two Muslim parents and three brothers who are either unbelievers or slaves, the mother is not deprived of the one-third: she receives one-third of what her son leaves, and the remainder goes to his father.

If members of the protected communities (dhimmīs) bring an inheritance case to us and the judge elects to hear it, he must decide it according to Islamic law.

If someone emancipates a Christian slave who has a Christian brother, and the freed man then dies, his estate passes to the brother who shares his religion, not to his Muslim patron and not to any other Muslim.

Anyone who dies without an heir has his property transferred to the Muslim public treasury, provided the ruler is just and allocates it to those who are entitled and in need.

When a man dies leaving a son who is at that moment an unbeliever or a slave, and that son later accepts Islam or gains his freedom, he is entitled to nothing from the estate, whether his conversion or emancipation occurs before or after the property has been distributed.

If, after a man’s death, conclusive evidence establishes that a particular child is truly his, that child is entitled to the share that falls to him from the inheritance.

We have already clarified in al-Tamhīd the meaning of the Prophet’s ﷺ saying: “Any house or land that was divided in the pre-Islamic period remains upon that pre-Islamic division, and whoever embraces Islam in relation to an inheritance before it is distributed….” All praise belongs to Allah.