An Islamic will that also works under English law

This page explains how the two systems fit together, so you know what to ask a solicitor before you pay one. It is not legal advice and it is not religious guidance. On the shares themselves, ask a scholar you trust. On making the document hold, ask a solicitor who has drafted these before, not one who is willing to try.

Is an Islamic will even valid in England?

Yes, in the ordinary case. England and Wales gives you broad freedom to leave your estate to whoever you choose. There is no fixed share that must go to a spouse or a child, unlike many countries in Europe and the Middle East. That freedom is exactly what lets an Islamic will work here.

So a will that sets out shares following Islamic inheritance principles is not a special category of document. It is an ordinary English will whose instructions happen to follow those principles. The court does not assess whether the shares are religiously correct. It looks at whether the document is validly made and what it says.

That is the good news and it is also where people relax too early. Validity is not the problem. What defeats these wills is almost always something else, and the rest of this page is about that.

One thing worth knowing before you go further: Scotland is different. Scots law gives a spouse and children legal rights in part of the estate that cannot be written out. If your assets or your home are in Scotland, this page does not describe your position.

What actually makes the document valid?

The formalities come from the Wills Act 1837, and they are short. The will must be in writing. You must sign it, or somebody must sign it for you in your presence and at your direction. It must appear that you intended your signature to give effect to the will. And your signature must be made or acknowledged in front of two or more witnesses who are present at the same time, each of whom then signs in your presence.

That is it. There is no requirement for a solicitor, no requirement for a seal, and no required form of wording.

The trap is in who witnesses it. Under section 15 of the same Act, if a witness, or the husband or wife of a witness, is left something in the will, that gift is void. The will still stands and the witness can still prove it. The gift simply fails.

This catches families constantly, because the natural thing is to ask the people in the room, and the people in the room are usually the ones inheriting. A son who witnesses his father's will loses what he was left. The rest of the will carries on without him.

What is the one third rule and does English law care?

In Islamic inheritance, the fixed shares go to the heirs identified by the rules, and a bequest to somebody who is not one of those heirs is commonly understood to be limited to a third of the estate. Whether that applies to your situation, and how the shares fall, is a question for a scholar and not for this page or for a solicitor.

English law has no equivalent rule and takes no view on it. It will give effect to whatever the document says, within the ordinary law. So you can have a will that reserves the specified shares for the heirs and directs up to a third elsewhere, and English law simply reads that as instructions.

What matters practically is that the instructions have to be capable of being carried out by an executor who may not know the rules. A will that says "distribute according to Islamic law" and stops there is a common and serious weakness, because it leaves the executor to work out shares they may not understand, from a body of rules they cannot look up, at a moment when the family is already in dispute.

The drafting that survives is specific. Named people, or a clearly defined method, with a named person or body to determine the shares if they must be calculated at the time.

Can somebody challenge it after I die?

Some people can apply to the court, and this is the part of English law most often left out of the conversation.

Under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, where a person dies domiciled in England and Wales, certain people may apply for an order on the ground that the estate does not make reasonable financial provision for them. The categories include a spouse or civil partner, a former spouse or civil partner who has not remarried, a person who lived with the deceased as if married for the whole of the two years before the death, a child, a person treated as a child of the family, and anybody who was being maintained by the deceased immediately before the death.

This does not make an Islamic will invalid and it is not aimed at religious wills at all. It applies to every English will. But it means the shares are not untouchable, and a daughter, a widow, or a dependent relative who receives less than they need can ask a court to look at it.

Good drafting reduces the risk rather than removing it. A solicitor who knows this area will ask about everybody who might fall into those categories, and will often record the reasoning behind the arrangement at the time it is made.

Why do these wills fail even when they are valid?

Because a large part of most estates never passes under a will at all, and nobody mentions it.

If you own your home as joint tenants with your spouse, the whole property passes automatically to the survivor on death. It does not enter the estate, the will does not touch it, and the shares in your will apply to whatever is left. For many families the house is the estate, so this single point can undo the entire arrangement. It can be changed, by severing the joint tenancy so you hold as tenants in common, but it has to be done deliberately and in the right form.

The same is true of most pensions and most life policies. They usually pass by nomination or at the discretion of the scheme trustees, outside the estate entirely. A nomination form completed years ago beats a will written last month.

Jointly held bank accounts often behave the same way in practice.

So the first question worth asking is not what the will says. It is what will actually be left for the will to distribute once everything that passes outside it has passed. Quite often the answer surprises people.

What if I own property in another country?

Then one English will may not be enough, and it may not be effective at all for that property.

As a general pattern, land and buildings tend to be governed by the law of the country where they sit. So a house in Pakistan, a flat in Athens or an apartment in Dubai may be dealt with under that country's rules regardless of what your English will says. Several countries have forced heirship, meaning a fixed share must pass to particular relatives whatever the will provides.

That sometimes works in your favour and sometimes against it. In a country whose succession rules already follow Islamic principles, local law may produce close to the result you want without you doing anything. In a country with European-style forced heirship, it may produce something quite different.

There are two workable approaches. One will covering everything, drafted by somebody who understands each country involved. Or separate wills in each country, each dealing only with the assets there. Separate wills are often cleaner and faster to administer, but they must be drafted so they do not accidentally revoke one another, which is the single most common failure when two solicitors in two countries do not know about each other.

There may also be inheritance tax in more than one country, and whether a treaty prevents you paying twice depends on which countries they are.

Do I need a solicitor, or can I use a template?

You can legally write your own will. Plenty of people do and plenty of those wills work.

The question is whether yours is the kind that works. A template is fine for a simple estate: one country, no business, no joint property complications, straightforward beneficiaries, nobody likely to fall into the 1975 Act categories and feel short changed.

It is a poor choice where any of the following are true. You own property in more than one country. You own a business or a share of one. Your home is held jointly. You have been married before, or there are children from more than one relationship. Somebody depends on you financially who is not an obvious heir. Or you want shares that follow a specific method rather than fixed percentages.

The cost difference is real but it is smaller than people assume, and it is trivial compared to what a contested estate costs. Estates that end up in court routinely spend more on the argument than the disputed share was worth.

If money is genuinely the obstacle, say so when you ask. Some firms will stage payment, and it is a better outcome than a template that fails.

What should I ask before I hire anybody?

Five questions, and the answers will tell you quickly whether the person in front of you has done this before.

How many wills of this kind have you drafted. Not how many wills, how many of these.

What happens to my house if I die tomorrow, given how it is currently held. If they cannot answer without asking how the title is held, that is the right instinct.

Who could bring a claim under the 1975 Act in my situation, and what are you going to do about it in the drafting.

I have assets in another country. Will you handle that, will you work with somebody there, or are you leaving it to me. All three answers are acceptable. Vagueness is not.

What is the total cost, including the second appointment and any changes in the first year.

You are not testing their religious knowledge. You are testing whether they understand the English machinery well enough to make your intention survive it.

Last reviewed 2026-09-17. This page explains how things usually work so you know what to ask. It is not legal, tax or religious advice, and nothing on it is a recommendation. Where it names an Act of Parliament it describes the general position in England and Wales only; Scotland and Northern Ireland differ, and so does every country abroad. TRADhEiR makes introductions to independent firms. We are not a firm of solicitors, we are not registered with the Immigration Advice Authority, and we hold no financial services permissions. The firm you choose does the work and is accountable for it. This site uses cookieless analytics that counts visits but does not identify you or follow you anywhere else.