and they share with him the same mother. Thus, the root of disagreement in most questions of inheritance is the clash of analogies and the overlap of terms in matters for which an explicit text exists.

Inheritance of the Grandfather

The scholars unanimously agree that the father pre-empts the grandfather, that in the father’s absence the grandfather takes his place with respect to the sons, and that he is an agnatic heir alongside the fixed-share holders. They differed, however, as to whether he likewise assumes the father’s position in blocking full siblings or paternal half-siblings. Ibn ʿAbbās and Abū Bakr (may Allah be pleased with them both) and a number of others held that he does block them; this is also the view of Abū Ḥanīfah, Abū Thawr, al-Muzanī, Ibn Surayj of the Shāfiʿīs, Dāwūd, and others. ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (may Allah be pleased with him), Zayd ibn Thābit, and Ibn Masʿūd, on the other hand, all granted the siblings a share together with the grandfather, though they disagreed about how that share should be calculated, as I shall explain later.

Those who place the grandfather on the same footing as the father do so because of their shared substantive meaning: each is a father of the deceased, and in many rulings—by unanimous agreement—they are treated alike. Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with him) even said: “Will Zayd ibn Thābit not fear Allah? He counts a son’s son as a son, yet refuses to count a father’s father as a father!” They are unanimously agreed that, outside the fixed shares, the grandfather is equivalent to the father: his testimony on behalf of his grandchild is accepted like the father’s; his ownership automatically frees his grandchild just as the father’s frees his son; and retaliation is not exacted for him against a grandfather, just as it is not exacted against a father.

Those who allow the brother to inherit alongside the grandfather argue that the brother is nearer to the deceased than the grandfather: the grandfather is the father of the deceased’s father, whereas the brother is the son of the deceased’s father, and a son is closer than a father. They also cite the consensus that a nephew takes precedence over an uncle, even though the nephew traces his connection through the father while the uncle traces through the grandfather.

The disagreement, then, stems from competing analogies in this domain. Should one ask, “Which of the two analogies carries greater weight in Sharīʿah reasoning?” we reply that the stronger is the analogy equating the father and the grandfather. The grandfather is a father of the second or third degree, just as the son’s son is a son of the second or third degree. Now, if the son does not exclude the grandfather—though he does exclude the siblings—then the grandfather must exclude whomever the son excludes. The brother is neither an ascendant nor a descendant of the deceased; he merely shares the same root with him, and the root has a stronger claim than a mere co-sharer in that root. Indeed, the grandfather is not merely an ascendant of the deceased through the father; he is the root of that ascendant. The brother inherits only because he is a branch of the deceased’s root; accordingly, the one who is the root of the root has priority over the one who is a branch of the root. For that reason, it is meaningless to say that the brother derives his right through filiation while the grandfather derives his through paternity: the brother is not the deceased’s son at all—he is only the son of the deceased’s father—whereas the grandfather is the deceased’s very own father.

Sonship is stronger than fatherhood in inheritance only when both apply to the same person—namely, the deceased himself. As for the sonship that belongs to the deceased’s father, it need not be stronger, with respect to the deceased, than the fatherhood that belongs to the deceased’s ancestor, for the fatherhood of the deceased’s father is itself a kind of fatherhood toward the deceased, namely