Sharia Wiz Elective Share Waiver

Shariawiz launched in 2020 from Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, after what the company describes as years of R&D by lawyers, Sharia experts, and engineers. Its founder and CEO is Abed Awad, an American attorney whom endorser Dr. Abdullah bin Hamid Ali calls the platform's 'chief designer' with 'a wealth of knowledge in Arabic, Sharia and American law.' The endorsement bench is unusual for legal-tech: Imam Zaid Shakir calls it 'by far the most powerful estate planning program available today,' Columbia's Dr. Wael Hallaq assigns it to his students, and it has been analyzed in a 2025 peer-reviewed journal article and in a Columbia University Press book - third-party validation few Islamic fintechs can point to. It won 'Best Islamic Finance Technology Solutions Provider' at the 2024 Global Islamic Finance Awards (company-reported). Documents and the inheritance calculator were approved in an independent Shariah audit by Raqaba; the Raqaba mark appears on the Shariawiz site, and purchasers receive the certificate. That is a one-time certification of the forms, not ongoing board supervision of the kind a fund would publish.

The product ladder is priced one-time with unlimited free lifetime updates. The $199 Islamic Will plan includes five state-specific documents: the will itself, an Islamic Inheritance Appendix guiding the executor through faraid, a Health Care Directive, a Financial Power of Attorney, and - critically - an Elective Share Waiver / Community Property Agreement in which both spouses agree to Islamic inheritance shares instead of state defaults. That waiver is the legal linchpin: US elective-share and community-property statutes would otherwise let a surviving spouse claim far more than the Quranic quarter or eighth. Nine community-property states (including California and Texas) additionally require asset schedules classifying separate versus community property, which the flow handles where the platform operates.

The trust tier addresses probate. The $499 Individual Islamic Trust and $799 Joint Islamic Trust - branded the Family Waqf and co-developed with Azzad Asset Management in 2022 as the first scholar-approved product of its kind in the US (company claim) - avoid probate court, keep distribution private, and handle multi-state property without ancillary proceedings. The waqf structure lets the surviving spouse maintain full control after the first death, with Islamic distribution to heirs after both spouses pass. The packages include a pour-over will, certification of trust, and a detailed funding guide; Shariawiz partners with The Dec Firm for real-estate deed transfers from $175 and staffs customer support to walk users through execution. The honest caveat, which Shariawiz itself states: an unfunded trust is worthless - assets never retitled into it fall back to probate.

The faraid engine is the intellectual core. It computes all three heir categories (Quranic fixed-share heirs, residuaries by ta'sib, and distant kindred), handles proration ('awl) and return (radd), and discloses madhhab differences rather than papering over them - the Hanafi position that a paternal grandfather blocks siblings, the modern statutory position (Egypt, UAE, Jordan) allowing a spouse to take radd, and both sides of the daughters-only debate, which it leaves to the user's conscience. Its applied-fiqh library is equally substantive: the obligatory bequest passing a predeceased child's share to grandchildren (capped at one-third, per Ibn Hazm, Imam Ahmad, and al-Qaradawi, codified in Pakistan and Egypt), mahr as a debt on the husband's estate, and a signature 'moral/religious debt' mechanism compensating wives for domestic labor - grounded in Umar ibn al-Khattab's ruling awarding a widow half the estate for her business contributions plus her prescribed share.

The $999 Islamic Prenuptial Agreement (launched April 2024) is the first state-specific Islamic prenup platform in America (company claim). The package includes the prenup, a Muslim Marriage Contract for the ceremony, and an Islamic will for each spouse; the collaborative flow has both parties complete disclosures and negotiate flagged disagreements before signing. Shariawiz is refreshingly candid about enforceability: 'likely to be enforceable if you follow all the right steps... but there is no guarantee, even if you hire an attorney' - with specific warnings on full financial disclosure, signing well before the wedding, notarization, and California's attorney-review requirement for spousal-support waivers. E-notarization works in all states except Maryland and Wisconsin. Note the prenup is non-refundable, unlike the 30-day guarantee on estate documents.

The remaining caveats are the self-help model, not a hidden defect. Shariawiz is not a law firm and does not give legal advice - that is how a $199-$799 Islamic estate plan exists as an alternative to a several-thousand-dollar attorney engagement, which is the whole point of the product. Complex estates are referred to outside counsel. Documents become legally effective when users follow the downloaded state-specific signing, witnessing, and notarization instructions. Coverage is 49 states: Louisiana is excluded, and the state picker tells you so. On life insurance, Shariawiz presents published scholarly opinions (including Mustafa al-Zarqa, Abdelwahab Khallaf, and Monzer Kahf) that some Muslims may use term life under necessity given that takaful is not available in the US - it does not impose a house ruling. The same page includes an affiliate referral to Fabric, disclosed here as a commercial relationship.