Q. When my father died, leaving behind our mother, two sons and two daughters, we had one house, which belonged to my mother and her two sisters. We all contributed to buy my aunts’ shares and made my mother the sole owner. We have recently learned that my mother registered the house in my two brothers’ names. My sister and I feel that this is unfair. Can she undo what she has already done?

Mrs. Ifham

A. Your mother’s action is unacceptable from the Islamic point of view. One of the companions of the Prophet (peace be upon him), Al-Numan ibn Basheer, reports that his father gave him a slave as a gift and went to the Prophet asking him to be a witness to the gift. The Prophet asked him whether he gave all his children similar gifts. When the man answered in the negative, the Prophet said to him: “Then seek for yourself another witness because I do not witness injustice.” This is a highly authentic Hadith which signifies that giving one child a significant gift to the exclusion of other children is ‘injustice’, which means that it is forbidden in Islam. The Prophet refused even to count himself as a witness.

It should be explained here that when a parent gives gifts to his children, he should maintain equality, giving a daughter exactly the same as a son. Gifts are not treated like inheritance. The two are totally different. During a parent’s lifetime, all his children have equal claims. In the same way as a father cannot give his daughter clothes at half the amount he pays for his son’s clothes, other gifts should be the same.

In order for your mother not to commit the sin of favoring her sons above her daughters, she should undo what she did. She either gives the house to all four of her children equally, or retains it herself until she dies when they will inherit it according to the Islamic rules of inheritance.

It is not right for a parent to say, ‘since my children will inherit this property when I die, I may just as well divide it between them now in the same proportion.’ For one thing he does not know who of his children will be alive and entitled to inherit from him. For another, he does not know whether he will have other heirs at the point of his death. Therefore, he must not precipitate the application of a law that comes into effect only at the point of his death.

Zakah and Loan Payment

Q. I normally do my zakah calculation on Dec. 31 when I pay it out. During last year I bought a house, paying a deposit and agreeing to make a partial payment in October. However, certain problems necessitated that things are postponed, and now the payment is due later this month. The remainder of the price will be paid through a loan. May I ask whether I should pay zakah for the delayed payment? What about zakah for the following years?

Sofiene

A. To start with, you should make your zakah calculation on the basis of the lunar year, not the Gregorian one. This makes a difference of 11 days each year. As for the money that should have been paid but remained with you until your zakah date, there can be no hiding the fact that it was liquid money available to you. Therefore, it is zakahable. You need not worry about paying zakah on that amount, even though it may be large, because zakah is an act of worship, which is always rewarded with at least 10 times its value. You should remember that when zakah is paid, God blesses the payer’s money and this means that the money goes longer in meeting his needs. You have to think of zakah in the same way as you think of prayer. If you intend to travel and you start in the morning, when prayer time arrives, you pray in the shortened form. Suppose something delayed your departure, would you be sorry because you will have to offer those prayers in the normal length? It is the same with zakah. When you pay it, God will reward you generously.

As for the following years, it all depends on the terms of your loan. If it is of the mortgage type, where the loan is payable in easy installments over a very long period, then you pay zakah in the normal way. The fact that you have a mortgage on your house will not affect your liability. On the other hand, if it is a short-term loan which requires you to pay practically all your savings as you go by, then most probably you will not have enough to need to pay zakah. I cannot give you a more detailed answer without you giving me further detailed information.

Reminding the Imam

Q. Should the imam make a mistake as he leads the prayer, how should he be reminded?

M.K. Koya

A. The mistake can be corrected, as when the imam rises up to add a fifth rak’ah in a four-rak’ah prayer, one or more from the congregation should remind him by saying Subhan Allah, which means, “limitless is God in His glory.” Women, however, do not raise their voices with such a reminder; they clap. If the imam realizes what mistake he made and he corrects it, he should also add two prostrations before he finishes the prayer.