Lots of citizens think that Muslim people cannot make a Will as the Fara’id (Islamic inheritance law) already determines the individual shares of the heirs. Some believe that there is no need for a Muslim to make a Will, as the whole thing is determined by Fara’id.
Due to this, many followers of Islam have yet to take benefit of the complete benefits of having a Will and appointing a professional executor to oversee their estates.
The truth is, Muslims can have their own Wills. They are only forbidden from making a Will to change the individual shares of their heirs, which have been set by Fara’id.
A Will can also be made by a Muslim to dispose of up to one third of their assets in ways they favour – from this section, they may make donations to charities, leave to friends or even relatives who will not be their heirs under Fara’id.
Advantages:
On constructing a Will, a Muslim can:
* make gifts to others who are not named as heirs under Fara’id.
* make agreement to meet particular needs for some of the heirs – e.g. name a guardian for any young children to ensure their sustained provision and support
* alleviate the burden of family and friends at such time of grief by appointing the executor to attend to various arrangements relating to the estate administration which may be time overwhelming and traumatic
• Under English law, if you do not leave a valid Will you are said to have died ‘intestate’, and your wealth will be dispersed to certain relatives in fixed shares – which are not the same as those laid down by the Shari‘a – or if there are no such relatives, then it will go to the Crown, that is, the government.
• If both you and your spouse die (and you were married) leaving children under 18 years old, and if there is no valid Will saying who you would like to be the guardian of any minor children who survive you, then they might be taken into care by the Local Authority.
• If you have been married only in agreement with the Shari‘a in the United Kingdom, you will not be regarded as having been legally married for the purposes of English law. This means that if you die without having made a Will, your spouse will be regarded as an ‘unmarried partner’ and would not be allowed to inherit anything from your estate.
• However if you married both under the Shari‘a and under English law at a registry office, and were then subsequently divorced under the Shari‘a but not under English law, then under English law you would still be regarded as ‘married’, and if you then died without having made a Will, your previous spouse would then inherit from your estate even though he or she would no longer be permitted to a fixed share under the Shari‘a. If you were also in the course of being divorced under English law, but the decree absolute had not yet been definite at the time of your death, then again, under English law you would still be seen as legally ‘married’.
• Again, if a Muslim man married a non-Muslim woman both under the Shari‘a and under English law at a registry office, and then he died without leaving a Will, then under English law she would be seen as his married partner and for that reason allowed to a certain share of his property, whereas under the Shari‘a she would not be entitled to a fixed share of his property – although he would have been permitted to make a detailed bequest to her out of a third of his property, provided that it did not exceed the fixed share that she would have received had she been a Muslim.
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