The Categories of Heirs

The Shaykh : The heirs are of three categories, or if you wish, you may say two:
Those with fixed shares, the residuary heirs, and the distant kindred.
This is according to the division into three.
Or if you wish, you may say two, because the distant kindred take the place of the person through whom they claim inheritance. If they claim through a person with a fixed share, they inherit the share of that fixed share; and if they claim through a residuary heir, they inherit the share of the residuary heir. For this reason, if someone were to say that the heirs are those with fixed shares and residuary heirs, and that the inheritance of the distant kindred is based on this, that would be correct.
But the scholars said that they are three: those with fixed shares, residuary heirs, and distant kindred. This is because the scholars did not reach a consensus on the inheritance of the distant kindred, unlike those with fixed shares and residuary heirs, regarding whom they reached a consensus on their inheritance. Therefore, they needed to divide the heirs into those with fixed shares, residuary heirs, and distant kindred.
Then the author (may Allah have mercy on him) cited the two verses of inheritance, and one verse remains for him, which is at the end of Surat al-Nisa.
In the verse of inheritance, Allah the Exalted said: , and a bequest is the entrusting of the bequeathed item to a person with a sense of care.
In His saying: , there is evidence that Allah is more merciful to us than our fathers, because it is He who commanded us regarding our children. Therefore, He is more merciful to our children than we are.
"Children" includes both males and females. For this reason, He said: . This ruling applies to everyone who inherits from the descendants. Whoever inherits from the descendants, if males and females are in the same degree, the male gets the share of two females. So a son and a daughter: he gets two-thirds and she gets one-third. A grandson and a granddaughter: he gets two-thirds and she gets one-third. A great-grandson and a great-granddaughter: likewise. The important point is that this ruling covers all who inherit from the descendants if males and females are in the same degree, the male gets the share of two females.
Then He said: , meaning: the heirs are women, . And His saying: includes three, four, five, ten, or a hundred. If they exceed two, they get two-thirds of what is left, and the fixed share does not increase with their number. So three and three hundred are the same.
And His saying: implies that if they are two women, they do not get two-thirds, because Allah said: . So what do they get?
If we say they get half, His saying: prevents that, because it restricts the fixed share of half to one woman. On this basis, the two women are excluded from the first and the second. For this reason, some scholars said that His saying: is superfluous, and that the intended meaning of the verse is: "If they are two women or more." But this opinion is weak, because it is not customary in the Arabic language for a noun to be superfluous; rather, superfluity occurs in particles. The reason is that the meaning of a particle is in something else, while the meaning of a noun is in itself. What has its meaning in itself cannot be superfluous, unlike what has its meaning in something else, which can be superfluous due to context.
Some scholars said, on the contrary, that: is considered original and not superfluous. As for the two women, they do not get half because they are excluded by His saying: . And since we do not know any fixed share for female descendants other than half or two-thirds, Allah did not mention a fixed share for female descendants other than half or two-thirds. There is nothing in between two-thirds and half.
And if that is the case, then His saying: excludes the two women and any number greater than that. Evidence for this is that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) gave the two daughters of Sa'd ibn Rabi' two-thirds; he gave them two-thirds.
Also, evidence for this is His saying in the verse about sisters at the end of the chapter: . They said that if the two sisters get two-thirds, the two daughters are even more entitled, because the bond of the two daughters to their father is stronger than the bond of the two sisters to their brother. For this reason, the scholars reached a consensus that the two daughters get two-thirds. Thus, the benefit of the word: is to indicate that their fixed share does not increase with their number, and that no matter how many they are, they do not get more than two-thirds.
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So the inheritance of the descendants is complete in this short sentence. If the descendants, i.e., children, both males and females, are in the same degree, the male gets the share of two females. If the women are alone, one gets half, and two or more get two-thirds. This is the inheritance of the descendants.
The ancestors. He said: , meaning his father and his mother. They are called "the parents" by preference and to emphasize the virtue of masculinity over femininity. So the aspect of fatherhood prevails because he is male and is better than the female. He said: .
Yes, also makes the inheritance of the parents easy. Each of them gets one-sixth of what is left by the son or daughter if he has a child. So if a person dies leaving a mother and a son, the mother gets one-sixth. If he leaves a father and a son, the father gets one-sixth. If he leaves a father, a mother, and a son, the father gets one-sixth and the mother gets only one-sixth, because Allah said: . Good.
The word "child" includes both male and female. So if the deceased has a son or a daughter and both parents, each of them gets only one-sixth. But if something remains after the daughter's fixed share, it goes to the father as a residuary heir, based on the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): .
And we said, if they are two women, do they get two-thirds or half? And we said they get two-thirds. We provided evidence for this with a text and an analogy. The text is that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) gave the two daughters of Sa'd ibn Rabi' two-thirds; he gave them two-thirds.
And the analogy is that Allah gave the two sisters two-thirds, so the daughters are even more entitled.