Section
On the Second Issue

If the founder of an endowment says, “I establish this endowment for my offspring and their offspring,” or “for my children and my children’s children,” several scholars hold that daughters’ children are included. This is the apparent meaning of the wording, since “child” applies to both males and females. Thus, saying “for my offspring and their offspring” is equivalent to saying “for my children, male and female, and their descendants.”

However, it is reported from Mālik—may Allah have mercy on him—in Ibn ʿAbdūs’s book, and through Ibn Wahb in some transmissions of al-Mudawwana, that daughters’ children receive no share in such an endowment. The rationale underlying these reports from him is that, in his view, the unqualified expression “a child’s child” does not include daughters’ children. When used without further clarification, it applies only to those grandchildren whose lineage is traced to the founder of the endowment. For although we call his daughter’s child his “child’s child”—since, as I have explained, the term “child” applies equally in Arabic to males and females, and to the singular and plural—that grandchild does not inherit from him under Islamic law or trace his lineage to him. Rather, he inherits from another man and traces his lineage to that man, to whom he therefore has a more particular connection.

A man’s son’s child is his grandchild through his son, belonging particularly to him, inheriting from him, and tracing his lineage to him. Through his son’s wife, that child is also another man’s grandchild, but in designation alone, not in inheritance or lineage. His daughter’s child, by contrast, is his grandchild through his daughter in designation alone, not in inheritance or lineage; through his daughter’s husband, that child is the offspring of another man, belonging particularly to that man, inheriting from him, and tracing his lineage to him.

Once this is established, and it is clear that the expression “a child’s child” applies both to grandchildren who trace their lineage to him and inherit from him and to those who do neither, its application must be restricted to those who inherit from him and trace their lineage to him, excluding those who do not. For this is the purpose for which a child is wanted and the reason one desires a child. Allah, Mighty and Majestic, says in His account of Zechariah, peace be upon him:

“Indeed, I fear my kinsmen after I am gone, and my wife is barren, so grant me, from Yourself, an heir” [Maryam: 5], “who will inherit from me and from the family of Jacob. And make him, my Lord, pleasing to You” [Maryam: 6].