Inheritance, Oaths, and Criminal Law from the Quran

The inheritance verses of Surah al-Nisa' (4:11-12 and 4:176) form the basis of Islamic inheritance law, and al-Tahawi derives from them the Hanafi rules of succession. Verse 11 establishes the shares of children: the male receives twice the female's share, daughters in the absence of sons receive two-thirds if there are two or more and one-half if there is only one, and parents each receive one-sixth when the deceased has children. Verse 12 establishes the spouse shares: the husband receives one-half if there are no children and one-quarter if there are, while the wife receives one-quarter with no children and one-eighth with children. Al-Tahawi notes the Hanafi approach to cases where the fixed shares exceed the total estate (the 'awl' or proportional reduction) and cases where shares fall short of the total (the 'radd' or return to heirs), applying the transmitted Hanafi solutions.

Verse 176 of Surah al-Nisa', known as the 'verse of kalalah,' addresses inheritance when the deceased has no ascendants or descendants, and its interpretation generated extensive scholarly discussion. Al-Tahawi records the Hanafi reading following the interpretation of Ibn Abbas and the Kufan scholars: in this situation, brothers and sisters inherit as full heirs. The Hanafi position on the inheritance of paternal relatives (asabat) follows the transmitted practice of the companions, giving priority to the closer degrees of paternal kinship before moving to more distant relatives. When the Quran's fixed shares exhaust the estate, nothing remains for the residuary heirs; when the fixed shares fall short, the Hanafi school allows the excess to return to the fixed-share heirs proportionally, with the exception of the spouse who does not participate in the radd.

Al-Tahawi's treatment of oaths draws on Surah al-Ma'idah (5:89): 'Allah will not take you to account for what is vain in your oaths, but He will take you to account for what you have deliberately sworn. The expiation is feeding ten poor persons from the average of what you feed your family, or clothing them, or freeing a slave; whoever cannot find these means shall fast three days.' From this verse the Hanafi rules on oath expiation (kaffara al-yamin) are derived: the three options are given in order, but unlike other expiations the Hanafi school holds that these three options are equally available without a required sequence, and the person may choose whichever is easiest. The three-day fast is a last resort when none of the three options is financially accessible. Al-Tahawi also addresses the vain oath (laghw al-yamin) mentioned in the verse, which the Hanafi school defines as habitual speech without actual intention to swear.

The Quranic basis for hudud punishments occupies the final portion of al-Tahawi's legal exegesis. The punishment for theft (Surah al-Ma'idah 5:38), the punishment for fornication (Surah al-Nur 24:2), the punishment for false accusation of fornication (Surah al-Nur 24:4), and the verses on highway robbery (Surah al-Ma'idah 5:33) are all addressed. Al-Tahawi notes how the Quran establishes the principle while the Sunnah supplies the conditions: the theft punishment requires a minimum threshold value for the stolen item (the nisab of theft), taking from a secured location, and the absence of a legitimate claim to the item. He illustrates how al-Tahawi reconciles the apparent absoluteness of the Quranic command with the prophetic hadiths that restrict its application, demonstrating that Quranic legal exegesis is incomplete without a full reading of the Sunnah alongside the text.