Muwatta' Malik 27-13

Translation

Yahya related to me from Malik from Zayd ibn Aslam that Umar ibn al-Khattab asked the Messenger of Allah ﷺ about someone who died without parents or offspring, and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said to him, "The ayat which was sent down in the summer at the end of the Surat an-Nisa (Sura 4) is enoughfor you." Malik said, "The generally agreed on way of doing things among us, in which there is no dispute, and which I saw the people of knowledge in our city doing, is that the person who leaves neither parent or offspring can be of two types. As for the kind described in the ayat which was sent down at the beginning of the Surat an-Nisa in which Allah, the Blessed, the Exalted! said, 'If a man or a woman has no direct heir, but has a brother or a sister by the mother, each of the two has a sixth. If there are more than that, they share equally in a third.' (Sura 4 ayat 12) This heirless one does not have heirs among his mother's siblings since there are no children or parents. As for the other kind described in the ayat which comes at the end of the Surat an-Nisa, Allah, the Blessed, the Exalted, said in it, 'They will ask you for a decision. Say, "Allah gives you a decision about the indirect heirs. If a man perishes having no children, but he has a sister, she shall receive a half of what he leaves, and he is her heir if she has no children. If there are two sisters, they shall receive two-thirds of what he leaves. If there are brothers and sisters, the male shall receive the portion of two females. Allah makes clear to you that you might not go astray. Allah has knowledge of everything" ' " (Sura 4 ayat 176). Malik said, "If this person without direct heirs (parents) or children has siblings by the father, they inherit with the grandfather from the person without direct heirs. The grandfather inherits with the siblings because he is more entitled to the inheritance than them. That is because he inherits a sixth with the male children of the deceased when the siblings do not inherit anything with the male children of the deceased. How can he not be like one of them when he takes a sixth with the children of the deceased? How can he not take a third with the siblings while the brother's sons take a third with them? The grandfather is the one who overshadows the half-siblings by the mother and keeps them from inheriting. He is more entitled to what they have because they are omitted for his sake. If the grandfather did not take that third, the half-siblings by the mother would take it and would take what does not return to the half-siblings by the father. The half-siblings by the mother are more entitled to that third than the half-siblings by the father while the grandfather is more entitled to that than the half- siblings by the mother."

Grades by grader

What scholars said about it

In their own words, as Hadith Unlocked records them. They are shown, not summarised into a grade.

• Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr

  مرسل

  machine translationMursal (a report in which a Successor omits the Companion and attributes it directly to the Prophet ﷺ) Report a problem

  in موطأ مالك, p. 1028

Other narrations of this report

Jami' at-Tirmidhi 3042Musnad Ahmad 341Musannaf 'Abd al-Razzaq 19272al-Sunan al-Kubra (al-Bayhaqi) 12401al-Mustadrak (al-Hakim) 7966

Narrators

1. 1
   ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb

   Commander of the Faithful (amīr al-muʾminīn), well-known, of abundant virtues (jamm al-manāqib)d. 23 AH, also said: 24 AH
   عُمَر بْن الْخَطَّابأمير المؤمنين مشهور جم المناقب
   في حكم العنعنة
2. 2
   Zayd b. Aslam

   trustworthy (thiqah), a scholar, and he would narrate with omission of the Companion link (yursil)d. 135 AH or 136 AH
   زَيْدِ بْنِ أَسْلَمَثقة عالم ، وكان يرسل
   عن
3. 3
   Mālik b. Anas

   The jurist (al-faqīh), the Imam of the Abode of Migration (Imām Dār al-Hijrah), the head of the proficient masters, and the foremost among the meticulous.d. 178 AH, or 179 AH
   مَالِكٌالفقيه ، إمام دار الهجرة ، رأس المتقنين ، وكبير المتثبتين

Who each narrator was and how reliable, from hdith.com

Latin names and English verdicts with a dotted underline are machine translations, not reviewed.