Ahl al-Fara'id

Literally "the people of the prescribed shares." The category of heirs whose inheritance shares are explicitly fixed in the Qur'an (Surah An-Nisa 4:11-12, 4:176): a predetermined fraction such as 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 2/3, 1/3, or 1/6. Classical Sunni jurists identify 13 specific Qur'anic heirs: four males (husband, father, paternal grandfather, maternal brother) and nine females (wife, mother, daughter, son's daughter, paternal grandmother, maternal grandmother, full sister, paternal sister, maternal sister).

Their shares are calculated first; any balance is distributed by ta'sib or radd.

Ahl al-Fara'id are the fixed-share heirs - the relatives to whom the Qur'an assigns exact fractions before any residuary distribution occurs. The core roster and shares from 4:11-12 and 4:176: husband (1/2, or 1/4 with children), wife (1/4, or 1/8 with children), father (1/6 with children; residuary otherwise), mother (1/6 with children or multiple siblings, 1/3 otherwise), daughters standing alone (1/2 for one, 2/3 shared among two or more), and - when not blocked - grandparents, uterine siblings (1/6 each, 1/3 shared when multiple), and sisters in defined configurations.

Their fractions are the non-negotiable architecture of every Islamic estate: they compute first, they cannot be enlarged by bequest ('no wasiyyah to an heir'), and when they oversubscribe the estate the awl reduction scales everyone down pro rata; when they undersubscribe with no residuary heir, radd returns the surplus to them. Distinguishing ahl al-fara'id from asaba (residuaries) is the first analytical step in any Faraid calculation and the reason Islamic inheritance resists simple percentage lists: the same person can occupy different categories in different family configurations (a father is a fixed-share heir alongside sons, but a residuary without them; a daughter holds a fixed share until a brother's presence converts her to co-residuary under ta'sib).

For U.S. drafting, the practical rule follows: an Islamic will should identify heirs by relationship-category and methodology rather than by name-and-percentage, so the executor can classify the actual survivors correctly - the computation our Faraid calculator automates.