“Islamic inheritance law in Indonesia: The influence of Hazairin's theory of bilateral inheritance"

Islamic inheritance law has long been a source of controversy in Indonesia. The controversy has generally been framed in terms of a supposed conflict between Islamic inheritance doctrines and the customary law or adat of the country's many ethnic communities. This article argues that recent developments in Indonesian Islamic inheritance law have narrowed the differences between Islamic and customary approaches to the distribution of property on death. The article further argues that the inspiration for this partial accommodation between Islam and adat has its source in the teachings of Professor Hazairin, an Indonesian scholar who first propounded a theory of gender-neutral Islamic inheritance law in the 1950s.