of having received payment and granted a legally valid discharge, her heirs’ claim is invalid. Even if they produce evidence and establish their claim before the judge, the evidence of her acknowledgment of receipt and discharge takes precedence, because it provides additional knowledge. This is unless she claims that she made the acknowledgment under coercion or out of embarrassment, or that she acknowledged receipt before actually receiving anything and what she acknowledged never occurred. She may then require the defendant to swear that the acknowledgment’s apparent meaning reflected the actual circumstances, or that they have no knowledge of that acknowledgment.

If the witnesses to the discharge have died and their handwriting is recognizable, those familiar with their handwriting may testify to it, and scholars who consider such evidence admissible may rule on that basis. Moreover, her claim to her entitlement after this lengthy period, without any obstacle preventing her from bringing it earlier, is inadmissible according to one of the two scholarly opinions found in Mālik’s school and elsewhere. And Allah knows best.

Shaykh al-Islām—may Allah sanctify his soul—was asked:

A man has two daughters, one married and the other unmarried. He had drawn up a written acknowledgment of three thousand dirhams for the married daughter and seven thousand dirhams for the unmarried daughter. The married daughter died, leaving a son and a husband, who have demanded the amount recorded in the document from her father.

Do they inherit that amount, and may they demand it from the son? The father maintains that, at the time, he had no male child and wrote this document for fear that others would gain control over his property, while the son is alive.