Recently, a group of Islamic women held a symposium entitled, “Women, Commercial Inheritance and Family Rule.” Their symposium called for the establishement of a new judicial body designed to protect the inheritance rights of women in Saudi Arabia. The group hopes that this will ensure that inheritances are divided based upon the Islamic law not social tradition and pressure. One of these protections would be the right to a speedy inheritance inventory to ensure that the process would not last for years and decades. The denial of an inheritance is one the primary reasons that families feud in Saudi Arabia. Inheritance is a sentitive issue in their society because it is often confused with tribal tradition. Tribal tradition often overlooks women’s rights as stated in the Qur’an and usually occurs when as a product of social pressure from male heirs. Many times, women are unlawfully persuaded by their male siblings to give up their inheritance rights. As a result, “thousands of cases related to inheritance disputes” are pending in the courts. Thus, the symposium called upon leaders, both legal and spiritual, to solve this problem.
See Damman, Call For Setting Up Judicial Body To Protect Female Inheritance, Arab News, May 12, 2013.
Special thanks to Brian Cohan (Attorney at Law, Law Offices of Brian J. Cohan, P.C.) for bringing this article to my attention.
