A gift after death

Question

Question: My father was himself the owner of his shop. During his lifetime he said several times in front of my mother: “After me all this is yours.” My mother had with her two girls from her first husband; then I was born. Now my mother wants to include those first two girls in my father’s property as well. According to the Shariʿa, do the girls who came with her also have a right to my father’s property?

Answer

Merely because your father said to you, “After me everything is yours,” you will not be the sole heir of the property he left. Rather, from your father’s estate (tarika) one eighth will go to your mother, and you will own the rest, provided that no male among your father’s grandfathers and great-grandfathers is alive.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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