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Is the wife entitled to claim a share of her deceased husband's insurance and deferred Mahr, if the estate does not cover the debts and his family cannot pay them?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

If a Muslim dies and leaves behind wealth, the rights pertaining to his estate are as follows: first, his burial and shrouding expenses; second, the payment of his debts (whether they are due to Allah, such as zakat, expiations, and vows, or to people, such as loans and the wife's dower); third, the execution of his will within the limits of one-third of his estate; and then, the remaining portion is distributed among his heirs. The deferred dower of the wife is considered a debt and takes precedence over the will and the distribution of the estate. What insurance pays to the heirs is considered part of the estate, and these rights apply to it. As for compensation from insurance, if the deceased was the cause of the accident, the heirs are only entitled to what the deceased paid for the insurance. If the fault was with someone else, then the blood money is due from the killer's 'aqilah (male relatives responsible for paying blood money), and the insurance company may pay it.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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