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Is it considered just and natural for a wife who has no children to receive a share of her deceased husband's inheritance, while the other wife who has children shares one-eighth with her, resulting in the childless wife receiving 1/16 of the inheritance?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

If a man dies leaving two wives, one son, and two daughters, the inheritance is divided as follows: The two wives together receive one-eighth, based on the Almighty's saying: (But if you have a child, then for them [the wives] is one eighth of what you leave). The remainder goes to the children, with the male receiving the share of two females, based on the Almighty's saying: (Allah instructs you concerning your children: for the male, what is equal to the share of two females). The two wives share the one-eighth equally, and the presence of children for one of them and not the other is not taken into consideration; this is part of Allah's justice. In the case where the husband was Ja'fari and the wife Sunni, as long as the husband died while in a marriage with this woman and they both believed in its validity, and the judge did not rule for its annulment, then all rulings related to the waiting period ('iddah), lineage, and inheritance are established by this marriage.

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

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