Shaykh al-Islām said: A parent must distribute gifts to his children in proportion to the shares they would receive from the estate, and this is the position of Imām Aḥmad. If, however, he singles out one of them for a reason that warrants it—such as poverty, disability, or devotion to the pursuit of knowledge—or withholds a gift from a child because of his flagrant sin or innovation, reports from Imām Aḥmad indicate that this is permissible, for he said: “There is no harm in giving preference when need requires it, but I disapprove of it when it is mere favoritism.”
Al-Inṣāf comments: “This view is very strong,” and it was the choice of the scholars of the Salafī daʿwah.

Any ruling that departs from the Sacred Law is forbidden and void. The Prophet ﷺ did not accept from Bashīr what had already been executed of the bequest; rather, he rebuked him and annulled it. The basis for this is his statement ﷺ: “Whoever performs an act that is not in accord with our affair, it is rejected.”

Shaykh al-Islām also said: The ḥadith and other reports establish that justice is obligatory, and this takes three forms:
• First: needs such as maintenance during health or illness and the like. Justice here means giving each child what he requires, without distinction between small and great need.
• Second: matters in which their need is equal—ordinary gifts or arranging a marriage, for example. In such cases preferential treatment is unquestionably forbidden.
• Third: a situation in which one child faces an unusual need, such as the father paying a debt incurred for blood-money or providing the wife’s maintenance and the like. Whether the father must give the others something equivalent is open to consideration. (End of the selection from al-Ikhtiyārāt.)

The plain wording of the ḥadith calls for equality between sons and daughters—“Treat them all alike”—and this is the view of the majority, including the three imams, and one narration from Aḥmad, preferred by Ibn ʿAqīl and al-Ḥārithī.
The well-known position in Aḥmad’s school, however, is that the distribution should mirror their inheritance shares, the male receiving the portion of two females; this was the choice of Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al-Qayyim, and Shaykh—