Inheritance and Redistribution of Wealth: An Islamic Perspective

Rahim Nobahar, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Shahid Beheshti University 

This article examines the role of the inheritance institution in the redistribution of wealth and social justice. In common jurisprudence, the institution of inheritance distribution is a relationship of kinship or other completely personal and private relations, such as loyalty by virtue of emancipation and person who undertakes to pay the compensation for someone else’s wrong in return for inheriting from him (Jarireh guarantee). Based on some reasons and evidence, this article emphasizes that inheritance should also be viewed from a social and public perspective. This view underlies that inheritance regulations must be reconsidered in terms of wealth redistribution and social justice. In fact, despite respect for the leaver’s private property and in terms of his/her kinship or private relationship with the inheritor or family interests, society and its resources have also played a role in generating his/her wealth. Thus, in the distribution of inheritance, distributional justice and redistribution of wealth to society, which is one of the sources of wealth production and gaining, should be also considered.

Keywords: jurisprudence, inheritance, wealth redistribution, social justice, Jarireh guarantee.

A full Persian version of this article is published in Iranian Journal of Legal Encyclopedias, No. 4, Autumn 2019, pp. 433-447.