ORPHANED GRANDCHILDREN IN ISLAMIC SUCCESSION LAW

to parents and some relatives and other relatives are also provided
for residually. These verses in the Fourth Siirah are considered to
have been revealed later than I1 : 180 and to have abrogated the
earlier one. This is the classical consensus of the four surviving
Sunni schools and the majority of the Si'i schools where it is
expressed in the form of the rule : "No bequest to an heir." The
Ihna 'A&ari school alone permits legacies to an heir, regardless of
whether the other heirs consent or not, provided such legacies do
not exceed the bequeathable one-third, nn the grounds that the
earlier is not abrogated by the later and that the object of the
earlier revelation was to enable a Muslim by means of legacies
within the limit of the bequeathable one-third to meet special cases
of hardship not adequately covered by inheritance portions alone.
In either case. of course, it remained permissible to make a testa-
mentary bequest for the benefit of any relative precluded from
inheriting who. by that token, would most probably be a distant
relative. But the Islamic permission for legacies to distant relatives
seem to originate from other Qur'5nic and had?& material
because I1 : 180. by linking "relatives" with "parents" would seem to
be referring to close relative^.^
However, the proponents of the system of obligatory bequests
avoid the question of whether orphaned grandchildren are close or
distant relatives, although maintaining that their authority comes
from 11 : 180. This verse begins @ 4 ("It is prescribed for you
. . .") and makes legacies morally obligatory at least, in relevant
cases. But to make a morally desirable act into a legally enforce-
able rule and. further, to imply that a testator has made or should
have made such a legacy as is contemplated in I1 : 180 makes it all
the more necessary that one should be clear about the class
of beneficiaries referred to. The identical classes "parents
and relatives" are in I1 : 180 and in IV : 7 which strongly
indicates that the same groups of relatives were intended in both
cases. If, nevertheless, it is maintained that orphaned grand-
children are "close" relatives not otherwise provided for. it
constitutes an admission that the rules of inheritances laid down in
the Fourth Siirah so painstakingly precise for all other immediate
family members, contain an inexplicable omission with regard to
orphaned grandchildren. On the other hand, if orphaned grand-
children are "distant" relatives there is no sustainable juristic basis
for confining obligatory bequests to them alone. There may well