Why I built a 70+ page Islamic Will when most run to 10.
I wrote my first Islamic Will the same way most Australian Muslims do: I downloaded a template, plugged in my spouse and children, listed my bank accounts, and signed it. It took an afternoon.
Then I started reading.
I read the Farāʾiḍ rules properly — not the simplified version, the full classical machinery with fixed shares, residuary heirs, ʿawl, radd, and the maternal-line fallback. I read the Wills Act 1968 (ACT) and the Family Provision Act 1969. I read the ATO’s guidance on superannuation death benefits and Binding Death Benefit Nominations. I read about deceased estate TFNs, the section 60 notice, the section 64 notice, joint tenancy survivorship. I read every digital-inheritance horror story I could find — locked iPhones, lost seed phrases, social media accounts in legal limbo for years.
Then I looked back at my original Will. It was wrong in about fifteen different ways.
Not legally invalid — just incomplete. It assumed my family would never change. It assumed every asset I owned would obediently pass under the Will (superannuation doesn’t; jointly held property doesn’t; trust assets don’t). It said nothing about my unpaid Hajj. It said nothing about the cryptocurrency. It named one executor and one guardian with no substitution chain. And if any of my children left the faith, the document would have produced an outcome I’d never deliberately chosen.
So I started over. Properly this time.
The result is this pack — a Will, codicil, joint-ownership declaration, executor guide, estate snapshot, inheritance calculator, non-Muslim heirs guide, religious obligations guide, and an enduring power of attorney. Built around the assumption that your family will change, your assets will change, your country has its own laws, and your faith has obligations the law doesn’t recognise but you do.
It’s longer than most wills. That length is the point. Every page exists because something specific would go wrong without it.
If you’re an Australian Muslim and you’ve never actually read your Will from top to bottom — please do. You may find what I found.