For centuries, Muslims have claimed that the Quran is a perfect, divine book free from any contradiction or error. Yet, when we examine its rulings on inheritance, we find something deeply troubling — clear mathematical mistakes that no divine author could have made.

Since no supernatural being dictated the Quran, Muhammad — an uneducated man of the 7th century — had to invent laws on his own. And, as a result, his arithmetic failed spectacularly.

The outcome? A set of absurd inheritance rules that consistently disadvantage women and rely on later human patchwork to fix the contradictions.

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Table of Contents

1. When the Shares Add Up to Less than the Estate (‘Asabah Case)

2. When the Shares Add Up to More than the Estate (‘Awl Case)

3. Linguistic Error in the Quran

4. The Kalalah Contradiction

5. Quranists’ Attempts to Fix the Problem

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1. When Shares Add Up to Less than the Estate — The ‘Asabah Case

Let’s begin with a simple example. Suppose a man dies leaving behind:

• One daughter

• His parents

• His wife

According to the Quran:

• The daughter gets ½ (Quran 4:11)

• The parents each get 1/6, which together make 1/3 (Quran 4:11)

• The wife gets 1/8 (Quran 4:12)

Add these together:
½ + ⅓ + ⅛ = 0.96, or 96% of the estate.

That leaves 4% unaccounted for. If the estate were $1000, the heirs would receive only $960, leaving $40 undistributed.

Muhammad couldn’t fix this arithmetic error, so he invented a rule: the leftover portion goes to the nearest male relative. This system is called ‘Asabah (Sahih Muslim 1615a).

At first glance, it may look trivial — until we realize that this “male-only” solution produces deeply unfair results for women.

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Example 1: The Widow Gets 25%, a Distant Male Relative Gets 75%

If a man dies leaving only a wife and a distant male relative (such as a cousin or his son):

A widow who spent her life with her husband receives just one-quarter of the inheritance, while a distant male relative — perhaps a cousin she never met — gets three times more.

Does this sound like justice? Does this sound divine?

Ironically, if a woman dies, her husband inherits everything, regardless of whether she has close relatives.

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Example 2: Mother Gets 33%, Distant Male Relative Gets 67%

Again, an old mother receives only a third of her deceased son’s property, while a distant male relative takes twice as much.

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Example 3: Sister Receives More than Mother or Wife

Even when married, a sister receives more than the deceased’s own mother.

In another scenario:

And if a daughter exists, the sister still gets half of the estate:

These bizarre outcomes show how the so-called divine law lacks logic, fairness, and basic arithmetic sense.

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2. When Shares Add Up to More than the Estate — The ‘Awl Case

Now, consider another situation:
A man dies leaving three daughters, his parents, and a wife.

The Quran assigns:

• Daughters: ⅔ (Quran 4:11)

• Parents: ⅙ + ⅙ = ⅓ (Quran 4:11)

• Wife: ⅛ (Quran 4:12)

Add them up: ⅔ + ⅓ + ⅛ = 1.125, or 112.5% of the estate.

In other words, to fulfill the Quranic commands, one would need more money than exists!

Muhammad left no solution. Later, Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab faced this issue and decided to reduce everyone’s shares proportionally — a completely man-made fix.

Another companion, Ibn Abbas, disagreed, and Shia scholars offered their own alternative formula.

So, we have one divine mistake — and multiple contradictory human repairs.

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3. Linguistic Error in Quran 4:11

The verse says:

“If (the heirs of the deceased are) more than two daughters, they shall have two-thirds of the inheritance.”

Arabic:
فَإِن كُنَّ نِسَآءً فَوْقَ ٱثْنَتَيْنِ فَلَهُنَّ ثُلُثَا مَا تَرَكَ

However, in practice, Muhammad himself gave two daughters two-thirds of the inheritance (Sunan Tirmidhi 2092, Sahih).

That means the Quran’s phrase “more than two” is linguistically wrong — it should have been “two or more.”

Realizing this, modern translators secretly changed the verse. For example:

Yusuf Ali (1985 Edition):

“If only daughters, two or more, their share is two-thirds of the inheritance.”

This distortion hides the grammatical mistake to protect the Quran’s image. But the original Arabic remains flawed.

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4. The Kalalah Contradiction

The term Kalālah (كلالة) refers to someone who dies without parents or children.

In Quran 4:12, revealed in the 3rd year after Hijra, such a person’s siblings each receive 1/6, or collectively ⅓ if more than two.

But six years later, Quran 4:176 introduced a completely different rule:

If a man dies leaving no child but a sister, she gets ½. If there are two sisters, they share ⅔. If there are brothers and sisters, the male gets twice the share of the female.

These two verses contradict each other directly.

Even Islamic scholar Maududi admitted that the latter verse came much later, calling it “an appendix revealed in the 9th year of Hijra.”

So much for the claim that Allah’s word is perfect and consistent.

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5. Quranists’ Attempt to “Fix” the Math

Modern Quran-only Muslims (who reject Hadith) also recognized the arithmetic problems in inheritance laws. Their “solution”?

They propose giving the wife’s 1/8 share first, and then distributing the rest among parents and daughters.

But Quran 4:33 — which they cite as proof — says nothing of the sort. This creative interpretation is as groundless as Umar’s or Ibn Abbas’s earlier fixes.

If the Quran were truly “clear” and “easy to understand” (Quran 54:17), why have Muslims debated its basic math for 14 centuries?

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Conclusion

The Quran’s inheritance laws are neither divine nor logical. They contain:

• Mathematical errors (shares that underflow or overflow the estate)

• Linguistic mistakes (“more than two” instead of “two or more”)

• Contradictions (between verses 4:12 and 4:176)

• Human fixes (invented by Umar, Ibn Abbas, and modern apologists)

A book claiming to come from the creator of galaxies shouldn’t fail at simple fractions.

What we see here is not divine perfection — but a human drama of confusion, patchwork, and contradiction.