New to this? Estate planning and Fara’id covers the background this guide assumes, as part of the course.

Islamic inheritance follows a fixed system known as Fara'id: roughly two-thirds of an estate is distributed among specified heirs (spouse, children, parents, and others) in shares set by the Qur'an, not chosen by the deceased. A Muslim can freely direct at most one-third of the estate by will (wasiyyah), commonly to a charity, a person outside the fixed-heir system, or to adjust within limits, with the remaining two-thirds-plus following the mandatory Fara'id formula.

Australian secular law works completely differently. If you die without a valid will, each state's intestacy law decides who gets what, a formula that has nothing to do with Fara'id and, depending on your family structure, can produce a genuinely different outcome to what Islamic inheritance would require. This is confirmed directly in Australian legal academic literature: a 2022 University of Queensland Law Journal article examining exactly this conflict concludes that Australia's legal structure doesn't prevent Muslims from following Islamic inheritance practices, but only if they take active legal steps to do so. Nothing happens automatically.

The practical implication

No valid Australian will = no Fara'id, regardless of your intentions. A verbal wish, a religious conviction, or an informal document isn't sufficient under Australian law. To have any prospect of your estate following Islamic inheritance principles, you need a will that is properly signed and witnessed according to your state's Wills Act, while also encoding the Fara'id shares correctly within it.

A real legal risk worth knowing about upfront

Australian succession law generally lets you distribute your estate however you choose in a valid will, but every state has family provision legislation that allows an eligible person (typically a spouse, child, or other dependant) to contest a will if they believe they haven't been adequately provided for. Because Fara'id can allocate less to a spouse or a particular child than Australian courts might consider "adequate," a will that strictly follows Fara'id carries a real risk of being challenged and potentially varied by a court. The same UQ Law Journal research flags this specifically as a point of tension, not a solved problem. This is exactly the kind of issue a general online will template won't catch, and exactly why this needs a lawyer who actually works across both systems rather than a DIY document.

Where to actually get one drafted

Two Australia-specific services specialise in this intersection: lawyers and Islamic scholars reviewing the same document together, rather than a lawyer alone guessing at Fara'id or a scholar alone guessing at Australian succession law:

  • Wasiyyah, operating since 2012, wills drafted by lawyers and reviewed by scholars, serving clients across every state.
  • LawBridge, Islamic wills, probate and estate planning, run by a solicitor with a specific background in Islamic finance law.

Whichever path you take, treat this as a genuine legal document requiring genuine legal advice, not a template to fill in once and forget, especially if your family situation is anything other than simple, since that's exactly where Fara'id and Australian family provision law are most likely to pull in different directions.