Modern Turkish Inheritance Law and Islamic Inheritance Law: A comparative study

The subject of this study is the comparison between Modern Turkish Inheritance Law and Islamic Inheritance Law. The term "Modern Turkish Inheritance Law" refers to the Turkish Inheritance Law currently implemented in the Republic of Turkey. In order to understand the developmental stages of Turkish Inheritance Law, we first narrate its historical journey. Subsequently, the structural characteristics of the two legal systems, such as sources, systems, philosophical foundations, and concepts, are compared. Additionally, the comparison is based on the articles of Modern Turkish Inheritance Law and the corresponding provisions of Islamic Inheritance Law. For Islamic Inheritance Law, we consider the Islamic legal schools predominantly embraced by Muslims, namely the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali, and Imamiyah schools. Finally, new proposals regarding both legal systems are offered, and some existing movements' suggestions on this topic are evaluated and subjected to criticism. One of these two legal systems is statutory in our country while the other is solely religious. In other words, we do not have an inheritance law that is both statutory and religious. As a result, society has been left in a dilemma: if they wish to share according to their beliefs, they risk acting against the law; conversely, if they opt to share according to the statutory law, they would be in opposition to their religious beliefs. This study aims to gather the necessary data to solve this problem, introduce both legal systems together, reveal their common and divergent characteristics, and thus serve as a preliminary study for the works that need to be proposed in order to resolve this issue.