Fara'id shares are not fixed amounts. They depend on who is alive when you die, which nobody knows when you sign. An Ontario will has to be certain enough for a trustee to administer, so the shares have to be written as a formula the document itself contains — not a reference to an authority outside it.
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The Qur'anic fractions turn on who else survives, not on the relationship alone. A husband takes one-half of his wife's estate, but one-quarter if she left a child or a son's descendant. A wife takes one-quarter, or one-eighth if her husband left a child or a son's descendant, co-wives sharing that portion. A mother takes one-third, or one-sixth where there is a child, a son's descendant, or two or more siblings. A single daughter with no son takes one-half and two or more share two-thirds — but where there is a son, daughters take as residuaries, one share to the son's two.
Three mechanisms sit on top of that, and none has an Ontario analogue. Hajb removes or reduces an heir because a nearer one exists: a son excludes the deceased's brothers outright. 'Awl applies where the fractions add up to more than the whole estate and every share abates proportionally, a solution attributed to the ruling of 'Umar ibn al-Khattab and accepted across the four schools. Radd is the opposite case — the fractions come to less than the whole and no residuary takes the surplus.
Radd is where the schools split, and where Ontario changes the answer. The Hanafis and Hanbalis return the surplus to the fixed sharers in proportion, though classically a surviving husband or wife does not share in that return while another sharer survives. The Maliki and Shafi'i schools classically directed it to the public treasury, an institution that does not exist here. The same gap opens where only distant kindred survive. A will that says no more than 'distribute according to fara'id' has no answer in either case, and that part of the estate falls into an Ontario intestacy.
An Ontario will has to identify its beneficiaries and what they take clearly enough to be administered. A clause reading 'my residue is to be divided according to Islamic law as determined by the imam of my mosque' is exposed twice over: it may be void for uncertainty, and it hands the decision about who takes what to somebody else. A testator cannot delegate the making of their will. How hard an Ontario court would press either objection against a fara'id clause has not been decided in a reported case I can point to.
The reliable structure puts the rule inside the document. Set out the classes, the fractions and the conditions in the will itself, keyed to facts ascertainable at the date of death: who survived, and by how long. Name the school whose rules govern the calculation, so the trustee applies a stated method rather than choosing between four. Then add a longstop clause naming who takes if the formula produces no taker for part of the estate.
Where a family genuinely wants scholarly input after the death, the workable version is a discretionary trust over a class of beneficiaries defined in the will, with the trustee empowered to take advice before exercising discretion. You define the class; the advice informs the trustee rather than replacing them. That is a different instrument from a shares formula, with different tax treatment and a different price, and it should be chosen deliberately.
Not because the amounts are unequal. Spence v BMO Trust Co, 2016 ONCA 196 is the leading Ontario authority. Where the will is unambiguous and the gift outright, extrinsic evidence of the testator's motive is not admissible to void it on public policy grounds. The application judge had set the will aside; the Court of Appeal restored it, and leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada was refused. A daughter receiving less than a son is not, in itself, a ground of challenge in Ontario.
The honest qualification is that Spence dealt with an unconditional gift in a private will. Ontario courts have struck religious and racial restrictions out of public charitable trusts on public policy grounds, and conditions attached to private gifts can still fail for uncertainty. No reported Ontario appellate decision has ruled on a fara'id distribution as such. Anyone who tells you these clauses are bulletproof, and anyone who tells you they are void, is going further than the cases do.
The claims that actually threaten the distribution never ask about motive. A dependant who was being supported, or was owed support, can apply under Part V of the Succession Law Reform Act for provision the will did not make, and the court fixes the amount. A married surviving spouse can elect equalization under the Family Law Act instead of taking the share the will gives. Both run over the top of a perfectly valid will.
Trustee choice comes first. The rule is section 6 of the Estates Act, and it turns on the Commonwealth, not on Ontario: probate is refused to an applicant not resident in Ontario or elsewhere in the Commonwealth unless that person gives the security an administrator on an intestacy gives, or the judge dispenses with it for special circumstances. Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Malaysia are Commonwealth members, so a brother in Karachi triggers no bond. Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are not, so an uncle in Cairo does. Budget for that application, or name an Ontario co-trustee.
Then the investment mandate. The Trustee Act holds a trustee investing trust money to a prudent investor standard — which matters the moment a minor's share must be held rather than paid out — and that standard applies subject to the terms of the trust. If funds are to be held only in assets your family regards as permissible, the will must authorise that expressly. A trustee who narrows the portfolio on their own initiative is exposed to a claim.
Finally, survivorship and minors. Where two people die together, or in circumstances where the order of death is unknown, the Succession Law Reform Act treats each estate as if that person had survived the other, so neither inherits from the other — which happens to track the classical position. A minor's share cannot simply be handed over, so the will should create the trust, set the age and name who holds it. The religious calculation stays with your imam or scholar; we write in what you instruct.
No, and you should not try. Who your heirs are is fixed at your death, and a list written today will be wrong by then — children are born, parents and spouses die, marriages happen. Draft by class and condition instead: my surviving wife, my surviving sons and daughters in the proportions of two to one, with the exclusions and reductions written out. The trustee then applies your rule to the family that actually exists on the day.
Yes, if you follow one, because the schools differ on points that decide real estates: what happens to a surplus when the fixed shares do not use up the estate, what happens where only distant relatives survive, and how obligations owed to God are paid. Naming the school in the will is a drafting instruction, not a religious ruling. You decide it with your scholar, and we write the chosen method into the document so the trustee is not left choosing.
That is exactly why the will needs a longstop. If the formula produces no taker for part of the estate, that part passes as though you had left no will for it, and the intestacy rules in the Succession Law Reform Act take over — distributing on a statutory Ontario scheme that looks nothing like fara'id, often to people you did not intend. A residuary gift-over naming a person, a class or a charity closes the gap in one sentence.
In principle yes. Ontario has no forced share, and an independent adult child who was not being supported can be left out entirely. If that child was financially dependent on you, or you were under a legal obligation to support them, Part V of the Succession Law Reform Act lets them apply for support out of the estate regardless of the will. A disabled adult child living at home is the strongest version. Recording your reasons does not remove the claim, but it gives your trustee something to defend the will with.
Open your file tonight — a licensed Ontario lawyer will confirm everything with you by tomorrow.