a remote form of fatherhood; whereas the sonship that attaches to the deceased’s father is no sonship of the deceased at all, whether close or distant.

Whoever maintains that the brother has a stronger claim than the grandfather—on the grounds that the brother derives his link through the person by whom inheritance is effected through sonship, namely the father, whereas the grandfather derives his through fatherhood—has fallen into a mistaken and fanciful notion, for the grandfather is, after all, a kind of father, while the brother is in no sense a son.

In short, the brother is merely one of the deceased’s appendages, an incidental offshoot, whereas the grandfather is one of his direct causes, and a cause has more right to something than its offshoot.

Those who allot the grandfather a share together with the siblings have differed as to the method. Zayd’s doctrine may be summarized thus: the case must be one of two—either another heir with a fixed share is present alongside the siblings, or none is present.

If no fixed-share holder is present, the grandfather is given whichever of two alternatives is better for him: either one-third of the estate, or a portion equal to that of one male sibling. Whether the siblings are all male, all female, or a mixture of both, the rule is as follows: with a single brother he divides the estate; with two brothers likewise, yet if they are three or four he takes one-third. With one to four sisters he shares with them, counting himself as a male so that a male receives the share of two females; but with five sisters he is allotted one-third, for that is more advantageous to him than sharing. Such is his position when only siblings are present and no other heirs.

Should another fixed-share heir be present, the fixed shares are distributed first. Whatever remains is then dealt with in whichever of three ways is most favorable to the grandfather: either he receives one-third of what is left, an amount equal to one male sibling, or one-sixth of the entire estate without reduction. The residue then goes to the siblings, a male taking the share of two females, as in the so-called Akdariyyah case whose details we shall set out later together with the opinions of the jurists.

As for ʿAlī (may Allah be pleased with him), he would grant the grandfather whichever was more beneficial to him of one-sixth or sharing, whether or not other fixed-share heirs were present with the grandfather and the siblings. He never reduced the grandfather below one-sixth, for once it was agreed that sons do not diminish that sixth, it was all the more fitting that siblings should not.

Zayd’s principal reasoning is that since the grandfather bars the maternal siblings, he should not deprive them of the portion that is their due, namely one-third. Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, al-Thawrī and others adopted Zayd’s opinion, whereas Abū Ḥanīfah followed the view of ʿAlī (may Allah be pleased with him).

The inheritance problem known as the Akdariyyah concerns a woman who dies leaving a husband, a mother, a full sister, and a grandfather. The scholars differed over it. ʿUmar and Ibn Masʿūd (may Allah be pleased with them) would allot the husband one-half, the mother one-sixth, the sister one-half, and the grandfather one-sixth, by way of ʿawl (proportional reduction).

ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib and Zayd (may Allah be pleased with them) held that the husband receives one-half, the mother one-third, the sister one-half, and the grandfather one-sixth in full shares—except that Zayd combines the shares of the sister and the grandfather, and then divides