Note 188 — Chapter III · RELIGION AND LAWS.

According to Sale’s translation of the 12th verse of chap. iv., and a note thereon, if the deceased have no child, and his parents be his heirs, then his mother shall have the third part, and his father the other two-thirds: but if he have brethren, his mother shall have a sixth part;—and by his translation of the last verse of the same chapter, stating that the brothers of a man who has died without issue have a claim to inheritance, it is implied that the brothers, if the father be living, must have a share; consequently, that they would have, in the case above-mentioned, a sixth part: for he has not stated that this portion which is deducted from the mother’s share goes to the father, nor that the father’s share is diminished.—Why the mother’s share is diminished and the father’s increased, in the case to which this note relates, I do not see: the reason might be easily inferred, were it not that the surviving brothers or sisters of the deceased may be his brothers or sisters by the mother’s side only.