Under the Muslim law a gift may be made to any person without any distinction of age, sex or religion. Thus, a gift may be made to a minor or an adult, to a man or to a woman, to a married or an unmarried person, to a Muslim or a non-Muslim. Under the Hanafi law, the donee must be legally in existence at the time of hiba.
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Thus, gift to an unborn person, one not in ease, either actually or presumably, is invalid. Under the Shia law a gift to an unborn person can be validly made provided the gift commences with a person in esse.
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For instance, if a gift is made to a person for life, then, under the Hanafi law, A will take absolutely, the condition being void, while under the Ithana Ashari law, A will take a life estate and, on the death of A, the estate will revert to the donor.
Both among the Sunnis and the Shias, a gift to A and his children generally, or to his descendant ‘line after line’, would take effect as an absolute estate to A, the conditions limiting the estate being void.
However, a gift to a child in womb is valid, if the child is born within six months of the gift. In such a case Muslim law presumes that the child was actually in existence as a distinct entity in the womb of the mother.
When a gift is made to a minor or a person of unsound mind, the gift will be complete by the delivery of possession to the guardian of the minor or of the person of the unsound mind.
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Muslim law allows gifts to be made jointly to two or more persons but where the gift of a property capable of division is made to two or more persons without specifiying their shares or without dividing them, then the gift is invalid. However, such a gift will be valid if separate possession is taken by each one of the donee by mutual arrangement or in accordance with the deed.
