How to Write an Islamic Will in the UK (2026): The Step-by-Step Checklist

Writing an Islamic will in England and Wales is a solved process: the services are mature, the law accommodates faraid fully, and the whole job, done properly, takes an evening of preparation and twenty minutes of form-filling, or one solicitor meeting. What trips people is not difficulty but sequence, turning up without the information the will needs, or finishing the document and fumbling the signing that makes it law. This is the complete sequence, applicable whichever provider you choose. Service details verified August 6, 2026.

Step 1: inventory what you own, including the invisible assets

List every asset with rough values: property (noting exactly how it is owned, sole name, joint tenants or tenants in common, because joint tenancy passes outside the will by survivorship), bank and savings accounts, investments and ISAs, pensions (which usually pass by nomination, not by will), business interests, vehicles, gold and valuables, crypto with access instructions, and money owed to you. List debts too: the estate settles them first, and unpaid zakat ranks as a debt in the majority scholarly view, to be discharged before any distribution, which is why an honest zakat reckoning belongs in estate planning (our missed zakat guide covers catching up). The inventory does double duty: IFG Wills reuses your will's asset data in its integrated zakat calculator for an automated annual reckoning.

Step 2: fix the legal underpinnings the will depends on

• Civil marriage: a nikah without civil registration leaves your spouse a legal stranger to intestacy and weakens their position generally; regularise it or understand the consequences
• Joint tenancies: sever to tenants in common if you want your share of the home to pass by faraid rather than automatically to the co-owner (a standard solicitor add-on, GBP 250 plus VAT at Farani Taylor)
• Pension and insurance nominations: align beneficiary forms with faraid logic, because they override the will
• Ownership balance between spouses: relevant to inheritance tax if your combined estate is large, as our IHT guide explains

Step 3: choose executors, guardians and the wasiyyah

Executors administer the estate: pick one or two organised, trustworthy adults (they can be beneficiaries), plus a substitute, and tell them. Guardians for minor children are the will's highest-stakes appointment; have the conversation with your chosen couple and a backup before drafting, using the criteria in our guardianship guide. The wasiyyah third, up to one third of the net estate for charity and non-heirs, deserves deliberate design rather than a blank: needy relatives the faraid misses, sadaqah jariyah projects, UK registered charities (IHT-free), per our wasiyyah guide. You do not calculate faraid shares yourself: every credible service computes them by formula so the will stays correct as your family changes.

Step 4: pick your route

Three credible options, compared fully in our service comparison. The quick summary: IFG Wills at GBP 98 (named Mufti sign-off, GBP 10 per year unlimited amendments, free via several charity legacy programmes) is the default for straightforward estates; Wahed Wills at GBP 125 adds pay-after-preview mechanics and suits existing Wahed customers with estates under GBP 325,000; Farani Taylor from GBP 250 plus VAT per person is the SRA-regulated solicitor route, stepping to GBP 350 plus VAT with an in-person meeting and life-interest IHT structuring. Escalate to the trust-based tiers (IFG GBP 348, Wahed from GBP 900) when your estate exceeds GBP 325,000, includes a business or foreign property, or involves a blended family. All three routes cover England and Wales only; Scottish readers need local drafting, per our Scotland guide.

Step 5: complete the drafting honestly

The online journeys take about twenty minutes if step 1 is done. Answer the family-structure questions precisely, the faraid engine depends on them: current spouse(s), all children including from previous marriages, living parents, and any relatives you want remembered in the third. Disclose complexity rather than smoothing it; a service that knows about the business or the previous marriage can route you to the right tier, and IFG refers estates above GBP 2 million to specialists. At Wahed you preview the completed will before paying; at IFG a solicitor-run team drafts and the named Mufti (Billal Omarjee) signs off; at Farani Taylor a solicitor drafts within seven working days of complete information.

Step 6: sign it correctly, or it is nothing

England and Wales require: your signature, made or acknowledged in the simultaneous presence of two adult witnesses, who each then sign in your presence. Two rules carry most of the failure risk: witnesses (and their spouses) must not be beneficiaries, a gift to a witnessing beneficiary fails even though the will stands, so use neighbours or colleagues, never family who inherit; and the presence must be real and simultaneous, not signatures collected around the neighbourhood over a weekend. Date it, use the full document (no detached pages), and do not staple, unstaple and restaple in ways that invite questions about substitution. If your chosen service provides signing instructions, follow them exactly; this step is where GBP 98 of good drafting becomes law or waste paper.

Step 7: store, tell, and review

Store the original where it will be found: Farani Taylor includes free storage, commercial and official storage services exist, or a fireproof box at home your executors know about. Tell your executors where it is and give them the practical map: the asset inventory, account list, and crypto access route (never keys in the will itself, which becomes a public document at probate). Then diarise reviews: marriage revokes a will in England and Wales unless made in contemplation of it; divorce, new children, property purchases, business changes and deaths among your appointees all warrant updates. IFG's GBP 10 per year unlimited-amendment subscription and Wahed's currently-free changes make maintenance cost nothing; staleness, not drafting, is how most good wills fail their families.

How long it all takes, honestly

Set expectations by stage. Preparation (steps 1 to 3) is the real work: an evening for the inventory, a week of conversations for executors and guardians, and however long the family needs for the wasiyyah decisions; most people who stall, stall here, so timebox it to a fortnight. Drafting is fast: about twenty minutes online at IFG or Wahed, or a meeting plus seven working days at Farani Taylor. Signing takes ten minutes once two independent witnesses are in a room. Storage and briefing, an hour. End to end, a diligent household goes from nothing to a signed, stored, faraid-compliant will inside three weeks, spending between GBP 98 and GBP 420 plus VAT depending on route. Contrast the alternative: probate under intestacy for an unprepared Muslim family routinely consumes a year and produces a distribution the deceased would have rejected. Few hours of adult administration are this well paid.

The one-page checklist

• Asset and debt inventory written, including unpaid zakat and how everything is owned
• Civil marriage, joint tenancy, and nomination forms addressed
• Executors, guardians (plus substitutes) chosen and asked
• Wasiyyah third designed: relatives, charities with numbers, percentages
• Service chosen and drafting completed honestly
• Signed before two independent, non-beneficiary witnesses, simultaneously present
• Original stored, executors briefed, review date in the calendar

Twenty minutes of form-filling stands between your family and the intestacy rules described in our complete Islamic wills guide. Details verified August 6, 2026; compare services at HalalWallet's estate planning page.