Judgement

Appeal from a judgment and decree of the Court of Appeal for Eastern Africa (March 6, 1914) reversing a decree of the High Court of East Africa (September 16, 1913).

The appeal related to the estate of one Haji Ismail Mithu (hereinafter called the deceased), who was a member of the Indian sect known as Memons and who died intestate on March 15, 1912, at Mombasa. The sole question was whether the succession was governed by Hindu law, as the appellant contended, or by Mahomedan law, as the respondent contended.

The origin of the sect of Memons appears from the judgment and from the Khojas and Memons Case. (( 1847) Perry’s Oriental Cases, 110.) They are a sect of Mahomedans who were originally Hindus, and who at their conversion retained their Hindu law of succession as a customary law. About fifty or sixty years ago Memons began to migrate from Cutch to East Africa, and at the date of the suit there were, according to the evidence, upwards of a hundred Memon families at Mombasa.

The father of the deceased was one of the first Memons who migrated to East Africa, coming from Cutch with his wife and children, including the deceased. The deceased was himself a merchant at Momba