Islamic Inheritance Law: A Recent Comprehensive Systematic Review

Islamic inheritance law has emerged as a significant area of scholarly inquiry in response to legal reforms, socioeconomic transformations, gender-related debates, and the increasing interaction between Islamic legal principles, customary norms, and state regulatory frameworks across Muslim societies. Despite the growing body of scholarship, existing studies remain fragmented across doctrinal, socio-legal, and legal-pluralistic perspectives, underscoring the need for a comprehensive synthesis of recent developments in the field. This study systematically reviews contemporary scholarship on Islamic inheritance law to examine prevailing research themes and emerging directions within the literature. Employing a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework, data were retrieved from the Scopus and Web of Science databases using the keywords “inheritance,” “succession,” “faraid,” and “Islam.” The review process resulted in the inclusion of 34 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2023 and 2025 for qualitative synthesis. The findings reveal three dominant themes in contemporary Islamic inheritance scholarship: contemporary reform and legal development, encompassing legal reform, maqasid al-shariah-oriented interpretation, judicial reasoning, and the contextual adaptation of inheritance principles within modern legal frameworks; legal pluralism, customary practices, and sociological dimensions, examining the interaction between Islamic law, customary norms, and state legal systems in plural societies; and gender, rights, and socioeconomic perspectives, exploring issues of distributive justice, gender equity, women’s inheritance rights, and the socioeconomic implications of inheritance distribution. Overall, the review demonstrates a growing shift towards interdisciplinary and context-sensitive approaches in addressing the evolving complexities of Islamic inheritance law. This review contributes to the existing literature by providing a systematic synthesis of recent scholarly developments and highlighting emerging research directions in Islamic inheritance law.

inheritance, succession, faraid, estate, muslim

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