Spotlight: Women’s Inheritance Rights Under the Taliban

Spotlight: Shaking the Sky: Women’s Attempts to Claim Their Inheritance Rights Under the IEA, Afghanistan Analysts Network, by Letty Phillips and Rama Mirzada, March 2, 2025

While the Taliban have imposed sweeping restrictions on women’s rights since retaking power in August 2021, they have simultaneously claimed to champion women’s Islamic rights in specific areas. A recent Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) report titled “Shaking the Sky” examines one such claim: that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) is enforcing women’s inheritance rights more effectively than previous governments. Below we summarize the key findings of this report and what it reveals about women’s access to inheritance under Taliban rule.

The fifth provision of Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada’s Decree 83/1, issued in December 2021, states that: “Women have a fixed inheritance right when it comes to the property of their husbands, children, father and other relatives. No one can deprive them of this right based on either fardiyat [primary heirs] or asabiyat [residual heirs].” Under Islamic law, women are entitled to specific shares—typically daughters receive half the share of sons, and widows receive one-eighth of their husband’s estate if they have children. The AAN report, based on interviews with ten women and their families involved in inheritance disputes, explores whether the Taliban’s emphasis on this aspect of Sharia is actually improving women’s ability to claim these long-denied rights