Islamic Fiqh > Inheritance and wasiya > 'Asaba: agnates and the estate's residue
What remains after the fixed shares: the agnates' chain from son to paternal uncle, the nearest-excludes-the-farthest rule and the fay'.
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Updated on 24 September 2026 at 12:48 AM
The asaba designates the relative "surrounding" the wealth: the one who has no fixed share in the Book or in the Sunna. He takes the whole estate when alone, or the residue after the holders of fixed shares. Every man mentioned among the heirs is an agnate, except the husband and the uterine brother; every woman with a fixed share does not become an agnate, except the freedwoman and, among the majority, the sisters accompanying the daughters. Agnation belongs mostly to men, the people of support and strength.
The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said:
"Render the fixed shares to their owners; what remains goes to the closest male relative."al-Bukhari 6732 ; Muslim 1615
The agnates follow by proximity: the son, then the sons of the son, the father, the grandfather, the german brother, the consanguine brother, the sons of the brother, the paternal uncle, down to the uncle's descendants. The closest excludes the farthest, and the man designated by the deceased inherits with him only the uterine brothers.
In the broadest questions, five heirs coexist with the husband or the wife: the two parents, the son, the daughter, and one of the two spouses, the others being excluded. Principle of the jurists: every man alone in his class takes the whole estate, except the husband and the uterine brother; every woman alone does not take everything, except the freedwoman.
The calculation of the agnates comes after the fixed shares: distributions follow the proximity of the male line, from the son down to the most distant relative still inheriting.
Al-Mughni by Ibn Qudama · Hanbali school
...and the father differs from the grandfather; for the father is at her degree, and the grandfather higher. And what Ibn Sirin held is a disagreement in a place where the Companions agreed upon equalization. And with the husband present, he takes twice what the mother takes; likewise with the wife, by analogy.
Question 1006; he said: "If there are a husband, a mother, uterine brothers and sisters, and german brothers and sisters: to the husband the half, to the mother the sixth, to the uterine brothers the third, and the german brothers fall away".