Q. I have two brothers and three sisters. I live with my family and my parents in the ground floor of our house. My brother lives with his family in the upper floor, which he has built, while my other brother lives in a separate home. Our parents want to divide the property between their children. How should it be shared out?

Habeeb

A. When one or both parents want to share out some or all of their assets among their children during their own lifetime, they are actually giving gifts to their children. In gifts, all children, sons and daughters, are alike and they all should be treated equally. There should be no favouritism on any basis. A highly authentic Hadith is reported by Al-Numan ibn Basheer who said that his father took him to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and said: “I have given this son of mine a slave as a gift and I would like you, Messenger of God, to witness this gift.” The Prophet asked him whether he had given each one of his children a similar gift. Basheer said that he did not. The Prophet told him: “Then seek for yourself a different witness, because I do not witness injustice.”

This Hadith makes clear that to give a gift to one or more of your children without giving others is injustice, and all injustice is forbidden in Islam. There can be no question about that. Moreover, the Prophet’s question did not specify sons. He spoke about the man’s children, which means sons and daughters. They all should receive similar gifts in order to maintain fairness.

The question the reader asks does not provide enough information about the property to be shared out and who paid for what portion of it. One son lives away from the family home. Does he own the place? Was he helped by his parents in buying it? What about the floor built by the second son: who paid for the construction? If it is the second son, did he receive help from his parents, other than the space and the permission to build? These are questions that need to be answered.

Since the sharing out is focused on the building itself, it should be valued, and the share of the son who lives on the first floor should also be valued. The net value of the parents’ property should be ascertained. Then it should be shared out equally between the six children, i.e. the three sons and the three daughters. In doing so, some of the children might want to buy shares of other siblings, i.e. paying them in cash for their shares in the house, so that they have a larger portion of the house. The parents should retain the right to live in the house for the rest of their lives, so that they do not come to grief as a result of their kindly action. In sharing out, any benefit received by any of the children and any liability they incurred should be taken into account. For example, if the son who lives on his own received substantial help from his parents to buy his house, that help should be taken into account in determining his share. Also the share of the second son should be carefully calculated, taking into account what he has already received.

An important point to realize is that giving gifts to one’s children is different from the way they share out their inheritance from their parents. In inheritance, sons receive twice as much as daughters, but in gifts they are all equal.

Inheritance of an Old Woman

Q. A woman well advanced in age has died recently. Her parents, husband and children all died before her. She is survived by six grandsons, born to her two sons, and four half brothers and half sisters, born to her father. How is her estate shared out?

(Name and address withheld)

A. Here is a case where the direct line of inheritance goes directly to the second degree, because no heirs are present in the first one. The first degree includes the deceased’s parents and children. The woman is not survived by any of these. Hence, the second degree, which is her grandsons, becomes operative and the grandsons are her immediate heirs. In most cases, heirs in this direct line preclude all others. In this case, the grandsons preclude the half brothers and sisters.

They would also have precluded the woman’s full brothers and sisters, had any of these been alive. In short, only the woman’s grandsons inherit her. They divide the estate equally between them, since they relate to her in the same degree. No other relative has any share.