Islamic Inheritance Calculator (Wirasat)

This Islamic inheritance calculator divides an estate (tarka) between the heirs according to the Qur'anic shares in Surah An-Nisa (4:11, 4:12 and 4:176) and the rules of either Hanafi fiqh, the school followed by most Sunni Muslims in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Turkey, or Ja'fari fiqh as set out by Ayatollah al-Sistani for Shia Muslims. Enter the value of the estate, the funeral costs, debts and any bequest (wasiyyat), choose whether the deceased was a man or a woman, and add the relatives who survived them. The calculator shows every heir's fraction, percentage and amount, the amount per person, and a short reason for each share, including which relatives are excluded and by whom.

Before anything is shared, three things come out of the estate in this order: reasonable funeral and burial costs, all debts (including any unpaid mahr owed to the wife), and then any bequest, which is limited to one-third of what is left and cannot go to someone who is already an heir unless the other heirs agree. Only the remainder is divided between the heirs.

Heirs fall into two groups. Sharers (ashab al-furud) have a fixed Qur'anic share: the husband gets 1/2, or 1/4 if there are children; a wife gets 1/4, or 1/8 if there are children (several wives share it); the mother gets 1/6 if there are children or two or more siblings, otherwise 1/3; one daughter gets 1/2 and two or more share 2/3. Residuaries (asaba), led by sons, take whatever is left, with a son receiving twice a daughter's share. When there are sons, daughters become residuaries with them. Nearer relatives exclude more distant ones: a son excludes grandsons and all brothers and sisters, and the father excludes the grandfather and the siblings.

Two special adjustments are built in. If the fixed shares add up to more than the whole estate, every share is reduced proportionally ('awl): for example a husband, a mother and two full sisters have shares of 1/2, 1/6 and 2/3, which become 3/8, 1/8 and 1/2. If the fixed shares add up to less than the whole and there is no residuary heir, the surplus is returned (radd) to the sharers other than the spouse in proportion to their shares: a mother and one daughter end up with 1/4 and 3/4. The calculator also applies the Hanafi positions that the paternal grandfather excludes brothers and sisters, and that with only a spouse and both parents the mother gets one-third of what is left after the spouse (the Umariyyatan).

In Shia (Ja'fari) mode the calculator follows Ayatollah al-Sistani's Islamic Laws (rulings 2745 to 2796). Relatives inherit in three groups: first parents and children, then grandparents and brothers and sisters, then uncles and aunts, and anyone in a nearer group excludes everyone in the later groups; the spouse inherits alongside any group. There is no 'awl, so when the fixed shares exceed the estate the daughters (or sisters) take what is left. A surplus returns to the blood relatives, never to the spouse, except that a husband who is the only heir takes everything, while a wife who is the only heir takes 1/4 and the rest goes to the Imam through the marja's office. On the mother's side, grandparents and half-siblings share 1/3 equally (1/6 for a single half-sibling), and the father's side takes the rest with men receiving twice women. A wife inherits the value of buildings and trees but not land, and where Sistani requires the heirs to settle a share by agreement (musalaha) the calculator shows that amount separately.

Worked example: a man leaves Rs 10,000,000, with Rs 50,000 funeral costs and Rs 200,000 of debts, so Rs 9,750,000 is shared. His heirs are his wife, his mother, two sons and a daughter. The wife takes 1/8 (Rs 1,218,750), the mother 1/6 (Rs 1,625,000), and the remaining 17/24 goes to the children in the ratio 2:2:1, so each son receives Rs 2,762,500 and the daughter Rs 1,381,250.

This tool covers the heirs found in the great majority of cases. It does not cover distant kindred (dhawil arham, such as a daughter's children or a maternal uncle), missing persons or an unborn child, and in Shia mode it does not yet cover grandchildren when no child survives, brothers' and sisters' children, or uncles and aunts. In Pakistan, section 4 of the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance 1961 also gives orphaned grandchildren the share their parent would have received, which classical fiqh does not. Use the result as a guide and confirm it with a qualified mufti or lawyer before the estate is distributed.