Substitute Heirs in Islamic Inheritance Law

A Comparative Analysis of Shafi‘i Faraid and the Compilation of Islamic Law (KHI)

Abstract

Scholarship on substitute heirs in Indonesia has developed along three largely separate tracks: doctrinal studies of Article 185 of the Compilation of Islamic Law (KHI), studies of hijab in classical Islamic inheritance jurisprudence, and studies of judicial disparity in Religious Court practice. What has not yet been examined is how these three strata interact within a single adjudicative event. This study addresses that gap by reconstructing Sungai Raya Religious Court Decision No. 262/Pdt.G/2025/PA.Sry, a decision in which Shafi‘i faraid doctrine, Article 185 KHI, and Supreme Court Circular No. 3 of 2015 are simultaneously mobilised. The study employs normative legal research with comparative, statutory, and case approaches. The findings show that Shafi‘i faraid does not so much reject substitute heirs as lack representational construction that Article 185 KHI introduces, entitlement in the school is determined by qualification through furud and ‘asabah, so that a son’s son is totally excluded by surviving son while children of a daughter fall outside the class of legal heirs altogether. Article 185 KHI, transmits the position of predeceased parent to child, which alters base denominator from eight to nine and proportionally reduces shares of the primary heirs. Theoretical contribution of comparison lies in locating divergence between the two systems on the subject side of the norm. On that basis the authors advance, as a normative recommendation and not as a conclusion compelled by the findings, the argument that the limitation currently carried by the Circular should be codified in Article 185 KHI itself.