِ “Any grandmother in whose line to the deceased a father falls between two mothers does not inherit, according to every person of learning whose view is preserved.” Al-Qurṭubī also records at 5/70 the agreed exclusions caused by the mother and the father. ↩
Ibn Qudāma, al-Mughnī, 9/49, records al-radd, return of the surplus to fixed-share heirs, from ʿUmar رضي الله عنه, ʿAlī رضي الله عنه, Ibn Masʿūd رضي الله عنه and Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما, and as the Ḥanbalī position. He records the treasury position from Zayd b. Thābit رضي الله عنه, Mālik, al-Awzāʿī and al-Shāfiʿī. Al-Shāfiʿī states it in al-Umm, 4/80. Al-Rūyānī, Baḥr al-Madhhab, 7/506, notes that Shāfiʿīs allow return where no functioning treasury exists. ↩
Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Sulṭān, Mīrāth al-Marʾa wa-Qaḍiyyat al-Musāwāt, fourth chapter, Dār Nahḍat Miṣr, Cairo, 1st ed. February 1999: المرأة التي تناظره بل قد تكون زوجه غالبا ترث وحدها التركة كلها وهو لا يرث شيئا, “the woman who matches him, and who is usually his own wife, inherits the whole estate by herself, and he inherits nothing.” His enumeration of qualifying grandmother lines follows one of the different juristic reckonings. ↩
Al-Sarakhsī, al-Mabsūṭ, 30/24, places the maternal grandfather among dhawū al-arḥām. The Ḥanafīs and Ḥanbalīs admit that remote class when no fixed-share heir or agnatic residuary remains, while Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī do not inherit it. ↩
Ibn Qudāma, al-Mughnī, 9/49, records the return of surplus to fixed-share heirs as the Ḥanbalī position and the treasury position from Zayd b. Thābit رضي الله عنه, Mālik, al-Awzāʿī and al-Shāfiʿī; al-Shāfiʿī states the treasury position in al-Umm, 4/80. ↩
Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 5/70–71, records the differing counts of qualifying grandmother lines: two and their mothers from Mālik, three from al-Awzāʿī and Aḥmad, and four from Ibn Masʿūd رضي الله عنه and Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما. ↩

How the Commentators Read This Verse

Al-Qushayrī, Laṭāʾif al-Ishārāt, 1/315. ↩
Muḥammad ʿAbduh, as recorded by Rashīd Riḍā in Tafsīr al-Manār, 4/324. ↩
Mufti Muḥammad Shafīʿ, Maʿārif al-Qurʾān, English trans., 2/330–331. He explains that need and usefulness change, whereas nearness of kinship supplies a stable legal criterion. ↩

Iʿrāb: Grammatical Structure

Dār al-Ṣaḥābah, Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, 1/365–366. ↩
Maḥmūd Ṣāfī, al-Jadwal fī Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān wa-Ṣarfihi wa-Bayānihi, 2/444–445: لِلرِّجَالِ جَارٌّ وَمَجْرُورٌ مُتَعَلِّقٌ بِمَحْذُوفٍ خَبَرٌ مُقَدَّمٌ، نَصِيبٌ مُبْتَدَأٌ مُؤَخَّرٌ مَرْفُوعٌ "Li-l-rijāl is a preposition with its object, attached to an omitted word that is a fronted predicate; naṣīb is a delayed subject in the nominative." ↩
Maḥmūd Ṣāfī, al-Jadwal, 2/444–445. ↩
Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/250: وَحَيْثُ أُرِيدَ بِنَصِيبٍ الْجِنْسُ جَاءَ الْحَالُ مِنْهُ مُفْرَدًا, “Since the generic sense was intended by naṣīb, its circumstantial qualifier came in the singular.” ↩
al-Samīn al-Ḥalabī, al-Durr al-Maṣūn, 3/588–589. ↩
al-ʿUkbarī, al-Tibyān, 1/332–333, giving four alternatives for the final نَصِيبًا naṣīban without naming their holders. ↩
Al-Zajjāj, Maʿānī al-Qurʾān wa-Iʿrābuhu, 2/15: هذا منصوب على الحال، المعنى لهؤُلاءِ أنْصِبة على ما ذكرناها في حال الفرض، وهذا كلام مؤَكِّد, “This is in the accusative as a circumstantial qualifier. The meaning is that these people have shares, as we have described them, in the condition of being imposed. And this is confirming speech.” Makkī ibn Abī Ṭālib, al-Hidāyah, 2/1232, reports al-Zajjāj's circumstantial analysis and the verbal-noun analysis of al-Akhfash and al-Farrāʾ. Maḥmūd Ṣāfī, al-Jadwal, 2/444–445: حال مؤكّدة عاملها الاستقرار في قوله للرجال نصيب, “a confirming circumstantial qualifier, governed by the sense of existing in His words ‘for men is a share’”; مَفْرُوضًا نَعْتٌ, “mafrūḍan is an adjectival qualifier”; and اسْمُ مَفْعُولٍ مِنْ فَرَضَ الثُّلَاثِيِّ ... وَزْنُهُ مَفْعُولٌ, “a passive participle from the triliteral faraḍa … its pattern is mafʿūl.” ↩
al-Akhfash, Maʿānī al-Qurʾān, 1/246. ↩
Abū Ḥayyān, al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ, 3/524–525, rejects the technical ikhtiṣāṣ analysis because its noun must be definite, whereas نَصِيبًا is indefinite. ↩
Muḥyī al-Dīn Darwīsh, Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān wa-Bayānuhu, 2/163–164. ↩
Al-Samīn al-Ḥalabī, al-Durr al-Maṣūn, 3/588: هَذَا الْجَارُّ فِي مَحَلِّ رَفْعٍ لِأَنَّهُ صِفَةٌ لِلْمَرْفُوعِ قَبْلَهُ ... وَيَجُوزُ أَنْ يَكُونَ فِي مَحَلِّ نَصْبٍ مُتَعَلِّقًا بِلَفْظِ نَصِيبٍ "This prepositional phrase is in the position of الرَّفْع (al-rafʿ), the nominative, because it describes the nominative before it … and it may be in the position of النَّصْب (al-naṣb), the accusative, attached to the word naṣīb.". أَنَّهُ بَدَلٌ مِنْ مَا الْأَخِيرَةِ ... بِإِعَادَةِ حَرْفِ الْجَرِّ "that it is a substitute for the last mā … with the preposition repeated" and the separately transmitted أَنَّهُ حَالٌ مِنَ الضَّمِيرِ الْمَحْذُوفِ مِنْ تَرَكَ "that it is a circumstantial qualifier (ḥāl) from the pronoun omitted from taraka". ↩
Al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf, 1/476, treats the third mimmā as a substitute with the preposition repeated. ↩
al-ʿUkbarī, al-Tibyān fī Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān, 1/332, presents both alternatives. ↩
Abū Ḥayyān, al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ, 3/525: الْبَدَلُ جَاءَ عَلَى سَبِيلِ التَّوْكِيدِ, “The substitution came by way of emphasis.” ↩
Abū Ḥayyān, al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ, 3/525, attributes the circumstantial construction to Abū al-Baqāʾ. ↩

Ṣarf: Roots and Morphology

Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lughah, 5/434: وَالنَّصِيبُ: الْحَظُّ مِنَ الشَّيْءِ "And al-naṣīb is the portion of a thing." ↩
Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 1/761. ↩
al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt, p. 808: الْحَظُّ الْمَنْصُوبُ، أَيْ الْمُعَيَّنُ the appointed portion, that is, the designated one. ↩
al-Zamakhsharī, Asās al-Balāghah, 2/274. ↩
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lughah, 4/488–489: يَدُلُّ عَلَى تَأْثِيرٍ فِي شَيْءٍ مِنْ حَزٍّ أَوْ غَيْرِهِ "It points to making an impression in a thing, by a notch or otherwise." ↩
Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 7/205: مُقْتَطَعًا مَحْدُودًا cut out and delimited. ↩
al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt, p. 630. ↩
al-Samīn al-Ḥalabī, ʿUmdat al-Ḥuffāẓ, 3/217. ↩
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lughah, 1/345: التَّرْكُ التَّخْلِيَةُ عَنِ الشَّيْءِ "Al-tark is the letting go of a thing." and 6/143 on the root of birth. ↩
al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt, p. 166: تَرِكَةُ فُلَانٍ لِمَا يُخَلِّفُهُ بَعْدَ مَوْتِهِ "The tarikah of so-and-so is used for what he leaves behind after his death." ↩
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lughah, 5/80–81: يَدُلُّ عَلَى خِلَافِ الْبُعْدِ "It indicates the opposite of distance." and مَنْ يَقْرُبُ مِنْكَ رَحِمًا one who is near to you in kinship. ↩
al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt, pp. 663–664 and 804. ↩
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lughah, 2/492: وَالرُّجَّالُ وَالرُّجَالَى: الرِّجَالُ "And al-rujjāl and al-rujālā are al-rijāl." ↩
al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt, p. 344: الرَّجُلُ مُخْتَصٌّ بِالذَّكَرِ مِنَ النَّاسِ "Al-rajul applies specifically to the male among people." ↩
Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 15/321: النِّسَاءُ ... جَمْعُ الْمَرْأَةِ مِنْ غَيْرِ لَفْظِهِ "Al-nisāʾ … is the plural of al-marʾah from other than its own wording." ↩
al-Zamakhsharī, Asās al-Balāghah, 1/340. ↩
Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 3/467: الْوَالِدُ الْأَبُ وَالْوَالِدَةُ الْأُمُّ وَهُمَا الْوَالِدَانِ "Al-wālid is the father, al-wālidah is the mother, and the two of them are al-wālidān." ↩
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lughah, 5/3 and 5/160, gives the opposing quantity roots. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 11/563 and 5/131. al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt, pp. 680 and 703. ↩
Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs al-Lughah, 5/3 and 5/160, gives the opposing quantity roots. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 11/563 and 5/131. al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt, pp. 680 and 703. ↩
Ibn ʿAṭiyyah, al-Muḥarrar al-Wajīz, 2/12: سَمَّى اللَّهُ ... الْأَبَ وَالِدًا لِأَنَّ الْوَلَدَ مِنْهُ وَمِنَ الْوَالِدَةِ، كَمَا قَالَ الشَّاعِرُ: [الرَّجَز] بِحَيْثُ يَعْتَشُ الْغُرَابُ الْبَائِضُ “Allah named … the father a wālid because the child comes from him and from the mother, just as the poet said: [rajaz] ‘Where the egg-laying raven builds its nest.’” ↩

Balāghah: Rhetorical Analysis

Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/247: اسْتِئْنَافٌ ابْتِدَائِيٌّ an opening independent sentence (istiʾnāf ibtidāʾī). ↩
Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/247–248: وَهُوَ جَارٍ مَجْرَى النَّتِيجَةِ لِحُكْمِ إِيتَاءِ أَمْوَالِ الْيَتَامَى، وَمَجْرَى الْمُقَدِّمَةِ لِأَحْكَامِ الْمَوَارِيثِ "It runs as the conclusion to the ruling on handing over the orphans' property, and as the introduction to the rulings of inheritance." ↩
Al-Shawkānī, Fatḥ al-Qadīr, 1/493. ↩
Wahbah al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-Munīr, 4/260: الطِّبَاقُ بَيْنَ قَوْلِهِ قَلَّ وَكَثُرَ the antithesis (ṭibāq) between His words qalla (it is little) and kathura (it is much) and إِطْنَابٌ فِي قَوْلِهِ لِلرِّجَالِ نَصِيبٌ ... وَلِلنِّسَاءِ نَصِيبٌ amplification (iṭnāb) in His words "for men there is a share … and for women there is a share". ↩
Al-Suyūṭī, al-Itqān fī ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān, 3/179, on الإِطْنَاب, quoting al-Zamakhsharī: فِي مَوَارِدِ التَّفْصِيلِ أَنْ يُفَصَّلَ وَيُشْبَعَ "In places that call for detail, the thing should be set out in detail and at length." ↩
Al-Shawkānī, Fatḥ al-Qadīr, 1/493. ↩
Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Ṣābūnī, Rawāʾiʿ al-Bayān, 1/435–438: فَصَّلَ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى الْحُكْمَ بِطَرِيقِ الْإِطْنَابِ "Allah, exalted is He, set out the ruling in detail by way of iṭnāb (amplification)." ↩
Abū Ḥayyān, al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ, 3/525, reports the second construction through an anonymous transmitted voice. الْبَدَلُ جَاءَ عَلَى سَبِيلِ التَّوْكِيدِ "The substitution (badal) came by way of emphasis." ↩
Abū Ḥayyān, al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ, 3/525, attributes the circumstantial construction to Abū al-Baqāʾ. ↩
Wahbah al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-Munīr, 4/260. ↩
Al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-Maʿānī, 2/421. ↩
Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Tafsīr Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, 1/52. ↩
Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/247–248. ↩
Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 4/249: وَلِكَوْنِ هَذِهِ الْآيَةِ كَالْمُقَدِّمَةِ جَاءَتْ بِإِجْمَالِ الْحَقِّ وَالنَّصِيبِ فِي الْمِيرَاثِ وَتَلَاهُ تَفْصِيلُهُ، لِقَصْدِ تَهْيِئَةِ النُّفُوسِ "And because this verse is like an introduction, it came with the right and the share in inheritance stated in general, and its detail followed it, for the purpose of preparing people’s minds." And, at 4/249 also: وَقَدْ كَانَ قَوْلُهُ تَعَالَى: وَلِلنِّساءِ نَصِيبٌ مِمَّا تَرَكَ الْوالِدانِ وَالْأَقْرَبُونَ أَوَّلَ إِعْطَاءٍ لِحَقِّ الْإِرْثِ لِلنِّسَاءِ فِي الْعَرَبِ "And His words, and for the women is a share of what the parents and the near relatives leave, were the first granting of the right of inheritance to women among the Arabs." ↩

Qirāʾāt: The Readings

Ibn al-Jazarī, al-Nashr fī al-Qirāʾāt al-ʿAshr, 2/247–250; Ibn Jinnī, al-Muḥtasab, 1/179–182. ↩