According to Morocco’s inheritance law (Family code of 2004), men are universal heirs, meaning they have access to the full inheritance of their parents, whereas women inherit fixed parts (fardh), and cannot receive the totality of the inheritance without the participation of at least one male parent to divide the shares.

Accordingly, women or girls who do not have a brother are required to share the inheritance with the closest male relatives of the deceased (i.e. brothers, nephews, cousins, etc.) or with distant male relatives.

Yet, if inheritance by ta’sib was historically justified in the tribal system of the time, where men not only took charge of their wives and closest vulnerable relations, but also had the responsibility to protect and vouch for their clan, this is no longer the case. Moroccan families today are usually limited to parents and their children.  Women are often involved in taking care of the needs of their families, of which they are sometimes the only support, and many help their husbands financially. In addition, the number of women fending for themselves, single, divorced or widowed, with or without children, has increased significantly.

In the current social context, the rule of the ta'sib has consequently become unfair: the uncles do not take care of their nieces, nor the cousins of their cousins, nor do the men, generally, take care of the distant female relatives in their family, even if they are alone and poor.

Therefore, how can we justify that relatives or distant relatives of a deceased person –who did not leave a son-, come share the inheritance with the orphaned daughters without, in any way, taking neither material nor moral responsibility towards them?

Considerable violence is therefore experienced during periods of mourning and pain - sometimes even before the burial - when the ’asaba heirs demand their share of property, furniture, memories, or force bereaved women to sell the family home so they can collect "their due"!

As a result, a growing number of parents who do not have sons are pushed to circumvent the law by way donations or fictitious sales in order to protect their daughters.

Why maintain a rule that not only has no longer any social justification, but also has no Quranic background? On the contrary, in the current context, ta'sib goes against the principles of justice of the Qur'an ('adl) and not in the sense of its purposes (maqasid).

For these considerations, we, the undersigned, call for the repeal of the inheritance rule of ta’sib, as some other Muslim countries have done before.