Page 171 - Arabian Studies (V)

Women’s Inheritance of Land
in Highland Yemen

Martha Mundy

Introduction

Muslim writers, concerned with principles of social justice and the
application of the Qur’anic injunctions, have discussed the
question of women’s rights to inheritance in rural communities in
terms of a contrast between local customs and Islamic law.1 Many
ethnographers writing about Arab societies have adopted the same
distinction.2
The Islamic codes are very complex and grant a woman a claim
to inheritance by virtue of many family relationships.3 In this
paper, however, I shall discuss only the inheritance due a women
from her father’s estate, since this represents the most important
claim most women have on property and especially on land.4 The
principles of the Islamic codes most relevant to the following
discussion are: that no manner of property is restricted to either
sex, that the daughter’s portion is half that of a son, and that a
claim to inheritance is established by marriage as well as by blood.
The local customs alluded to above are often described only by a
remark to the effect that ‘women are disinherited’, and few writers
make clear which of the following were true in the area under
discussion: land does not pass to women’s control but with women
between men; women do not inherit land but may inherit other
types of property; no right to inheritance is granted a woman by
marriage; or a woman has absolutely no claim on her father’s
estate.
Such abstract rules are in fact not so much sociological types, as
ideals appealed to, or enforced in situations of competition and
conflicting interests. In order to analyse practice, one must examine
the nature of the situations in which these rules are relevant, the
persons in a position to enforce or resist the abstract rules, and the

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