Inheritance is the right of an heir to succeed to property on the death of an ancestor or something that may legally be transmitted to an heir according to William James Stewart.
“According to the research carried out by the National Commission on the Status of Women under United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) revealed that the concept of inheritance was evolved centuries ago as a deviation from the custom of burying wealth, widows, and slaves along with the deceased and continued to persist strictly under the patriarchal domain.
According to the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan, Article 23 states: “Every citizen shall have the right to acquire, hold and dispose of property in any part of Pakistan, subject to the Constitution and any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the public interest”.[2] Pakistan being an Islamic country tends to follow Islamic Inheritance Jurisprudence particularly with regards to the matters of inheritance.
According to Sharia, the legal heirs that are blood relations have a right to inherit from the property of the ancestor or a relative after their death. Chapter four of the Quran called Surah An-Nisa narrates the appropriate method that must be followed to determine the share in inheritance.The practice of acquiring property rights for women in Pakistan is however not effortless despite the constitutional law claiming otherwise.
