1. A category of things they need for day-to-day support in health, sickness, and the like. Justice here is to supply each child with whatever he requires, whether that need be small or great.

2. A category whose benefit is shared by them all—such as a general gift, maintenance, or marriage expenses. In this case, showing preference is unquestionably forbidden.

Between the two lies a third category: one of the children may have an unusual, individual need—for instance, payment of a debt he incurred as compensation (1) for an injury, covering his dowry, or providing his wife’s maintenance. Whether the father is obliged to give the others an equivalent in such situations is open to consideration. End of the quotation from al-Ikhtiyārāt.

What the hadiths teach us

1. It is obligatory to treat one’s children with fairness and forbidden to favor or single out any of them; males and females are the same in this regard.
2. Such favoritism is injustice and wrongdoing, for which it is impermissible to bear or give testimony.
3. Any excess must be returned, or the others must be given until equality is achieved.
4. Transactions concluded in violation of the Sacred Law are null and void; a merely formal contract has no legal weight when it conflicts with the Sharīʿah.

Chapter: The Gift of ʿUmrā
First hadith
Jabir ibn ʿAbdullāh (may Allah be pleased with them both) reported: The Prophet ﷺ ruled that an ʿumrā gift belongs to the person to whom it is given.

In one wording: “Whoever is granted an ʿumrā, it is his and his descendants’; it is for the one to whom it was given and does not revert to the giver, because it is a gift on which the rules of inheritance apply.”

Jabir said: “The only form of ʿumrā the Messenger of Allah ﷺ sanctioned is for a man to say, ‘It is yours and your descendants’.’ But if he says, ‘It is yours for as long as you live,’ then it reverts to its original owner.”

(1) Monetary compensation awarded for bodily injury.