In the opinion of the Sunni schools, brothers and sisters inherit in the absence of the son and the father,1 and inherit jointly with the mother and daughters. According to the Imamiyyah, they do not inherit except in the absence of parents, children and the children’s children, male or female. Brothers and sisters are of three kinds:
1. full,
2. agnate (consanguine),
3. cognate (uterine).
Full Brothers and Sisters
The following situations pertain to the inheritance of full brothers and sisters:
1. Where males and females inherit together and there does not exist along with them any sharer or residuary (i.e. in the absence of the father, mother, daughter, grandmother, son and son’s son), they are entitled to the whole estate and distribute it in accordance with the rule that a male receives twice a female’s share.
2. Where they consist of males, or males and females, and there is along with them a uterine brother or sister, the uterine brother or sister will take one-sixth and the remainder will go to the full brothers and sisters, a male taking the share of two females. If there are two or more uterine brothers or sisters, they are entitled to one-third irrespective of their sex, with the remainder going to the full brothers and sisters.
3. Where the decedent has a full sister, she is entitled to a half as her share; if more than one, their share is two-thirds. If there does not exist along with a full sister or sisters a daughter or any uterine brothers and sisters, or sahih grandfathers2 and sahih grandmothers, the remainder, according to the Imamiyyah, will return to the sister or sisters.
The other four schools say: The remainder will return to the residuaries who are: the full paternal uncle, and in his absence the agnate paternal uncle, in his absence the full paternal uncle’s son, and then the agnate paternal uncle’s son, and in his absence the remainder will return, according to the Hanafi and the Hanbali schools, to the sister or sisters because only the sharers are entitled to the return conditional on the absence of residuaries; but according to the Shafi’i and the Maliki schools the remainder will escheat to the bayt al-mal.
To sum up, the position of full sisters is like that of daughters; a single sister takes a half, and two or more two-thirds, and if they inherit jointly with full brothers they divide the estate, with a male taking twice a female’s share.
