The Faraid Distribution Table — Fixed Shares in Islamic Inheritance

A faraid distribution table is the fixed-share schedule at the heart of Islamic inheritance law — faraid (الفرائض), also called mirath — set out directly in the Quran, mostly in Surah An-Nisa (4:11, 4:12 and 4:176). It assigns six named fractions — 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 2/3, 1/3 and 1/6 — to specific heirs under specific conditions, then gives the residue to the nearest male relatives. For any given set of surviving heirs, the distribution is deterministic: the table tells you exactly who receives what.

That determinism is the whole point. Faraid is not a custom or a preference — it is the default division that applies to at least two-thirds of every Muslim estate whether anything was written down or not, and it leaves far less to individual discretion than most people expect. The table below is the arithmetic a grieving family should never have to do at the kitchen table.

What is the order of distribution in Islamic inheritance?

Before any heir receives a share, faraid follows a strict four-step sequence, and getting the order wrong changes every number that follows:

1. Funeral expenses are settled from the estate first.
2. Debts are paid. Every debt the deceased owed comes out before a single heir is paid. The Prophet ﷺ described the believer's soul as suspended by their debt until it is settled — the obligation is that serious.
3. The wasiyya (bequest) is executed, capped at one-third of what remains, and never to someone who is already a Quranic heir. This is the only slice a Muslim directs freely.
4. Only then does faraid divide the remainder among the heirs by the table below.

This order is why the table is only as good as the estate map behind it. A family that doesn't know the debts cannot finish step 2, and a family that doesn't know the assets cannot do step 4.

What are the fixed shares in the faraid distribution table?

The Quran names six fractions and assigns each to a specific heir when the stated conditions are met. This is the core of the table:

Heir	Fixed share	Condition
Husband	1/2	Wife left no children
Husband	1/4	Wife left children
Wife	1/4	Husband left no children
Wife	1/8	Husband left children
Mother	1/3	Deceased left no children and not multiple siblings
Mother	1/6	Deceased left children, or multiple siblings
Father	1/6 + residue	Deceased left children
Father	Residue	Deceased left no children
One daughter	1/2	Alone, no sons
2+ daughters	2/3 (shared)	No sons
Daughters with sons	Residue at 2:1	Sons present
One full sister	1/2	No children, no father
2+ full sisters	2/3 (shared)	No children, no father
Maternal sibling	1/6	Alone
2+ maternal siblings	1/3 (shared)	—

Heirs without a fixed share in a given scenario — sons, grandsons, full brothers, and further male relatives — take the residue ('asaba): whatever remains after the fixed shares are paid. The defining rule of that residue is the 2:1 ratio: a son receives twice a daughter's portion, a full brother twice a full sister's.

How does a faraid distribution work in a real example?

Take the classic worked case. A man dies leaving a wife, a mother, a father, one son and one daughter, and an estate of 240,000 (in any currency) after debts and funeral costs:

• Wife: 1/8 = 30,000
• Mother: 1/6 = 40,000
• Father: 1/6 = 40,000
• Residue (130,000) to the children at 2:1 → son 86,667, daughter 43,333

The fractions sum to exactly the whole estate: 1/8 + 1/6 + 1/6 = 5/12 in fixed shares, the remaining 7/12 to the residue. No guessing, no negotiation — for these heirs, the answer is fixed.

What are 'awl and radd — when shares don't add up to one?

Two mechanical complications are exactly where paper arithmetic fails and a calculator earns its place:

'awl (reduction). Sometimes the fixed shares sum to more than the whole estate. A husband (1/2), two full sisters (2/3) and a mother (1/3) add up to one-and-a-half. In that case every share is reduced proportionally so the total equals one — the denominator grows and each heir takes their fraction of the reduced whole.

radd (return). Sometimes the fixed shares sum to less than one, leaving an unclaimed residue with no residuary heir to absorb it. The surplus returns to the fixed-share heirs in proportion to their shares — the spouse and mother, say, divide the leftover between them at the ratio of what they already received.

Both are pure arithmetic once the rule is known. Both are easy to botch by hand under the pressure of a real deadline.

What is hajb — how do heirs block each other?

Hajb (blocking) is the rule that a nearer heir can completely exclude a farther one from inheriting. A living son blocks the deceased's brothers, sisters and grandchildren. A father blocks his own father (the grandfather). A full brother blocks a paternal brother. The practical effect is that most family trees contain far more potential heirs than actual ones — and working out who is blocked, in what order, is where the mistakes that reach a scholar usually originate.

The blocking hierarchy is dense: descendants block ascendants who block collateral relatives, and within each line the closer relationship wins. A calculator applies it instantly; a family reading the verse cold usually cannot.

What is the difference between faraid and a will?

Faraid is the mandatory default — it governs at least two-thirds of every estate whether you wrote anything or not, and you cannot redirect those shares. What a Muslim can direct personally is the wasiyya, the discretionary bequest of up to one-third, plus everything that is not inheritance at all: the debts documented, the guardians named, the access instructions left, the wishes recorded.

This is the line that matters in practice. Faraid tells your family how to divide what is left; it does not tell them what was there, what was owed, where the accounts are, or who should raise the children. That layer is entirely yours to prepare — or to leave undone.

Where WiseEnding fits

A faraid distribution table divides the estate; it cannot find the estate. The most common way Islamic inheritance goes wrong has nothing to do with the fractions — it's that the family never learns which accounts existed, what was owed, or where the documents were kept, so the correct shares get applied to an incomplete number.

WiseEnding is built for that layer. The Family Vault holds the complete, current map — every asset, every debt, every document, every instruction — encrypted so only you can read it, with the optional Islamic layer tracking Zakat on each asset along the way. When the Legacy Heartbeat confirms you're gone, that map is released to exactly the people you chose, each receiving what they need — so your family sits down with a scholar or a calculator holding all the facts, and the division faraid prescribes can actually happen.

The shares were settled fourteen centuries ago. What remains unsettled, in most families, is the far simpler question: what was there, and where is it?

Faraid handles the division with certainty. Your job — while you're here — is to make the estate legible enough to divide.

Sources: Qur'an, Surah An-Nisa 4:11–12 (spousal and parental shares, the 2:1 ratio for children) and 4:176 (kalala — sibling shares); classical faraid scholarship on 'awl, radd and hajb.