generation after generation. The aforementioned Abd Allāh died, leaving children. Umar brought Abd Allāh’s children before a judge who held that entitlement should pass in succession, asking him to remove them from possession of the endowment and hand it over to him. The judge removed Abd Allāh’s children from possession and handed it over to Umar, ruling that he belonged to the first generation. Does that ruling apply to all generations or not?

Then Umar died, leaving children, who took possession of the endowment without a judicial ruling. Abd Allāh’s children asked a judge who favoured concurrent entitlement to rule that they should share in the endowment. Their grounds were that the founder had joined the children, descendants and posterity together in entitlement after Abd Allāh and Umar using the conjunction “and,” which indicates shared rather than successive entitlement, and that his words “generation after generation” do not require successive entitlement. Is a ruling granting them a share valid or not? Does the first judge’s ruling giving Umar precedence over Abd Allāh’s children contradict a ruling that Umar’s children and Abd Allāh’s children should share in the endowment? May a third judge annul this ruling and its enforcement?

He answered:

Merely ruling that one of the two original brothers is entitled to the entire endowment after his brother’s death does not make that ruling applicable to all generations, nor does it constitute a ruling granting his children what was awarded to him.

Concerning the founder’s words, “then for their children”: do they prescribe succession by one group as a whole to another, or succession by individuals to individuals, whereby each deceased beneficiary’s share passes to his children? The jurists hold two views on this.

Likewise, concerning his words, “and their children after them, generation after generation”: do they prescribe successive or concurrent entitlement? There are two views. Thus, if the judge ruled that Umar was entitled to the whole endowment after Abd Allāh’s death, this was based on his understanding