🧮 Mirathly - Islamic Inheritance Calculator

Simulate the distribution of your estate according to Islamic Inheritance with Mirathly - a free Islamic Inheritance calculator.

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In This Article

• Why Mirathly?
• Making Mirathly Accurate
• What Madhab Does Mirathly Follow?
• Scenario 1: Does a Grandfather Take the Place of a Father?
• Scenario 2: Can Maternal Siblings Block Full Siblings (Al-Mushtaraka / Al-Himariyya)?
• Scenario 3: Do Distant Relatives Inherit ?
• Related Articles

Why Mirathly?

When I first started building the MuslimMoney Will Kit, I benefitted tremendously from calculators from ShariaWiz and ILMSummit. I’ve recommended those calculators and continue to do so.

So why build another calculator?

My motivation for creating the Mirathly - Islamic Inheritance Calculator was born from a specific need. I wanted to build a tool a direct companion to the process of creating a will.

I envisioned a tool that did three things exceptionally well:

1. Run Quick Simulations: When you’re planning your will, you often just want to run some rough numbers. I wanted a tool where you could easily plug in an estate value and instantly see the dollar-value distribution for each heir. This helps make the abstract fractions of inheritance tangible and real.
2. Act as a Teaching Tool: The rules of Mawarith are a beautiful and deep part of our tradition. I wanted to give users a "peek behind the curtain" to understand how these calculations work. Mirathly does this by showing you the specific rules applied in your scenario (Fard, Ta'sib, etc.) and providing clear, simple explanations of core Islamic inheritance concepts and even the rules for each specific heir.
3. Bridge the Gap to the Will Template: Most importantly, Mirathly was designed to integrate directly with the MuslimMoney Will Kit by providing a "Schedule A Case Match," which tells you the exact clause to use in your will, taking the guesswork out of the process.

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Making Mirathly Accurate

In 2021, the Journal of Islamic Thought and Civilization (JITC), published “An Appraisal of Online Inheritance Calculators.” The paper uses 20 specific inheritance scenarios to test the accuracy of calculators.

I ran Mirathly through each of the tests and here were the results:

Mirathly achieved 100% accuracy for all in-scope calculations.

The table below shows a case-by-case breakdown of its performance.

What Madhab Does Mirathly Follow?

For the vast majority of inheritance cases, the calculations are remarkably consistent across the four major Sunni schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali). This consistency is a testament to the clarity of the core rules laid out in the Qur'an and Sunnah.

But there are a few exceptional cases when the schools differ. Here are the rare situations in which the schools differ and how Mirathly treats them.

Scenario 1: Does a Grandfather Take the Place of a Father?

• When does this happen?

This situation comes up when a person passes away, and their father is also already deceased. The closest surviving relatives are the deceased's grandfather and the deceased's own siblings.

• The Core Question:

Does the grandfather get everything (as would be the case with the father), or does he have to share with the brother(s)?

• The Different Answers:
• The Hanafi Position: The grandfather gets the entire inheritance. Brother(s) gets nothing.
• The Hanafi school suggests the grandfather steps into the father's shoes completely, and a father would block the deceased's siblings from inheriting.
• The Majority Position (Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali): The grandfather must share the inheritance with the brother(s).
• These schools suggest the brother's connection is too strong to be completely blocked by the grandfather.

🧮 How Mirathly works: Mirathly follows the Majority Position and has the grandfather share with the siblings.

Scenario 2: Can Maternal Siblings Block Full Siblings (Al-Mushtaraka / Al-Himariyya)?

• When does this happen?

This is a very specific and famous case that happens when a woman dies leaving behind her husband, her mother, at least two siblings from her mother's side only, and at least one full sibling (who shares both parents).

• The Core Question:

According to the standard rules, the husband, mother, and maternal siblings' shares add up to the entire estate. This leaves the full sibling (who has a stronger blood connection) with nothing. The question is: Is it fair for the full sibling to be disinherited while the half-siblings get a share?

• The Different Answers:
• The Hanafi & Hanbali Position: The full sibling gets nothing.
• This position applies the standard rules with absolute strictness. The full sibling is a residuary heir ('asib), and since there is no residue left after the fixed shares are paid, their share is mathematically zero.
• The Maliki & Shafi'i Position: The full sibling shares the 1/3 portion with the maternal siblings.
• This is based on Caliph Umar's final ruling. Once, full siblings complained that they were being excluded from inheritence, they famously asked him, "Suppose our father was a donkey (himar)? Or suppose he was a stone cast into the sea. Does that not still mean that we are joined [to the deceased] by the same mother that they are?" By this, they meant that their connection through their father should not become a detriment to them. Their link through the mother made them equal to the maternal siblings, and since the maternal siblings were inheriting solely based on that maternal link, the full siblings argued that their identical maternal link should grant them the same right. This argument convinced Umar, and he made them share.

🧮 How Mirathly works: Mirathly follows the Maliki & Shafi'i position — maternal siblings and full siblings share.

Scenario 3: Do Distant Relatives Inherit ?

• When does this happen?

This rule applies when someone dies and has no primary heirs left—no spouse, no children, no parents, no grandparents, and no siblings. Imagine a person named Zaynab passes away. After a long life, all her immediate family is gone. The only relatives she has left are a maternal uncle and a daughter's son. These relatives are not standard inheritors but in a seperate category known as as Dhawil Arham (relatives who are connected to the deceased through a female link and are not primary heirs (Ashab al-Furud) or residuary heirs (Asaba).

• The Core Question:

Do these "distant" relatives—Dhawil Arham —inherit anything, or does the money go elsewhere?

• The Different Answers:
• The Hanafi & Hanbali Position: Yes, the distant relatives (the maternal uncle and the daughter's son in Zaynab’s case) inherit the estate.
• The Maliki & Shafi'i Position: No, classically, these relatives do not inherit. The estate should go to the community treasury (Bayt al-Mal). In the absence of a community treasury, modern scholars who follow this position suggest that the inheritence be donated to charitable causes.

🧮 How Mirathly works: Mirathly's scope is currently limited to the main heirs. It does not calculate for distant relatives, so its outcome is most similar to the classical Maliki & Shafi'i position.

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If you happen to find an error or a bug in the calculator, please let me know!

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Written by Farooq Maseehuddin

Farooq Maseehuddin is the founder of MuslimMoney.co, a Canadian platform dedicated to helping Muslims take control of their personal finances.

He teaches across a range of topics including budgeting, investing, financial planning, Islamic inheritance, money conversations in families, and how to teach kids about money—all through both practical tools and traditional Islamic guidance.

Farooq holds a B.Ed. and M.Ed. from the University of Alberta and has spent nearly two decades as a high school teacher and Muslim community organizer.