The New World Order of Islam — Page 88
New World Order 88 parents, widow, sons and daughters, all succeed to their shares in the property left by the deceased. Nobody is at liberty to modify in any manner the share to which each heir is entitled under this system. The Quran says that any attempt to interfere with this system is sinful. As compared with the Islamic system of inheritance, other systems suffer from various defects. Under some of them landed property is inherited by the eldest son alone, and under others females are excluded from inheritance by males. Manu, for instance, has laid down that daughters shall be excluded in the matter of inheritance by sons. Under all these systems property is confined in the hands of a comparatively small section of the community and the poor sections are deprived of all chances of improvement in their economic condition. As against this, Islam teaches that unless property and wealth are widely distributed, the community as a whole will not be able to progress. Under the Islamic system if a man has succeeded in accumulating property worth a lakh of rupees, it will be divided on his death among all his children, his parents (if still alive) and his widow if she survives him. In the course of a couple of generations, the original patrimony will have been so divided and subdivided that everyone of the numerous heirs of the original propositus will be compelled to exert himself to earn a respectable living instead of wasting his talents and living comfortably with the help only of inherited wealth.