A man passed away on 18 June 2017, survived by a wife whom he had divorced with a first-time revocable divorce on 15 May 2017, a son, and two full sisters. The deceased left no other heirs and no descendants entitled to a compulsory bequest. What is the ruling regarding the wife’s list of movables and her deferred portion of the dowry? Is the wife entitled to a share in the inheritance, and what are the shares of each heir?

The list of movables (qa`imat al-manqulat) and the deferred dowry (mu’akhkhar al-ṣadaq) belong to the wife. If the husband passed away while these items were in his possession, the wife is entitled to claim them from his estate before its distribution, even if the marriage was not consummated. It is only then that the estate is to be divided among the legal heirs, each according to their respective shares.

The estate is to be divided among the heirs previously mentioned, with the wife entitled to one-eighth of the estate as an obligatory share (farḍ), due to the existence of a male descendant (the son), and because the marital bond remained in force, as the husband passed away while his wife was still in her legal waiting period (‘iddah) following a revocable divorce. The remaining portion of the estate goes to the son, as he is a universal heir (ta‘seeban), since there are no other heirs entitled to obligatory shares. The two full sisters do not receive any share of the estate because they are eliminated (maḥjubat) by the son who has a closer degree of kinship.

And Allah the Almighty knows best.