Three impediments
All four Sunni schools agree that three things bar a relative from inheriting: slavery, killing the person who died, and a difference of religion (al-Zuḥaylī, al-Fiqh al-Islāmī wa-Adillatuh 10/7709–7721, a secondary source). An impediment concerns the heir; exclusion (ḥajb) concerns a nearer heir being alive.
The calculator has no input for an impediment. Whether a barred relative still reduces or excludes the other heirs: the sources we checked don't settle this, so a family with a barred member needs a scholar's review.
Killing
The schools agree that a deliberate, unlawful killing bars the killer. They differ on a killing by mistake, a killing by a child or an insane person, and a killing by right (al-Zuḥaylī 10/7709–7721):
| School | Which killing bars inheritance |
|---|---|
| Ḥanafī | Unlawful killing that carries retaliation or expiation: deliberate, quasi-deliberate or by mistake. Killing by right, with an excuse or by indirect cause, and killing by a child or an insane person, do not bar. |
| Mālikī | Only deliberate, hostile killing, done directly or by causing it, such as ordering it, poisoning or false testimony. A killing by mistake does not bar the estate, but the killer takes nothing of the blood money. |
| Shāfiʿī | Any killing bars, even by a child or by right. |
| Ḥanbalī | Killing without right that carries retaliation, blood money or expiation, including by a child, an insane person or someone asleep. |
For the Shāfiʿī position al-Zuḥaylī cites the ḥadīth "The killer gets nothing" (al-Tirmidhī). He notes that the chains are disputed: the report "The killer has no inheritance" from ʿUmar is broken (munqaṭiʿ), and al-Nasāʾī and al-Dāraquṭnī found a fault in the report from ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb, which Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr strengthened.
From the blood money for a killing by mistake, the Ḥanafī school lets both spouses inherit like any other money owed to the estate; the Mālikī school does not let the spouses inherit from it. The statutes of Egypt (art. 5) and Syria (arts. 223, 264) follow the Mālikī definition of a barring killing (al-Zuḥaylī).
Difference of religion
In all four schools a Muslim does not inherit from a non-Muslim, and a non-Muslim does not inherit from a Muslim. The ḥadīth is "A Muslim does not inherit from a disbeliever, nor a disbeliever from a Muslim", reported from Usāma ibn Zayd in the main collections except al-Nasāʾī (al-Zuḥaylī). In all four schools an apostate inherits from no one.
Among non-Muslims, the Mālikī school holds that a Jew and a Christian do not inherit from each other; the Ḥanafī, Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī schools let all non-Muslims inherit from each other (al-Zuḥaylī).
Liʿān and children born outside marriage
In the Mālikī school, a child whom the husband disowned by liʿān and that husband do not inherit from each other, nor do a child born outside marriage and the man who fathered it (al-Zuḥaylī 10/7711). For the Ḥanafī, Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī schools, and for inheritance through the mother in these cases, the sources we checked don't settle this.
This page explains the fiqh. Whether a will, a consent or a share is legally valid in your country is for its courts, notaries or registries to decide.
Sources
Volume and page numbers are those of the printed editions. Works marked secondary report the schools' views from outside them.
- al-Zuḥaylī, al-Fiqh al-Islāmī wa-Adillatuh 10/7709–7721 (secondary)