Ilm al-Faraid wal-Mawarith fi al-Sharia al-Islamiyya wal-Qanun al-Suri
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- Ilm al-Faraid wal-Mawarith fi al-Sharia al-Islamiyya wal-Qanun al-Suri
Ilm al-Faraid wal-Mawarith fi al-Sharia al-Islamiyya wal-Qanun al-Suri (The Science of Prescribed Shares and Inheritances in Islamic Law and Syrian Law) is a legal manual on Islamic estate division and statutory inheritance law written by the Syrian judicial scholar Muhammad Khayri al-Mufti .
Background and Purpose
The composition of the book arose directly from the author's professional duties handling inheritance proceedings at the Sharia Court of Damascus . Colleagues encouraged him to compile the intricate and rare cases that arose in practice and to author a comprehensive manual featuring solved problems to serve both students and practicing jurists . Having overseen estate calculations and successive inheritance distributions (munasakhat) over an extended period, al-Mufti sought to simplify classical legal literature for contemporary application .
Structure and Contents
The work opens with introductory sections defining ilm al-faraid and mawarith, examining scriptural evidences from the Quran and Sunnah, explaining the wisdom behind inheritance legislation, and classifying the claims payable from an estate prior to division .
It systematically aligns classical Hanafi jurisprudence with the Syrian Personal Status Code introduced under Legislative Decree No. 59 of 17 September 1953 (effective 1 November 1953) . The book's major chapters cover:
- Foundations and Prerequisites: The pillars, conditions, causes (asbab), and impediments (mawani') of inheritance under both Islamic jurisprudence and Syrian statutory law .
- Categories of Heirs and Distribution: Prescribed shares (ashab al-furud), agnatic heirs ('asaba), total and partial exclusion (hajb), mathematical denominators (makharij al-furud), and the doctrine of return (radd) to relatives and spouses .
- Special Cases and Legal Reforms: Practical applications addressing shifting legal procedures before and after the 1953 decree, including the grandfather inheriting alongside siblings, the shared case (al-mas'ala al-mushtaraka), and obligatory bequests (al-wasiyya al-wajiba) under Article 257 for orphaned grandchildren .
- Complex Scenarios and Distant Kindred: Rules governing the estates of unborn children (haml), missing persons (mafqud), ambiguous hermaphrodites (khuntha mushkil), simultaneous casualties of disasters (gharqa wa-hadma), apostates, and illegitimate offspring, alongside a breakdown of the four categories of non-prescribed kin (dhawi al-arham) and the state treasury (bayt al-mal) .
Reception
The treatise includes a foreword by Murshid 'Abidin, former Head of the Sharia Chamber and Vice-President of the Court of Cassation in Syria, who praised the book for its exhaustive coverage, accessible phrasing, and clear, step-by-step arithmetic solutions designed to spare readers unnecessary complication .
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