The Period of Making Wills.
As has already been remarked, Muḥammadan wills are not as a rule written documents, and therefore the institutions of the law are entirely made for verbal rather than written bequests.
Gratuitous acts, of immediate operation, if executed upon a death-bed, take effect to the extent of one-third of the property only.
An acknowledgment on a death-bed is valid in favour of the person who afterwards becomes an heir, but not a bequest or gift; neither is an acknowledgment so made valid, if the principle of inheritance had existed in the person previous to the deed.
Such acknowledgment, gift, or bequest, in favour of a son, being a slave, who afterwards becomes free, previous to the father’s decease, is nevertheless void.
Rules for Ascertaining a Death-bed Illness.
The following curious paragraph occurs in the Hidāyah on this subject:—
“Paralytic, gouty, or consumptive persons, where their disorder has continued for a length of time, and who are in no immediate danger of death, do not fall under the description of marīẓ or ‘sick,’ whence deeds of gift, executed by such, take effect to the extent of their whole property; because, when a long time has elapsed, the patient has become familiarised to his disease, which is not then accounted as sickness. The length of time requisite, by its lapse, to do away with the idea of sickness in those cases, is determined at one year; and if, after that time, the invalid should become bed-ridden, he is then accounted as one recently sick. If, therefore, any of the sick persons thus described make a gift in the beginning of their illness, or after they are bedridden, such gift takes effect from the third of their property, because at such time there is apprehension of death (whence medicine is given to them), and therefore the disorder is then considered as a death-bed illness.” (Hidāyah, Grady’s ed., p. 685.)
Emancipation of Slaves upon a Death-bed.
Emancipation and deeds of gift on a death-bed, take effect to the extent of a third of the property, and emancipation precedes in their execution the actual bequests.