Hundred Moroccan personalities call for cancellation of male-line inheritance

On Wednesday, around 100 Moroccan personalities called on to “cancel the system of agnation inheritance,” – referring to a system which prioritises male heirs – saying that it is no longer appropriate for the current social order and it results in “a great injustice that does not go along with the purposes of Islam.”

Former ministers, parties leaders, researchers in Islamic studies, sociology, law, human rights activists, and media personalities were among the signatories to the appeal that Anadolu News Agency obtained a copy of.

The appeal stated that the inheritance law in Morocco “gives the right to a man to take full advantage of the inheritance, if he is the sole heir, while the woman does not benefit from this right, since she inherits only a certain estimated share called religious duty.”

It clarified that this means that “the female heirs who do not have a male brother have to share the inheritance with the closest male relatives (uncles, cousins ​​and others) and if they do not have close male relatives they have to share the inheritance with distant relatives ​​who may be close to the family only in terms of blood bond.”

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It added that this situation is linked to the rule of agnation, which limits the heirs, after the legal heirs, to males who have family relation with the deceased person.

The signatories to the appeal considered that the agnation inheritance was justified in the historical context in which it arose, when the social order was a tribal system that required males to take care of females and people in a fragile situation, in addition to the responsibility to defend and ensure the survival of the tribe, while this is no more the prevailing social order in our time.

They insisted that the application of agnation inheritance system in the current social context and amid the change in social structures and roles “results in a great injustice that does not go along with the purposes of Islam.”

They stressed that “uncles, cousins, or male relatives in general no longer bear the expenses of their female nephews or female relatives even if they are in need.”

What justifies that male relatives (close or far) share the inheritance with orphan girls while they do not bear their physical or moral responsibility?

asked the signatories.

The asserted that the law, which allows them to share the inheritance in which they have not contributed, does not force them to protect and take care of the concerned family.

They considered that this law is “jurisprudential diligence which has no reference in the Holy Quran, and that it is not commensurate with the purposes of Islamic Sharia in achieving justice among people.”

The signatories to the appeal called for “cancelling the system of agnation inheritance from the Moroccan inheritance law, as other Muslim countries have done.”