A British schoolgirl has lost out on a £500,000 inheritance from her father after a Sharia court in Dubai was told she was a Christian, MailOnline can reveal.

It is the latest episode in a vicious spat that saw her mother being held for four weeks in the Arab kingdom last month for branding her love rival a 'horse' on Facebook.

Paris Shahravesh, 14, was in line to inherit money left by her banker father, Pedro Dos Santos, who died of a heart attack in March.

But his second wife, Samah Al Hammadi – who had alerted police when the teenager's mother insulted her on social media – filed papers in the UAE claiming the inheritance.

The court was told that Paris was a Christian. According to the form of Sharia applied in Dubai, non-Muslims are unable to inherit the estate of a Muslim.

Paris Shahravesh, 14, left, has been stripped of her £500,000 inheritance. Her mother, Laleh Shahravesh, 55, right, is starting a legal battle to reclaim the money

Mrs Shahravesh, right, said that her daughter Paris, left, was being deprived of what was rightfully hers

Pedro Correia Dos Santos, left, left Mrs Shahravesh for the younger Mrs Al Hammadi, right

Mrs Shahravesh, left, during her marriage to Mr Santos, right, and Paris, centre

A UAE court then authorised Mr Santos' former employer, HSBC, to award his £500,000 funds to Mrs Al Hammadi.

'She made every effort to isolate Pedro from our daughter during his life and now she is trying to exclude her after his death,' Paris' mother, Laleh Shahravesh, 55, said. 'It is beyond sad.'

But Mrs Al Hammadi, 42, who runs an archery school, hit back, saying: 'I put all my documents and Pedro's documents to the court and I mentioned to them that he has a daughter and sisters.

'But the judge informed me that there is no heritage, only from Muslim to Muslim. I am Muslim, Pedro was a Muslim but Paris is Christian. This is not my decision. It's the court's decision, according to UAE law.'

Mrs Shahravesh has now begun legal proceedings to overturn the court ruling and claim what she believes rightfully belongs to her daughter.

‘Someone told them my daughter is Christian,' she said. 'I am a Muslim and my daughter is a British Muslim.

‘The Sharia court has made the ruling on the basis of her not being a Muslim. A judge would have made that decision if he was given the wrong information.’

Mrs Shahravesh estimated her ex-husband’s estate to be worth close to £500,000.

The amount includes a bonus from the HSBC bank where he worked, his pension and death-in-service benefit which can be up to three times an annual salary.

Mr Santos was earning up to £120,000 a year tax-free before his death, she said.

This is the latest episode in a bitter row that blew up in April when Mrs Shahravesh was locked up on arrival in Dubai airport.

The 55-year-old voluntary worker made headlines worldwide after MailOnline revealed she had been arrested and charged under Dubai's strict cyber crime laws when she arrived in the Arab country to pay her respects to her late husband.

Mrs Al Hammadi insists that the blame lies with UAE law and not with herself

Laleh Shahravesh, 55, was arrested in Dubai for making an offensive Facebook post

Lawyers told her she faced up to six months in jail after Mrs Al Hammadi showed police a Facebook post from 2016, in which she had been compared to a horse.

The Tunisian also made a second complaint to police that she had received other harassing emails from Mrs Shahravesh.

Even though the social media post was made while Mrs Shahravesh was living in Britain, she was arrested on arrival in Dubai for breaching laws which penalise defamatory posts about its residents.

In the post, Mrs Shahravesh wrote: 'I hope you go under the ground you idiot. Damn you. You left me for this horse.'

Following the voluntary worker's arrest, her 14-year-old-daughter was forced to return home alone. After almost a month in Dubai, the single mother was brought before a court where she was fined £600 and allowed to leave.

Mrs Shahravesh, a volunteer worker from Richmond, Surrey, later said she had felt 'suicidal' at the prospect of being jailed and separated from her daughter.

The pressure group Detained in Dubai, which represented Mrs Shahravesh, said her arrest highlighted the risk British tourists face when visiting the country due to their draconian cyber crime laws.

Mrs Al Hammadi, who met her husband through their mutual interest in archery, failed to attend any of the court hearings involving Mrs Shahravesh over the Facebook posts.

Despite pleas by 14-year-old Paris for her mother to be allowed home, Mrs Al Hammadi refused to drop the charges.

Matters were made worse when she filed a second complaint claiming she was the victim of online abuse and harassment.

Ms Shahravesh wrote a comment on a Facebook picture of her ex-husband's second wedding to say: 'You married a horse you idiot'

As soon as Laleh and her daughter landed in Dubai on March 10, intending to stay for five days, they were arrested at the airport

Laleh Sharavesh was arrested along with her 14-year-old daughter Paris when she arrived in the Arab kingdom for her ex's funeral. She was later fined and released after a public outcry

In her defence, Mrs Shahravesh said that the aggressive emails were sent in the heat of the moment during an acrimonious divorce, adding that Mrs Al Hammadi had stopped her ex from seeing his daughter.

Radha Sterling, CEO of Detained in Dubai, said:

'I advised Laleh to follow up on Pedro's bequest immediately after her release. Given the adversarial relationship that existed between Ms Al Hammadi and Pedro's only daughter, and the frivolous criminal case she had filed against Laleh, there was every reason to suspect that she would attempt to expropriate Paris' legal right as Pedro's heir.

'We have seen similar cases before in both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, where there is an attempt to exclude children of Westerners from their rightful inheritance when those Westerners have married a woman from the region and subsequently died.

'In this case, Ms Al Hammadi acted almost immediately after Pedro's sudden death, and took radical measures to ensure his daughter would be denied her rights.'