What is exclusion in Islamic inheritance?

Six relatives can never be excluded from an estate outright — the father, the mother, the husband, the wife, the son and the daughter — and the Kuwaiti Mawsu’a records that by ijma‘. Everyone else can be. Exclusion comes in two grades: hajb hirman, being shut out completely, and hajb nuqsan, being moved from a larger fraction to a smaller one. Three rules do most of the work: a relative who reaches the deceased through another heir is excluded while that heir lives; the nearer of the same kind excludes the more remote; and the stronger blood tie excludes the weaker.

All four Sunni schools researched and sourced. Reviewed 2026-09-01. Full positions, evidence and sources — Hajb — when does one heir shut another out?.