Wirasat Calculator (Islamic Inheritance) with Family Tree

یہ صفحہ اردو میں پڑھیں

This free wirasat (also written virasat or warasat) calculator divides an estate the way a mufti or a patwari in Pakistan would: by the fiqh you follow, with land in kanal and marla, gold in tola and a family tree you can print. It covers the Hanafi (Deobandi and Barelvi), Shafi’i, Maliki, Hanbali, Ahl-e-Hadith and Shia Ja’fari schools, and works for families anywhere, not only in Pakistan. On this page the calculator is in English; the same calculator and guide in Urdu are on the Urdu wirasat page.

Islamic inheritance calculator for Pakistan and worldwide

Inheritance in Islam goes by several names. In Arabic it is mirath (ميراث) and the science of the fixed shares is fara’id, so this is also a faraid calculator or mirath calculator. In Pakistan and India the same thing is called wirasat, virasat or warasat (وراثت), and in Urdu also میراث. Whatever you call it, the rules are the same: the shares fixed in Surah an-Nisa, worked out by your madhab. As an inheritance calculator for Pakistan it adds what local families need: land in kanal and marla, gold in tola, a patwari-style shajra and the effect of section 4 of the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance. Families in the UK, the Gulf, Malaysia or anywhere else can use it in their own currency and units.

How to use the calculator

Quickest way: type or paste the question in the “Calculate from a question” box at the top, in English, Urdu or Roman Urdu, for example “A woman died. Heirs: husband, mother, two full sisters” or “ek aurat fout hui, shohar, maa, do haqeeqi behnen”. The page recognises the relatives and fills the form; check it and press calculate. Or fill the form step by step:

1. Enter what was left: cash and bank balance (with debts and funeral costs), land or a house in kanal, marla and feet, and gold and silver in tola.
2. Enter the deceased: man or woman, and the name.
3. Add the family: father, mother, wife or husband, sons and daughters. If those are few, open “other relatives” for the paternal and maternal grandparents (dada, dadi, nana, nani), full and half brothers and sisters, and uncles and aunts on both sides: chacha and taya, phuphi, mamu and khala. For each one say whether they are alive, died before the deceased, or died after. Someone who died first does not inherit (their children are asked for where the law can give them a share), while someone who died after has already inherited and their share passes to their own heirs.
4. Choose the madhab: Hanafi (Deobandi and Barelvi), Shafi’i, Maliki, Hanbali, Ahl-e-Hadith or Shia Ja’fari, check the summary and press the button.

What you get after pressing calculate

• Every heir’s share: the fraction, the cash in rupees, the land in kanal, marla and square feet (1 kanal = 20 marla, 1 marla = 272 sq ft), gold and silver in tola and grams with an estimate of today’s value from the live gold and silver rate, and the percentage, each with the reason in plain words.
• Who does not inherit, and why: for example “excluded because a son is alive” or “died before the deceased”.
• A shajra nasab: the family tree a patwari draws, made from your entries. A large family is fitted to the screen and can be enlarged.
• The worked sheet (hisab ki kaapi): the base number of the case (asl-e-masla), how many parts each heir gets, and the steps of ‘awl or radd when they apply, set out the way a mufti checks a case.
• Six madhabs side by side: one table with the same family worked out by all six schools, so you can see at once whether your case is one where they differ.
• “What if” (agar yeh hota to): change one relative, for instance as if the father were alive or a brother did not exist, and see how the shares move without touching your main result.
• Fiqh and Pakistani law together: when a son or daughter died before the deceased and left children, Pakistani law can give a different result from the fiqh. The calculator then shows both, in two tabs: Pakistani law (what the patwari and the courts record) and your madhab’s fiqh.
• Share and ask a mufti: copy a link or send it on WhatsApp so a relative or a mufti sees the same family and result. The link carries your entries in the address itself; nothing is saved on our server. A ready istifta (written question) for a dar al-ifta can be copied or sent in one tap.
• PDF report: the shajra alone on the first page (turned sideways for a big family) with space below for the patwari’s report, then the share table, the reasons and the worked sheet.

The order: debts, will, then heirs

Before anything is divided, the estate pays for a simple funeral, then every debt the person owed. Unpaid mehr is a debt to the wife and is paid in full, like any other loan; the haq mehr calculator shows what a mehr fixed in silver or gold is worth today. Only after that can a will (wasiyyat) be carried out, and only for people who are not heirs and only up to one third of what is left. A larger will needs the consent of the adult heirs. Whatever remains is the inheritance.

Two religious debts often come up at this stage: zakat the person did not pay, and fasts they missed. In the Hanafi school both are paid from the estate only if the person left a will for them, from up to one third; in the Shafi’i and Hanbali schools they come out of the estate before it is divided. See missed zakat and fidya for a deceased person.

The fixed shares in the Qur’an

• Husband: 1/2, or 1/4 if the wife left children.
• Wife: 1/4, or 1/8 if the husband left children. Two, three or four wives share this one portion equally. More in the wife’s and husband’s share.
• Father: 1/6 when there is a son; 1/6 and whatever is left when there are only daughters; everything left when there are no children.
• Mother: 1/6 when there are children or two or more brothers or sisters, otherwise 1/3. When only the spouse and both parents are heirs, the mother gets a third of what is left after the spouse (al-Umariyyatan).
• Daughters: one daughter alone 1/2, two or more 2/3. With a son, children share the rest, a son getting twice a daughter. More in the daughter’s share.
• Sisters (when there are no children and no father): one 1/2, two or more 2/3; with daughters, sisters take what is left.
• Brothers and sisters through the mother only: one 1/6, two or more share 1/3 equally.

When the fixed shares add up to more than the whole, each is reduced in proportion (‘awl). When they add up to less and there is no residuary heir, the rest goes back to the sharers except the husband or wife (radd). The calculator does both, tells you when it has, and shows the steps in the worked sheet.

When only distant relatives are left

If there is no sharer and no residuary heir (for example only a mamu, a khala or a phuphi), the Hanafi, Hanbali and Ahl-e-Hadith schools, and the later Shafi’i and Maliki scholars, give the estate to the relatives through women (dhawu al-arham). In Ja’fari fiqh uncles and aunts on both sides are the third class of heirs. How these relatives divide the estate is detailed and disputed, so the calculator marks such results for a mufti to confirm.

Where the madhabs differ

• Grandfather with brothers. Hanafi scholars (following Abu Hanifa and Abu Bakr) and Ahl-e-Hadith scholars treat the paternal grandfather like the father: he excludes the brothers and sisters. The Shafi’i, Maliki and Hanbali schools follow Zayd ibn Thabit: the grandfather shares with them and gets the best of an equal share, one third, or one sixth. This includes the famous case of al-Akdariyya.
• Al-Mushtaraka. When a woman leaves a husband, a mother, two or more half-siblings through the mother and full brothers, nothing is left for the full brothers. Shafi’i and Maliki scholars let them share the third with the half-siblings; Hanafi and Hanbali scholars do not.
• Paternal grandmother. In the Hanbali school she inherits even while her son, the father, is alive.
• Radd to the husband or wife. When nobody else is left, later Hanafi scholars return the rest to the spouse; the Shafi’i, Maliki and Hanbali schools do not. Our Ahl-e-Hadith setting follows Ibn Taymiyyah’s view and returns it too, but many scholars do not give the remainder to a spouse; ask a mufti.
• Shia Ja’fari fiqh works in three classes: parents and children first, then grandparents and siblings, then uncles and aunts. There is no ‘awl; grandchildren and nephews take the place of a parent who died first; and a wife inherits from the value of buildings and trees but not from land. The calculator shows a wife’s share of land as zero in Ja’fari mode and divides the land among the other heirs.

Open “six madhabs side by side” under your result to see which of these applies to your family. Zakat also differs between the schools; the madhab comparison sets that out.

Orphaned grandchildren and Pakistani law

In all four Sunni schools a grandchild whose parent died first does not inherit while a son of the deceased is alive. Pakistan’s Muslim Family Laws Ordinance 1961, section 4, changed this: the children of a predeceased son or daughter receive the share their parent would have received. The Federal Shariat Court held the section against Islamic injunctions, but an appeal is pending in the Supreme Court and courts still apply it. When your family has such a case, the calculator shows the result both ways, in two tabs. The full story, and what a grandfather can do through a will, is in orphaned grandchildren and section 4.

Land, gold and the house

Shares are fractions of everything left, not of money alone. If the estate has 2 kanal 10 marla of land, a wife’s 1/8 is 6.25 marla (6 marla 68 sq ft), and the calculator converts every share into kanal, marla and feet (1 kanal = 20 marla, 1 marla = 272 sq ft). Gold and silver are shown in tola and grams with an estimate at today’s rate (see what 1 tola is worth). Heirs may also agree to sell a property and divide the money, or let one heir keep it and pay the others their share.

Zakat after you receive your share

Once your share is yours, it counts with the rest of your wealth for zakat. Inherited cash and gold join your savings; inherited jewellery follows the jewellery rule of your school; land you keep to live on or farm has no zakat, though its crops carry ushr. The details, including when the zakat year starts, are in zakat on inherited wealth, and the zakat calculator works out the amount.

Daughters’ right to inherit

A daughter’s share is fixed by Allah in the Qur’an, and it cannot be taken away by family custom, by a “gift” of her share to her brothers under pressure, or by leaving land only to sons. Pakistani law also protects it: depriving a woman of her inheritance by deceit is a crime under section 498A of the Pakistan Penal Code, and the Enforcement of Women’s Property Rights Act 2020 lets a woman complain to the Ombudsperson. See the daughter’s share.

Is it accurate?

The rules come from al-Sirajiyyah (the standard Hanafi text on fara’id), the main books of the other schools and Ayatollah Sistani’s Islamic Laws for Ja’fari fiqh. The engine uses exact fractions, so the shares always add up to the whole estate. It is checked on every change against 425 worked cases from these books, 69 to 77 for each of the six schools, besides the famous named cases; 6 more cases where scholars differ are kept as open questions. Inheritance cases can still be complicated, especially when distant relatives, missing persons or several deaths are involved. Show the result to a mufti before dividing (the istifta button helps), and use a lawyer for the transfer of property. If a result looks wrong, please tell us; the calculator has the same link. How we choose our sources is on the methodology page.

Everything is calculated in your browser; the names and amounts you type are not sent to us. Related: haq mehr calculator (unpaid mehr is a debt on the estate), diyat calculator (diyat is divided among the heirs by these same shares) and the zakat calculator.

Frequently asked questions