Why don’t grandchildren inherit the share of their father who died early?

Because in Islam no one owns a share of their parents’ wealth while the parents are alive, and so there is nothing to pass on. The grandfather can, however, provide for the grandchildren through a will or a gift during his lifetime, and the Holy Qur’an encourages this.

When a young father dies before his own father, it is a heavy blow for the whole family. Many then feel it is unfair that his children do not automatically inherit the share that would later have come to him. To understand this, we need to look at a basic principle.

In Islam a person’s wealth belongs to them alone as long as they live. Their children have no share in it and no right to a say over it. When a father provides for his children, pays for their education and helps them, he does so out of kindness and duty, not because they are co-owners. An inheritance only arises at death. A son who dies before his father had therefore not yet inherited anything. He owned no share that he could have passed on to his own children.

This does not mean, however, that the grandchildren must be left with nothing. Nothing prevents the grandfather from providing for them, by a will or during his lifetime, for instance to the extent of what their father would have inherited. The Holy Qur’an expressly encourages people to think of their relatives before death and to treat orphans with kindness.

In such a situation the grandfather is usually the person most deeply affected by his son’s death. He is especially close to the grandchildren. The decision is therefore deliberately left to him rather than to a rigid rule. In this way the principle that property belongs to the living remains clear, while there is still room for care and compassion.