From the early Islamic period until modernity, Jews living under Muslim rule used both Jewish and Islamic legal instruments to transmit property, including cash, movable assets, and real estate (rural and urban), to their relatives, to charitable clients, and to Jewish communal institutions. Patterns of Jewish inheritance can be uncovered from Jewish and Muslim court and state documents, responsa, and communal edicts, which have been unevenly studied and remain mostly unpublished.

Until the Ottoman era, most Islamic rulers permitted Jews to transmit property withou…