Inheritance

Distribution of inheritance if a woman passed away without any Muslim heirs besides her husband

Q: Please could you state the Islamic shares on the following scenario:

A Muslim female passed away. She was a revert Muslim and left behind
A Muslim husband
Her late brothers daughter who is a Christian
Her late brothers son who has children and all are Christians.

She does not have any children. Kindly state the Islamic shares of inheritance in this case.

Redistributing an estate that was not distributed according to Shariah

Q: I have a question regarding inheritance. Me and my siblings are in total 8; 3 brothers and 5 sisters.

After the death of my mother, who passed away 10 years ago, me and my sister didn't receive anything from my mum's inheritance because we live abroad. The rest of them divided my mum's stuff according to their needs. The amount of stuff everyone took wasn't according to the Shariah, they didn't consider it while dividing.

Another problem is that my mum had some jewellery, but my late father told all of us that he didn't want us to take anything from it and decided to give everything to our older brother because he's the one that took care of my parents.

Now I'm studying Quran with tafseer and I got to know that what we did was not according to Quran and Sunnah. How can we solve this matter ? It's been 10 years from that moment and it's not possible for us to gather my mum's stuff anymore because some of it got sold.

Father distributing his wealth during his lifetime

Q: My father distributed his estate during his lifetime. The following questions come to mind:

1. If it was given away in his lifetime, was it necessary to give the brothers double share and if it was done like this, is this valid in shariah?

2. His house was given to my mother with specific instructions to give it to my brother so that in does NOT go into her estate upon her demise. Was this correct?

Gifting one's property to one's wife and daughters in one's lifetime

Q: I want to ask regarding inheritance. I have 3 daughters, so at present when I pass away, after my wife and daughters receive their share, the majority will go to my brothers or if they are no longer living then to my nephews by my understanding.

If I was to put the majority of my property into my wife and daughters names and leave for example 10% in my name, when I die I assume the share of that 10% will go to my my wife and daughters, and the remaining will go to other male inheritors.

So you see my intention is that my wife and daughters get the majority share by me transferring most of my property into their names.

My question is whether that is permissible by Islamic law.

Gifting an item to a person upon one's death

Q: Please could I get clarity on the following regarding wills:

If a person wants a particular relative to receive a particular item upon his/her death, can this be done? (For instance, items that are currently in use that cannot be given during one's life e.g. a car, jewellery, sentimental items, etc.)

Can a person write in his Islamic will that upon his demise, such and such item of his should be given to person A? 

Giving one's inheritance to one's adopted child

Q: If a man has no children, can he allot all his inheritance to his one adopted child?

If a man has no children but has nieces and nephews, so he adopts a baby. Now, he has some inheritance on his name also. Their child, being a female got married. And now the man is willing to transfer the inheritance to his child completely as his brothers didn’t help him even a little in building the inheritance nor did the nephews and nieces. But the man had heard that inheritance could not be transferred to the adopted child. So, is there any possibility that the man can inherit all his property to his only adopted child legally by Islam, or if not then is it possible for the man to sell all the property to the child’s husband and the child’s husband then shifts the property to the man’s child name? Please help me in this regard. 

Receiving items of inheritance as a gift from the heirs of one's friend

Q: I am an expat in Saudi Arabia. One of my friends passed away here last December and his family had to move back to India. They sold most of the major items and got money and the remaining smaller items they gifted to others (Example: dinner plates, a wall clock, 3 unanimated wall hanging sceneries, etc. they gifted us and few items to others also).

Is it Ok to keep and use those items or must they be donated in charity? We are not need in need of those items and we just kept those items because we were very close to that family. What is the better option?