You do not know which of your parents and your children is...

You do not know which of your parents and your children is closer to you in usefulness. (This is) an ordinance from Allah. Verily Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise." Commentary : There are ordinances of inheritance mentioned in some other religions, too. For instance, in the Torah, the Book of Numbers, Chapter 27, verses 8 to 11 some laws of inheritance are referred to.

They are as follows: And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter. And if he have no daughter, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his brethren. And if he have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his father's brethren.

And if his father have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his kinsman that is next to him of his family, and he shall possess it: and it shall be unto the children of Israel a statute of judgment, as the Lord commanded Moses. It should also be noted that Jesus (a.s.) has approved, in the Bible, the same law of the Turah. In Islam, the inheritance of a person, who has no inheritor, is given to the Islamic judge and Imam.

The pre-Islamic Arab deprived women and small children from inheritance. The Portions of Inheritance: In this verse, the ordinance of the first class of inheritors (children, fathers, and mothers) has been mentioned.

At first, it says: " Allah enjoins you concerning your children: The male shall have the equal of the portion of two females;..." This meaning is a kind of emphasis on the portion of daughters taking from the inheritance and challenging with the traditions of the people in the Age of Ignorance who deprived women totally. Then the verse denotes that if the heirs of the diseased are exclusively two daughters or more than that, two-thirds of the inheritance belongs to them. It says : "...

and if they are more than two females, then they will have two-thirds of the inheritance; ..." But if there remains only one daughter, she will have half of the whole inheritance. The verse says: "...

and if there is (only) one, she will have the half; ..." Now, the inheritance of fathers and mothers, who are also involved in the first class of inheritors and are in the same row with the children, is classified in three states: The first state: is when the diseased person has an offspring or offsprings; then there will be one sixths of the inheritance for the father and again the same portion for mother. It says thus: "...