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.
The four Sunni schools are not recorded as differing materially on this point in the sources reviewed. Where your own case turns on it, put it to a scholar of your school.
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.
General information, not legal or religious advice. Inheritance depends entirely on the exact family circumstances. Confirm the Canadian position with a lawyer in your province and any religious ruling with a qualified scholar.
Citations & sources
Every factual claim on this page traces to one of the references below. Legislation and dollar thresholds change — verify against the primary source before relying on any figure.
- Surah an-Nisa 4:11 — shares of children and parents — Quran.com
- Surah an-Nisa 4:12 — shares of spouses and uterine siblings — Quran.com
- Surah an-Nisa 4:176 — the kalalah verse — Quran.com
- Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 85: Laws of Inheritance (Faraid) — Sunnah.com
- Sahih Muslim, Book of Inheritance — Sunnah.com
- Encyclopaedia of Islam — Brill
- Academics — Islamic law and theology curriculum — Zaytuna College
- Research Papers — Cambridge Muslim College
- Research — Cambridge Muslim College
- Administering estates — Government of Ontario
- Promised inheritance not in the will ontario — Treadstone Law
- Support order despite will gift ontario — Treadstone Law
- Multiple wills inconsistent provisions risk ontario — Treadstone Law
- Partial intestacy will doesnt cover everything ontario — Treadstone Law
- Can a beneficiary witness a will ontario — Treadstone Law
- Summary judgment will validity ontario — Treadstone Law
- Wills & estates practice — Treadstone Law