These are my complete notes on Akhsar al-Mukhtasarat’s chapter on Islamic laws of inheritance based on lectures of my teacher Sh. Muhammad Gamal Aly. I also used Sh. Al-Quaymi’s explanation of the chapter online as an additional resource to compile the notes.
I must admit that out of all the chapters of fiqh, I was dreading this one the most. Why? Because I hate math and numbers. It has always been my weakest subject in school and even the very basic equations confuse me. However, Sh. Muhammad Aly, may Allah bless him, made me go through so many examples and situations that at the moment I can do the calculations in my head.
I hope you all find the notes useful as I placed in them many examples with detailed calculations to make the concepts clear. I also quadruple checked all calculations and they are accurate to the best of my knowledge.
Because inheritance laws have one of the least differences of opinion among the Muslim scholars, I would also like to share two additional resources which I used as supplements during my study of the chapter:
1) Inheritance calculator: it’s been very helpful with verifying my calculations on paper. You just put in the relatives that you have and it does the calculations for you. Their rules tab is also extremely helpful as well because it lists all the different rules in a precise and comprehensive manner. However, not all of their calculations are based on the Hanbali mu’tamad but most of it is.
2) Inheritance chart: this is an extremely helpful chart which was orginally authored in Arabic and has been translated into English. It’s litereally a bird’s eye view of the inheritance laws. This one also does not always show the Hanbali mu’tamad position but most of it does.
I am a Pakistani-American Muslim blogger. I hold a B.S. in Information Technology and a B.A. in Islamic Studies. I am also a follower and a student of the Hanbali school of Islamic law. Read more