Darul Ifta NZ's Free Islamic Will Template: A Clause-by-Clause Review

The going rate for a professionally drafted will in New Zealand runs to hundreds of dollars. The only actively maintained NZ-specific Islamic will template costs nothing, and it is better drafted than free usually buys. Published by Darul Ifta New Zealand, the fatwa department of Darul Uloom Arabia Islamia NZ under the Auckland Islamic Trust, the template's current version is Last-Will-revised-2026.pdf, uploaded May 2026, replacing the 2021 revision. That maintenance history matters: this is a living document from a working fatwa body, not an abandoned PDF, and it earns a B+ on our Halal Money Index.

Who stands behind it

Darul Ifta NZ is run by Mufti Muhammad Irshad Motara, a graduate of the Alim and Ifta course of Madrasah Arabia Islamia in Azaadville, South Africa, assisted by other Ulama. The body is a non-profit and states its services are provided free of charge. The detail we weight most heavily: the same institution publishes the fatwas on inheritance that the template's clauses implement, including the ruling that bequests cannot be made in favour of fixed-share heirs and the distinction between a wasiyya and a lifetime gift. Drafting and jurisprudence come from one named source, which is precisely what a religious legal document needs and what anonymous internet templates lack.

The clauses, examined

• Priority order (clauses 6 and 7): funeral expenses first, then debts, then the wasiyyah, then the residue to Islamic heirs under the Islamic Law of Succession. This is the correct sequence, stated as binding directions to executors.
• The one-third cap with automatic reduction (clause 8): total bequests are limited to one third of the net estate, and if they exceed it they reduce proportionately. That self-correcting mechanism is the mark of careful drafting; naive templates let an oversized bequest create a conflict the family has to litigate. Our one-third rule article explains why the cap exists.
• Faraid by reference, not hard-coding: executors are directed to determine heirs and shares per Islamic law at death, consulting an Alim or Mufti, with a designated Muslim judicial body or expert binding on questions of Islamic law. This is the right design, because the correct shares depend on who survives you, which no document written today can know.
• The minor's trust clause: a minor child's inheritance is held in trust by the administrators until majority rather than paid into a guardian's fund. This quietly avoids one of the classic failure modes of community wills, where a child's share dissolves into household money.

What it cannot do, stated plainly

A template is not legal advice, and this one does not pretend otherwise. Four limits define where your work continues. Execution: the Wills Act 2007 demands your signature before two witnesses present at the same time, and failure invalidates everything; the template cannot supervise your signing. Overrides: the Family Protection Act 1955 lets close family claim against the estate and courts vary distributions, and a surviving partner can elect relationship property division instead, risks we analyse in our dedicated article. Complexity: family trusts, business interests, blended families and overseas assets are beyond any template's reach. And aftercare: no probate support, executor service or storage comes with a download; you are on your own after printing.

One more honest note: the template implements Sunni faraid. Shia families need the Jafari orientation of the AhlulBayt Centre's service, because the two traditions allocate differently in several family configurations.

Verdict and the right way to use it

Using it well: a field guide

• Download the current version from the Darul Ifta NZ contracts page and check the revision date, since the body actively maintains the file; May 2026 is current as we write.
• Complete it slowly and literally: full legal names, precise identification of executors and guardians, and resist the urge to add homemade clauses, which is where lay drafting introduces contradictions.
• Choose executors for implementation, not honour: the document directs them to consult an Alim or Mufti and distribute per faraid, so pick people who will actually do that under family pressure.
• List your wasiyyah bequests knowing the one-third machinery: clause 8 will reduce oversized bequests proportionately, but drafting within the cap from the start is cleaner than relying on the safety net.
• Execute it with ceremony-level care: you and both witnesses in the same room at the same time, witnesses who take nothing under the will, everyone signing in sequence.
• Book the lawyer hour, hand them the executed will, and ask two questions: is the execution valid, and does anything in my family situation invite a claim?
• Store it findably, tell the executors where, and diarise a review every few years and after every major family event.

Done in that order, the whole exercise costs one legal consultation and an afternoon, which for a document that redirects your entire estate from a statutory formula to the faraid framework is the best-value transaction in Islamic personal finance in this country. The failure modes are all skipped steps, not bad drafting: the template's own quality is, as this review has argued, well above its price.

This is exactly what a community template should be: free, jurisdiction-specific, maintained, and drafted by the same named authority that answers the community's inheritance questions. It correctly handles the two traps most DIY Islamic wills miss, the one-third cap enforcement and the prohibition on bequests to fixed-share heirs. Used alone, it carries the same execution and override risks as any will; used as the first half of a two-step, template plus one paid lawyer hour to verify execution and flag claim exposure, it gives most Muslim households with simple estates a sound Islamic will for a fraction of bespoke drafting cost. Download it, fill it carefully, book the hour. The broader map is in our complete Islamic will guide and on the Islamic will page.