1. A woman who has been given a revocable divorce (ṭalāq rajʿī), whether the divorce was pronounced while the husband was in good health or during illness.

2. A woman who has been given an irrevocable divorce (ṭalāq bāʾin) while the husband was healthy.

3. A woman who has been given an irrevocable divorce while the husband was in a terminal, life-threatening illness.

The revocably divorced wife inherits by unanimous agreement if her husband dies while she is still in her waiting period (ʿiddah), for during that time she remains a wife in every legal sense.

By consensus, an irrevocably divorced wife whose husband was healthy when he divorced her does not inherit, because the marital bond has been severed and no suspicion of manipulation attaches to the husband. The same ruling applies if the divorce occurred during a non-terminal illness.

Similarly, if the husband divorces her irrevocably during a terminal illness yet is not suspected of intending to deprive her of inheritance, she does not inherit.

However, if the husband pronounces an irrevocable divorce during a terminal illness and is suspected of doing so to withhold her share of the estate, then she does inherit—both while she is in ʿiddah and after it—unless she remarries or apostasises.

The proof that a woman in this last situation inherits is the ruling of ʿUthmān (may Allah be pleased with him), who awarded the estate of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf (may Allah be pleased with him) to the wife he had irrevocably divorced during his terminal illness; this verdict became well known.