Not automatically. A completed lifetime gift is outside the estate — but a gift made in a final illness is treated as a bequest.
The Canadian position
Not automatically. A completed lifetime gift is outside the estate — but a gift made in a final illness is treated as a bequest.
Provincial law governs administration, so confirm the position where the estate will actually be administered.
The Islamic position
The fixed shares apply to the net estate after funeral expenses, debts and any bequest capped at one third.
Where a Canadian mechanism has no classical counterpart, treat it as a contemporary question for a qualified scholar.
All four schools treat a gift as an act that has to be completed, not merely intended or announced, and in every school the completing act is qabd — the donee actually taking the thing. What they differ over is what qabd does. For the Hanafis and the Shafi’is nothing at all happens until possession is taken: no ownership passes, and the donor may still change his mind. For the Hanbalis ownership passes on the contract but the gift only becomes binding on delivery. For the Malikis the gift is valid on offer and acceptance and the donee can go to a judge to force delivery, but it is not binding until he has it. The practical consequence is the same in every school and it is the one that matters when someone has died: a gift that was promised but never delivered is not a completed gift, and the asset was still the deceased’s when he died.
All four Sunni schools researched and sourced. Reviewed 2026-09-01. Full positions, evidence and sources — When is a lifetime gift complete and beyond recall?.
Related madhhab issue: A gift made in the final illness — gift or bequest?.
Related madhhab issue: Must a parent give children equally in life?.
Making an Islamic will in Canada — province by province, and what makes one valid where you live →
This is legal information only. For advice on your own circumstances, speak to a lawyer.
Citations & sources
Every factual claim on this page traces to a source below. Details change — check the original source before relying on any figure, fee or legal position.
- Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 55: Wills and Testaments (Wasaya) — Sunnah.com
- Sahih Muslim, Book of Wills — Sunnah.com
- Canadian Legal Information Institute — CanLII