D. Powers, The Islamic inheritance system. A socio-
economic approach, in C. Mallat and J. Connors
(eds.), Islamic family law, London 1990, 11–31.
J. Reilly, Properties around Damascus in the nineteenth
century, in Arabica 37:1 (1990), 91–115.
H. Rosenfeld, On the determinants of the status of Arab
village women, in Man40 (1960), 66–74.Annelies MoorsIran and AfghanistanInheritance laws in both countries are based on
the Sharì≠a. They assign females regardless of age
precisely defined shares of an estate according to
detailed genealogical considerations. These shares
are always less than a male’s of equal genealogical
position. This “Golden Rule” is praised as a great
improvement for women over pre-Islamic customs
regarding property. Its inherent gender inequality is
defended within an ideology of practicality: men
need resources for their obligations to care for and
protect their dependents, including women, while
women have no such obligations and can spend
their resources frivolously; the mahr(bride-price)
women receive from their husband at the time of
marriage together with their father’s inheritance
(half of a brother’s share) is enough for their dis-
cretionary spending; in cases of special hardship
(for example, a sick daughter), a man may be-
queath extra funds through a testament.
In both countries local inheritance customs su-
persede these laws, to the effect that women – with
exceptions – are not considered heirs. The tradi-
tional gender philosophy justifies this exclusion:
women are considered part of a man’s estate rather
than heirs (as shown, for example, in the custom of
the levirate and in the term “buy,” colloquially used
for the acquisition of a wife); a woman’s God-
ordained main function is to bear and raise children
for her husband’s group and to work for the benefit
of her family (first natal, later conjugal-extended),
while men’s obligations are manifold – in order to
fulfill them men need to inherit, women do not; in
the logic of patrilineal descent and management of
property, women as heirs alienate property from
the agnatic group by passing it to the husband and
his children; a woman should not be trusted with
agnatic property because she will have to obey a
husband’s and son’s potential order to surrender
her inheritance; women are said to be weak stew-
ards of property because of their purported lack of
managerial inclinations and skills and their weak-
ness of resolve, which again will compel them to
give in to the inevitable pressure by men for control
of the inheritance anyway. For these reasons a com-302 inheritance: contemporary practice
passionate, wise woman will pardon her inheri-
tance for the benefit of her male relatives, most
likely her brothers (as a sister) and her sons (as a
widow).
The commonsensical inequality informing tradi-
tions and Qur±ànic laws is also evident in legal
reforms. The 1931 Civil Code and the Family Pro-
tection Act of 1967 in Iran retained unequal inher-
itance despite modernist goals. In addition, men
rarely apply these laws voluntarily, and women
either are ignorant of their rights or choose not to
press for them. Likewise, legal changes in Afghan-
istan under Soviet rule made little difference to
most common people – the laws were ignored, just
as the Taliban-ordained Qur±ànic laws were later.
Then as now, in both countries women who claim
their legal share of an inheritance likely belong to
the small, educated, West-oriented elite, to local
traditional, wealthy families in leadership posi-
tions, or to those who have access to consciousness-
raising religious instruction. Rarely is a woman
able to press a claim on her own, especially not a
rural or uneducated woman, for reasons of logistics
and of compromising family honor by going to
court. Frequently, women who claim inheritance do
so at the instigation and under the guidance of a
husband or son who risks his cordial relationships
with the woman’s relatives trying to enrich himself
through her.
In practice, therefore, inheritance considerations
are embedded in family politics: a daughter who
claims her share of her father’s inheritance strains
relationships with her brothers; a widow who
insists on her share of her husband’s estate may
start a fight with her sons or husband’s brothers; a
successful claim by one sister may lead to discon-
tent among the others. But even accepting an inher-
itance when offered may undermine a woman’s
position: her brothers will chalk it up as their gen-
erosity; her husband or son may withhold support
by referring to her own property. In contrast, a
woman who pardons her share may strengthen her
political position: the beneficiary will be obliged to
her. A father who passes on property to a daughter’s
children as a gift in lieu of the inheritance to his
daughter will raise his moral standing with his
daughter’s husband. Even a husband can benefit by
turning his wife’s pardon of her share into the
morally superior position of generosity toward his
wife’s male relatives.
As long as patrilineal structures and women’s
dependency on men continue in either country,
inheritance practices will not change much. Where
these structures become weaker, as today in the
modern middle class in Iran with its scores of