The inheritance rights of women in Islam and their divergences with customary law (al-ʿurf) and secular law

Abstract

This work presents, on the one hand, the basic notions of inheritance law in Islam and explains the most important concepts related to inheritance, the cause and the nature of the legatees, as well as the categories held by the different heirs of which the quota with which they concur in the inheritance depends, a fact that agrees positively in the female gender as they almost always hold the category of farḍ guaranteeing them a firm quota as opposed to the variable quota that the male gender receives. On the other hand, it illustrates some divergences that result from the contact of this inheritance right of religious inspiration with others of a customary or secular nature that affect women unequally, so this work exposes the problems faced by women of Muslim creed to qualify for the quota assigned to them by the sharia either because of the obstacles imposed by local customs that try to separate women and place men in front of family properties for different reasons and methods to avoid the law, or because of its collision with secular laws in which there is no place to exercise your religious freedom.