The difficulty arises only in the following situation: the estate contains shareholders whose prescribed portions do not exhaust the property, and there is no agnatic heir to take the balance. In this case, the surplus is returned (radd) to those very shareholders in proportion to their allotted fractions—except for the husband and the wife. The ruling is supported by the following proofs:

First: Allah, exalted is He, says, “But blood relatives are nearer to one another in the Book of Allah.” Shareholders are among the deceased’s womb-relatives, so they have a stronger claim to his wealth than anyone else.

Second: The Prophet ﷺ said, “Whoever leaves behind wealth, it belongs to his heirs,” reported by al-Bukhari and Muslim. The wording is general, embracing the entire estate left by the deceased, including what remains after the fixed shares. Hence, the shareholders are entitled to that remainder, for it is still part of their benefactor’s property.

Third: In the report of Saʿd ibn Abi Waqqas (d. 55 AH), he said to the Prophet ﷺ when the Messenger visited him during an illness, “Messenger of Allah, my only heir is one daughter.” The Prophet did not object to his restricting the inheritance to his daughter; had it been incorrect, he would have corrected him. This indicates that a shareholder takes whatever is left after her fixed portion if no agnatic heir exists—precisely the doctrine of radd.

The radd, then, is distributed to all shareholders except the two spouses, for a husband or wife may fall outside the circle of womb-relatives and therefore is not included in