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Property, Status, Women in the Ancient, Hinduism and Zoroastrianism, Judaism -Christianity, Pagan Arabs and Islamic Worlds

In Islam, a son inherits twice as much as a daughter, a brother twice as much as a sister, and a husband twice as much as a wife. It is only in the case of the father and mother that, if the deceased has children and his father and mother are also alive, both the father and the mother will inherit one sixth of the property of the deceased.

According to rahyafte (the missionaries and converts website):

 

Property, Status, Women in the Ancient world

Before the advent of Islam, societies around the world determined status of a family and its’ members by the amount of property owned. Because ancient societies were fundamentally status-based and tribal, children were heavily dependent on the wealth of their parents in order to survive. Property included livestock, shelter, farmland, crops, land, jewelry, clothes, weapons, slaves and sometimes women.

 

Women were considered to hold no status whatsoever which made them non-existent in the question of inheritance unless another man inherited them as property. As a result, discriminatory customs such as withholding from a wife, a daughter or a sister’s right to their portion of the family estate socialized misogyny and sexism into the fabric of society. Ancient and medieval scriptures claim evidence to this fact by alienating women from the family tree and justifying their eternal state of poverty.

 

Primogeniture, also known as agnatic or patrilineal primogeniture is the practice of passing down all of a family’s estate in the hands of the eldest son. The opposite of agnatic primogeniture was ultimogeniture where the youngest surviving (male) relative (brother, nephew, uncle, etc) inherited.

 

In the overall scheme of history, women have been treated like minors. A daughter’s son could inherit from her family whereas she would be passed over in favor of distant male relatives; and as for the son’s son, it was custom to inherit from grandfathers and great-grandfathers. Sequentially wealth remained in the hands of a few at the expense of majority. Islamic law of inheritance was the first to sanction equity and restore justice to women.

 

Hinduism & Zoroastrianism: Agnatic Primogeniture & Exclusion of Women’s Share

In Laws rules of inheritance stated that women were to be completely excluded from. When the woman’s father died all the inheritance would go to her oldest brother, even if he was an adopted son, and he would take over as the father. This is because in all stages of her life a female must never be independent, not even in her own house; she must always be subject to her kinsmen.

Ancient Persia followed similar customs in regards to passing on the family estate. Unlike in Hinduism, under Zoroastrianism a man was allowed to marry an unlimited number of women. The padishah—e—zan (A wife who was married with the consent of her parents, and who gave birth to children who were hers in this world and hereafter, was called “padishah-e zan” ‘queen wife’) and her children had legal standing but the ‘servant wives’ were at a lower status. Only the sons of the chakir—e—zan (‘servant wives’) may become part of the family and thus become heirs, but daughters would have to marry within her father’s clan to be part of the family again and even that did not secure possession of any portion of the family estate. As in Hindu law, Zoroastrian law also subjugated women to her father, husband or brother.

the eldest sons are heirs to the entire family property, usually the ones with the closest degree of blood relation being the most privileged. Husbands of daughters, sons of daughters and adopted sons in this system are also entitled to inherit. However, a daughter, a sister or a wife must be explicitly “appointed” by the patriarch—which was by far an exception and left women to their own devices.

 

Judeo-Christian Traditions

Agnatic primogeniture was also practiced in ancient Western civilizations such as Greece and Rome. One of the major contributors to Western legal theory, Henry Maine writes in his book Ancient Law that whenever looking at a family tree the particular branch that stops is the female, who are considered to be mulier est finis familia (Latin: the ceasing of the family)

 

Furthermore, applying a woman’s role in relations to property meant that the formal consent of her guardians had to be explicit. Fractured from family relations, a woman’s role in society was merely to be an incubator.Considered to be the predecessors to Islam, Judaic and Christian traditions concerning inheritance were long established centuries before Islam came. Both traditions made some improvements compared to ancient civilizations. Talmudic Law gave the right of daughters to inherit only in the absence of brothers and under the condition that she marries within her father’s clan. Yet at the same time under no circumstance did inheritance go to the mother, and if there were no daughters the inheritance went to the husband’s brothers, then his family, but not his wife. One reason for a daughter’s inheritance was to provide dowry for her husband since this escaped the condition of purchasing her as a slave. In addition to providing dowry, the husband inherited from the wife but the wife did not inherit from either her husband or her father.

In Christian law the pattern of female exclusion from the family estate continued well up until the end of the 19th century.

 

The Pagan Arabs and Islam

Pre-Islamic Arabia was no different than its’ global contemporaries: women regardless of how closely they were related to the deceased were left destitute by their husband’s brothers, cousins and uncles. This was the ’urf amm (Arabic: normative practice) throughout the world and the Arabs were no different. Harmful practices persisted even after many of the Arabs had converted to Islam. When the verse in Surah Nisa was revealed: “From what is left by parents and those nearest related there is a share for men and a share for women, whether the property be small or large—a determinate share.”

Under Islamic law, a widow was entitled to receive one fourth of her deceased husband’s property after the payment of debts. If the man had a child, she received one eighth. For a widower he received half of the inheritance, but with children he got a fourth; after payment of legacies and debts. If the man or woman had no surviving parents and/or children, the siblings would inherit with the male portion being twice that of the female portion after debts are paid off.

 

Woman as a part of the share of inheritance

Arabs sometimes counted the wife of the deceased as part of his property and holdings and took possession of her as a share in the inheritance. If a man had a son by some other wife, that son could, in token of his possession, threw a cloth on the face of that woman and count her as a part or his share. It depended upon his inclination whether he entered into wedlock with her or whether he gave her in wedlock to another person and received her dower for himself. This custom was not confined to Arabs only, and the Qur’an abolished it The cause of woman’s being deprived of inheritance The cause of a woman’s being deprived of inheritance was to prevent the transfer of family property to another family. According to the old idea, the role of the mother in the birth of a child was considered to be insignificant. Mothers were considered were considered as mere containers in which the man’s sperm developed, and out of which a child came into existence. For that reason, they believed that the children of someone’s son were the issue of a man, and thus they were a part and parcel of his family.

 

In the book, Irth dar huquq-e madani-e Iran (Inheritance in the Civil Laws of Iran) written by the late Dr. Musa ‘Amid, on page 8, after his remark that ‘in ancient times it was religion which laid the foundations for the formation of families and not natural ties,’ he says:
“The religious spokesmanship of the family (under the patriarchal system) was with the grandfather of the family, and after him, the religious rites and rituals of the family were performed only by the male children, generation after generation. The ancients considered that the male children were the only source of continuation of their lineage. The father of the family, life-giver to his son as he was, also transferred his religious beliefs and the religious rituals, the right to keep the Fire alive, and the right to recite special prayers also.

 

As is mentioned in the Hindu Vedas and in the laws of Greece and Rome, the power of generation is confined to men, and the result of this antiquated belief was that the family regions were the special concern of men. Women had no business and concern with religion except through their fathers and husbands….. and because they had no hand in religious rituals, they were naturally deprived of all family privileges. Afterwards, when with the improvement of the economic situation an occasion for inheritance arose, women were deprived of that right.

 

There were other reasons also for woman’s being deprived of inheritance. One of them was their weakness in combat. In societies where preferences and prerogatives were based on heroism and valor and one war-faring person was preferred to a hundred thousand non-war like persons, woman was naturally deprived of inheritance because of her weakness in the performance of acts of defense and bravery.

 

Arabs of the pre-Islamic age were against were against woman’s receiving inheritance for this very reason, and when there was a male member of a family however distant in the ranks of inheritance he may have been, they never gave inheritance to a woman. So, the verse of inheritance was revealed and it distinctly stated:

 

 

The share of women in inheritance according to Islam

In Islam, a son inherits twice as much as a daughter, a brother twice as much as a sister, and a husband twice as much as a wife. It is only in the case of the father and mother that, if the deceased has children and his father and mother are also alive, both the father and the mother will inherit one sixth of the property of the deceased.

 

As Islam considers dower and maintenance to be obligatory, the wife is automatically exempted from providing for the family budget, and that responsibility has been laid upon the husband. Islam seeks that this responsibility should be recompensed by inheritance, and so twice as much of the share or inheritance has been allocated to man as to woman. In short, it is dower and maintenance which has decreased the woman’s share in inheritance.

 

A Determine Share: A Fraction?

Upon first glance the Qur’anic text revealed does not seem to decree fairness or repair woman’s status quo. Especially when Qur’an says blatantly that the share of males is twice of that to the female—seems that Islam made little progress in regards to women’s share in inheritance! Upon closer investigation one finds the reasoning. The two to one ratio is because a woman is entitled to mahr (Arabic: dower), and maintenance from the man she marries and is free from defense of the community. This is because the husband’s responsibilities in a marriage are far more than a woman’s especially in regards to financial matters.

 

Therefore, a woman’s inheritance in Islam being half of a male is recompensed elsewhere; this is known as the law of recompense. The texts of the Qur’an are plain in regards to women receiving their share. “To (benefit) every one, God has appointed shares and heirs to property left by parents and relatives. To those, also, to whom your right hand was pledged, give their due portion.” This is revolutionary considering Hindu and Zoroastrian law did not recognize woman as a capable, independent individual or even part of the family since she did not inherit from her father or husband.

 

 

Western feminism vs. Islamic feminism

Notions of Equality Furthermore when the Qur’an said to not inherit women against their will and to not treat them harshly, it was referring to a custom in Arabian society: when a man died, his relatives inherited his wife, they could marry her to her husband’s kinsmen, or give her in marriage, if not, then they would be more entitled to dispose her, than her own relatives. Islamic law explicitly recognized a woman’s right to choose, whether she married the second time or did not, whether she wanted to marry within her dead husband’s family or not. There are select requirements, such as waiting for three to four months to ensure whether or not she is pregnant.

 

It is important to note that while Islamic laws concerning inheritance are not ‘equal’ in the modernist sense, they are proportionate. For instanceو if a woman were to receive half of the inheritance that would mean that her children would receive one-fourth each, after payments of debts and if a man died, his share is half of what his wife left behind. The problem with inserting the modernist notion of equality in regards to inheritance is that at the time of marriage a man is required to provide mahr, wedding gift.

 

Then, if he somehow dies and leaves the wife behind and the inheritance is divided in half, there is no need left for requirement of the mahr in the first place on the man—this is considering the purely financial aspect of equality. The act of getting married requires its’ own set of requirements as dictated in Qur’anic text and Hadith. But the death of a spouse is uncertain and circumstantial during a marriage. However, Islam does not always have laws that seem to make sense to the modern person, but that does not mean they do not have a rationale.

 

An objection by the worshippers of the west

When a group of worshippers of the west give vent to their utterances concerning this problem, and make an issue of a woman’s share being less than a man’s in their propaganda against Islam, they start on the subject of dower and maintenance. They say: “Why should we proceed in a circuitous and a round-about way? Why should we not give equal shares to man and to woman, so that we should not be obliged to compensate the deficit by way of dower and maintenance?”

 

Firstly, these busybodies have mistaken the cause for the effect and vice versa. They consider that dower and maintenance is the effect of the situation that holds as regards a woman’s share in inheritance, whereas in fact, that special situation is the effect of dower and maintenance.

 

Secondly, they think that what really matters is the financial and economic aspect of the question. Obviously, if only the financial and economic aspects were in view, there would have been no justification for dower and maintenance or for the share in inheritance being unequal. As we pointed out in the preceding article, Islam has kept in view many aspects of the question some of which are based on nature and some psychological. On the one side there are the excessive requirements and problems of woman in connection with childbirth, while man is free from all this. On the other side there is her lesser ability to produce and earn wealth.

 

Thirdly, there is the fact that her consumption of wealth is more than of man. Moreover, the special psychological and intellectual considerations regarding men and women, in other words, the characteristic psychology of men and women and the fact that a man should always be there as the person responsible for the expenses of women, and, lastly, the subtle psychological and social considerations which are the source of strength in family ties—all these aspects have been kept in view by Islam. It has considered dower and maintenance positively necessary. These necessary and unavoidable matters are an indirect cause of the burden on the man’s expenses.
This is the reason that Islam has ordained that in recompense for the responsibilities that have been laid upon man’s shoulders; he should have twice as much share in inheritance as a woman. Anyhow, the financial and economic aspect is not the only one and it is not the only goal aimed at in Islamic law, so the question proposed: “Why, in one place, is the share of woman cut to half, and in another place recompensed? does not arise.

 

in the end here some paradigms of the religious law about inheritance in Islam are described

 

Issue 1: When the husband dies and he does not leave any children, his permanent wife will inherit a quarter of the property and the remainder is for the remaining heirs. When he has children from this wife or from another wife, his wife will inherit an eighth of the property and the remainder is for the remaining heirs

 

Issue 2: The wife inherits from all of the transferable property of her husband, she does not inherit from land or its value, whether it be a house or a garden or agricultural land or whatever is similar to that. Likewise, she does not inherit from real estate itself, like a building or trees. It is obligatory to appraise the real estate or trees, then, give her from its value.

 

Issue 3: Decorative clothing, jewelry and whatever is similar to that from what (the deceased has) acquired. The man, it is for his wife and she for her husband. It is not considered as part of the estate, except when it is established that he had not intended for her to take possession of it, rather, she was wearing it in a manner like borrowing

 

Resources

“The Rights of Women in Islam”, Ayatullah Murtadha Mutahhari.

“A Summary of Rulings “, Ayatullah Naser Makarem Shirazi.

“Comparison of Hindu, Zoroastrian, Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian and Islamic Women’s Inheritance systems”, N. Zahra Rizvi(USA)

www.imamreza.net

www.al-islam.org

 

DUA: Allah please accept this from us. You are All-Hearing and All-Knowing. You are The Most Forgiving.You are The Most Relenting and repeatedly Merciful. Allah grant us The Taufiq to read all the 5 prayers with sincerity.
(Taken from: To Be Earnest In Prayers By Amina Elahi)
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