Radd (return): giving the surplus back to the heirs

Radd — when the shares fall short

The opposite case: a woman survived by her mother and one daughter. The mother takes a sixth and the daughter a half — together two thirds — and there is no son or other residuary heir to absorb the remaining third.

Rather than leave it undistributed, the surplus is returned (radd) to the fixed-share heirs in proportion to their shares. The mother and daughter end with a quarter and three quarters. One relative is excluded from the radd, however: a surviving spouse keeps their fixed share but does not share in the returned surplus.

Where the schools stand

The Ḥanafī and Ḥanbalī schools hold radd as the settled position of the madhab. The early Mālikī and Shāfiʿī position sends the surplus to the public treasury (bayt al-māl) instead, but the later scholars of both schools return it to the heirs in the same way when the treasury is not properly run. For those two schools the calculator follows the later scholars and says so beside the result.

Radd comes before the distant kindred (dhawū al-arḥām). While any fixed-share heir other than a spouse survives, the surplus goes back to that heir, and the distant kindred receive nothing.

A spouse on their own

When a husband or a wife is the only heir and no relative survives, not even a distant one, the question is whether the surplus goes to the spouse. The later Ḥanafī scholars give fatwa that it does. The Mālikī, Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī schools send it to the bayt al-māl. A treasury claim is not something the calculator can settle, so for those three schools it marks the case as needing a scholar's review.

Under the Ḥanafī school the calculator gives the sole spouse the whole estate: the fixed share first, then the surplus by radd, and the working panel shows both steps.

Worked examples

Every share below is computed by the calculator's engine when this page loads. Open any example to change the family and see what moves.