Prescribed made obligatory for you when any of you is approached by death that is by its causes and leaves behind some good material possessions is to make testament al-wasiyyatu is in the nominative because of kutiba and is semantically connected to the particle idhā ‘when’ if the latter is adverbial; but if this latter is conditional then it al-wasiyyatu indicates the response; the response to the conditional particle in ‘if’ is in other words implied to be fa’l-yūsi ‘let him make testament’; in favour of his parents and kinsmen honourably that is justly not giving more than the allotted share of a third nor preferring the richer person — an obligation haqqan here emphasises the import of what has preceded on those that fear God this verse has been abrogated by the ‘inheritance’ verse āyat al-mīrāth see Q. 411 and by the hadīth ‘Do not make testament for one already inheriting’ as reported by al-Tirmidhī.
