Personal status laws no longer regulate inheritance for non-Muslim confessions
Since Lebanon has no unified family law system, the religious courts of the 18 recognised sects administer personal status laws that cover marriage, divorce, maternal custody, inheritance, and property rights. Before the issuance of this law, non-Muslim confessions used to follow the Hanafi madhab – one of the four Sunni Muslim schools of jurisprudence – in all cases of inheritance, and in the absence of a formal will. In the latter case, however – when a formal will was left by the deceased – non-Muslim confessions used a 1929 law that regulated how wills were legally processed. Nevertheless, the new law issued in 1959 addressing inheritance for non-Muslim confessions laid down the conditions for inheritance for persons with dual nationalities, illegal children, and unborn children, and stipulated equal shares for men and women.