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Fatwa CenterFather disinheriting some of his children
Question
A father has (legally) gifted a building containing 6 very big flats and garages with a large portion of land to his wife in order to disinherit two of his sons from a previous marriage (he divorced his first wife and had two children with her). He claims that these two sons are unbelievers (kufars) and should be disinherited (which maybe true that they are atheists when they where young but no one knows for certain now). In this process, he actually disinherited a further 3 sons and a daughter from his second marriage only one son is religious and none of rest care about their religion. In this huge building only the daughter with her husband and two children lives in one of the flats, the remaining are being rented, one of the sons from his first marriage with his wife and his mother (first wife) lived in one of the flats but have been thrown away after the husband (the father) divorced her (for the reason of being ungrateful to him). Two other sons from the second marriage left to study and live abroad and a third one joined them recently (only one of them is married). The second wife has since taken care of him after long illness. They both decided to donate (gift) to the daughter 1/4 of the whole wealth and in addition she will inherit from the remaining in the case this wife dies for the reason that she was taking care of her father to help her mother and that she deserves in this case to have a full share like a male. The father who is still alive told his wife that the whole building and land is her wealth and she can do what she wishes with it. Therefore she is planning to sell the whole property and the land, keeping the whole wealth to herself. Her plans are not known for sure, but she wants to reward as she wishes her children according to some reasoning of hers believing that her children are hateful and wishing her harm. What is the view of Islamic sharia in all this? most importantly how to rectify in the case of wrongdoing. Jazakoum Allah.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
The inheritance should be divided after the death of the person, and this man has no right to disown his two sons or any other heir from the inheritance because even if they were non-Muslims in principle, they may become Muslims before his death, and so, they will deserve their right in the inheritance. It should also be noted that if they were Muslims in principle, then one should not hasten to rule that they are non-Muslims even if they have apparently committed a sin that takes them out of the fold of Islam because declaring a particular (Muslim) person out of the fold of Islam should meet some conditions while there are no impediments (which prevent from declaring him as such). We have already discussed this matter in Fataawa 91567 and 84943, so please refer to them.
On the other hand, the parents should be just between their children when gifting them as we clarified in Fataawa 119032 and 96941. However, if one of the children exerts himself to help his father and work with him, then the father can pay him according to what is customary in order to compensate him for his work, or that he should assign a salary for him, however, this should be within the norms in return for his efforts. If what he gives him in return for his efforts is beyond the norms, then this is favouring him in gift-giving; for more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 119967.
As regards the property that this man gave to his wife, if this was for a purpose other than making her its owner, like facilitating her to act on it when necessary, then the property still remains within the ownership of this man. However, if he had gifted the property to her in order to make her its real owner, and she possessed it before any impediment happens, like the husband becoming so sick that it is feared that he will die because of his sickness in general, then this is a valid gift unless the purpose of this gift was to harm the heirs and prevent them from their right, then the harm should be removed –as stated by the scholars 
–and the Prophet said: “There should be no harm nor reciprocal harm.” [Maalik]
Therefore, if there is an injustice, the father and that woman (his wife) should be advised in this regard. The help of some pious and righteous people should be sought about this hoping that Allaah would facilitate for them to solve the problem.
Allaah Knows best.
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