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How do I calculate the faraid shares for my family?

Identify who survives you, apply the fixed fractions, then distribute any residue to the residuary heirs. The complication is exclusion — a nearer heir can block a more distant one.

This is legal information only. For advice on your own circumstances, speak to a lawyer.

Identify who survives you, apply the fixed fractions, then distribute any residue to the residuary heirs. The complication is exclusion — a nearer heir can block a more distant one.

The Canadian position

The calculation is not a Canadian legal question at all. Once the shares are known, a lawyer expresses them as fractions of the residue in the will.

The Islamic position

Work in order: funeral expenses, debts including unpaid mahr and zakat, the wasiyyah up to one third, then the fixed shares, then the residue to the asabah.

Getting exclusion wrong is the most common amateur error. A surviving son changes almost every other share in the calculation.

Where the four schools stand

Researched — the four schools agree

Agreed. The estate is worked through in four steps, in this order: (1) the cost of preparing, shrouding and burying the body; (2) the deceased’s debts; (3) any bequest, capped at one third of what is left after (1) and (2); and (4) the fixed shares of the heirs, out of the remainder. The Kuwaiti Encyclopaedia of Islamic Jurisprudence records the sequence itself as a point on which there is no disagreement among the jurists, and records debt-before-bequest as agreed by all of them — even though Surah an-Nisa names the bequest before the debt, the jurists read the order as debt first, because a debt is owed from the outset while a bequest is a voluntary gift. Two rankings inside this sequence are genuinely disputed and are researched separately: whether a debt secured on a particular asset outranks the funeral itself, and whether unpaid religious dues such as zakat or an unperformed hajj come out of the estate at all where the deceased left no instruction. Neither dispute disturbs the four-step order. We checked this point; the schools do not differ on it.

Shared evidence: Surah an-Nisa 4:11 — “after the fulfilment of bequests and debts” · Surah an-Nisa 4:12 — the same clause, twice more · Sahih Muslim 1206a — the pilgrim who died at ‘Arafah was washed and shrouded with no inquiry into his debts.

Researched finding from our madhhab register — issue debt-priority-order, reviewed 2026-08-19.

Full evidence and history: The order of payment out of an estate — the issue page.

Related madhhab issue: Hajb — when does one heir shut another out?.

Related madhhab issue: The one-third cap on a bequest.

Related madhhab issue: Unpaid mahr when the husband dies.

The mistake people make

Do not calculate it once and file it away. The shares change as family members are born and die, so the will should express fractions conditionally rather than fixed dollar amounts.

Note

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. Anything under “further reading” is related material, not a source for what is stated here.

Islamic primary sources
  1. Surah an-Nisa 4:11 — shares of children and parents — Quran.com
  2. Surah an-Nisa 4:12 — shares of spouses and uterine siblings — Quran.com
  3. Surah an-Nisa 4:176 — the kalalah verse — Quran.com
  4. Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 85: Laws of Inheritance (Faraid) — Sunnah.com
  5. Sahih Muslim, Book of Inheritance — Sunnah.com
Scholarly & institutional references
  1. Encyclopaedia of Islam — Brill
  2. Academics — Islamic law and theology curriculum — Zaytuna College
Further reading — Treadstone Law
  1. Estate freeze family trust shares ontario — Treadstone Law
  2. Family trust shares professional corporation — Treadstone Law
  3. Business held in a family trust not direct shares — Treadstone Law
  4. Family trust holding shares still qualify for cge ontario — Treadstone Law
  5. Wills & estates practice — Treadstone Law