Islamic inheritance regimes in the Muslim world continue to beguile gender rights advocates and feminists, non-Muslim and Muslim alike. One single characteristic, that women inherit far less property than men under the Islamic inheritance arrangements, has for long been utilised as a marker, in the west, for a perceived lack of gender equality. Whether deployed to generate general condemnation, or avoided through a polite ‘multi-culturalist’ judgment that these ‘internal’ matters cannot be subjected to external assessment, the complexity and sensitivity of inheritance practices among Muslims has rarely been directly engaged. This chapter is concerned with developing such an engagement, for very pragmatic reasons. Within the context of global ‘land reform’ programmes, examining the ways in which westernised patterns of land holding impact within very differing economic, social and cultural sites has become an important countervailing force against the presumption that the imposition of western patterns will operate as a progressive tool for economic and social development.