His saying, exalted is He: “Allah instructs you concerning your children”: that is, He enjoins and makes obligatory upon you matters concerning your children—namely, their affairs after your death: “For the male is the share of two females.”

“If they are females”—meaning the children left behind—“two or more,” that is, two daughters or more. The word “more” is merely additional, as in His saying: “Strike above the necks” [al-Anfāl 8:12]. “Then for them are two-thirds of what he leaves. And if there is one”—meaning one daughter—the majority of reciters read “one” in the accusative, as the predicate of the verb “is”; the Medinan reciters read it in the nominative, with the meaning: if there is one [daughter], “then for her is one-half.”

“And for his parents”—that is, the parents of the deceased; this is a pronominal reference to one not explicitly mentioned—“for each of them is one-sixth of what he leaves, if he has a child.” This means that the father and mother each receive one-sixth of the estate when there is a child or a son’s child. The father is then a fixed-share heir.

“But if he has no child and his parents inherit from him, then for his mother is one-third.” Hamzah and al-Kisā’ī recited “for his mother” with the initial hamzah carrying a kasrah, to avoid the heaviness of a dammah after a kasrah; the other reciters read it with a dammah, in accordance with the original form. “But if he has siblings”—two or more, whether male or female—“then for his mother is one-sixth.” The remainder belongs to the father, if the father is present with her. The siblings do not inherit alongside the father, but they reduce the mother’s share from one-third to one-sixth.

Ibn ‘Abbās, may Allah be pleased with him, said: Siblings do not reduce the mother from one-third to one-sixth unless they number three. He was alone in holding this view. He said: This is because Allah, exalted is He, says, “But if he has siblings, then for his mother is one-sixth,” and two are not called siblings. We reply: a plural designation may apply to two, because plurality is the joining of one thing to another, and this exists in the case of two, as Allah, exalted is He, says: “Your hearts have deviated” [al-Taḥrīm 66:4]. He mentioned “hearts” in the plural and ascribed it to two people.

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His saying, exalted is He: “After any bequest he may have made, or any debt.” Ibn Kathīr, Ibn ‘Āmir, and Abū Bakr recited “he may have made” in the passive voice, with a fathah on the letter ṣād; they recited the second occurrence likewise, and Ḥafṣ agreed with them in the second occurrence. The remaining reciters read it with a kasrah on the ṣād, because the deceased had been mentioned previously, as indicated by His saying: “after any bequest they may have made” and “a bequest you make.”

‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib, may Allah be pleased with him, said: “You recite the bequest before the debt, whereas the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, gave priority to the debt before the bequest.” (1) There is consensus that a debt takes precedence over a bequest. The verse conveys combination rather than sequence, and it clarifies that