Change of Mazhab (School of Thought): The Effects on Inheritance in Islamic Family Law

Muslim scholars unanimously agreed that a Muslim can inherit the legacy of the deceased who is a Muslim without looking at gender status or position in society or rank of piousness possessed by the deceased and the beneficiaries. Muslim scholars also agreed that non-Muslims are not prohibited from inheriting the deceased's estate according to rules of inheritance in their religion, provided that they possess the same religion. However, there are discussions by Muslim jurists as regards to the inheritance between a Muslim and a non-Muslim. The issue of inheritance, as well as other issues regarding fiqh, is exposed to differences of opinions among scholars from different schools of thought (mazhab). This article comes to discuss change of mazhab, its effect on inheritance. In the end of this article, the study towards to the practiced law and some relevant cases in inheritance in Malaysia will be carried out. This research uses the methodology of library research which is applying qualitative approach of exploratory and descriptive. It is using method of content analysis technique in examining the data. Hence, the data of this research are collected through library research methods and consequently been processed, organized and analyzed. They are taken from journals, seminar proceedings, scientific magazines, printed media, electronic media, internet, and others.