Re Estate of Ahmed Abou-Khalid [2024] NSWSC 253

Supreme Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: Re Estate of Ahmed Abou-Khalid [2024] NSWSC 253 Hearing dates: 5 February 2024 together with written submissions Decision date: 18 March 2024 Jurisdiction: Equity Before: Lindsay J Decision: Subject to allowing the administrator an opportunity to consider these reasons for judgment and the possibility that further directions may be necessary or appropriate in administration of the deceased's estate: 1. Upon an assumption that she has received at the time of distribution of estate assets no notice of a claim for Zakat based on a cause of action accrued at or before the death of the deceased, ORDER that the administrator would be justified in distributing the estate of the deceased on the basis that no allowance is to be made for a payment of, or in the nature of, Zakat. 2. ORDER that the administrator's costs of and incidental to these proceedings be paid out of the estate of the deceased on the indemnity basis. Catchwords: SUCCESSION — Trusts and trustees — Judicial advice, Trustee Act 1925 (NSW), s 63 — Proper construction and management of an unarticulated testamentary direction to pay "Zakat" SUCCESSION — Construction — Islamic Wills —Sharia law and its interaction with Australian Succession law CHURCHES AND RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATIONS — Conceptualising Sharia law in the context of the general law governing a religious community as a voluntary association Legislation Cited: Australian Courts Act 1828 Imp Church Act 1836 (7 Wm IV No 3) New South Wales Act 1823 Imp Probate Act 1890 NSW Short Titles Act 1896 Eng Statute of Charitable Uses 1601, 43 Eliz I. c. 4 Succession Act 2006 NSW Third Charter of Justice under the authority of an Imperial Statute 4 Geo. IV c. 96 Tithe Act 1836 (6 & 7 Will 4. c. 71) Trustee Act 1925 NSW Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 NSW Cases Cited: Andrew v Andrew (2012) 81 NSWLR 656 Attorney General Ex rel Elisha v Holy Apostolic and Catholic Church of the East (Assyrian) Australia NSW Parish Association (1989) 98 ALR 327; 95 FLR 392 Banks v Goodfellow (1870) LR 5 QB 549 Bates v Messner (1967) 67 SR (NSW) 187 Bishop of Natal v Gladstone (1863) LR 3 Eq 1 Bosch v Perpetual Trustee Co Limited [1938] AC 463 Bryson v Bryant (1992) 29 NSWLR 188 Camenzuli v Morrison [2022] NSWCA 51 Cameron v Hogan (1934) 51 CLR 358 Commissioners for Special Purposes of Income Tax v Pensel [1891] AC 531 Dr Warren's Case (1835) Grindrod's Compendium, 8th ed 371 Estate Kouvakis [2014] NSWSC 786 Estate Polykarpou; Re a charity [2016] NSWSC 409 Estate Wight; Wight v Robinson [2013] NSWSC 1229 Ex parte King (1861) 2 Legge 1307 Forbes v Eden (1867) LR 1 Sc & Div 568 Goodman v Windeyer (1980) 144 CLR 490 Gregory v Hudson (1997 41 NSWLR 573, affirmed at (1998) 45 NSWLR 300 Hepworth v Hepworth (1963) 110 CLR 309 Hill v Van Erp (1997) 188 CLR 159 In the Goods of William Loveday [1900] P 154 Long v Bishop of Cape town (1863) 1 Moo NS 411; 15 ER 756 Macqueen v Frackelton (1909) 8 CLR 673 Nicol v Chant (1909) 7 CLR 569 Omari v Omari [2014] ACTSC 202; (and on appeal) [2016] ACTCA 16; 14 ASTLR 23 Osborne v Smith (1960) 105 CLR 153 Re Allen [1922] NZLR 218 Re Benjamin [1902] 1 Ch 723 Re Estate Wilson, deceased [2017] NSWSC 1; 93 NSWLR 119 Riccardi v Riccardi [2013] NSWSC 1655; (2013) 11 ASTLR 198 Scales Case (1962) 17 CLR 9 Scandrett v Dowling (1992) 27 NSWLR 483 Sgro v Thomson [2017] NSWCA 326 Slack v Rogan; Palffy v Rogan (2013) 85 NSWLR 253 Steinmetz v Shannon (2019) 99 NSWLR 687 Tatham v Huxtable (1950) 81 CLR 639 Towns v Wentworth (1858) 11 Moo PCC 526; 14 ER 794, 800 Vigolo v Bostin (2005) 221 CLR 191 Wylde v Attorney-General (NSW) (at the Relation of Ashelford) (1948) 78 CLR 224 Texts Cited: ALRC, Matrimonial Property Report No 39 (1987) An Introduction to Shi'i Islam (Yale University Press, 1987) Asmi Wood, "Splitting Heirs - Succession between Two Worlds: Australian Law and the Sharia", in Abdullah Saeed and Helen McCue (eds), Family Law and Australian Muslim Women (Melbourne University Press, 2013) Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB) Volume 1 Christopher M Blanchard, Islam: Sunnis and Shi'ites in CD Malbouisson (Ed), Focus on Islamic Issues (Nova Publishers, 2007) AWB Simpson, "The Rise and Fall of the Legal Treatise: Legal Principles and the Forms of Legal Literature" (1981) 48 University of Chicago Law Review 632, reprinted as Chapter 12 in Simpson's Legal Theory and Legal History: Essays on the Common Law (Hambleton Press, London, 1987) Concise Australian Legal Dictionary (6th ed, 2021 LexisNexis, Australia) Brooke Thompson, "Family Provision and Islamic Wills: Preserving the Testator's Wishes Through Testamentary Arbitration?" (2023) 46 UNSW Law Journal 2005 Brooke Thompson, "Navigating Dual Legal Systems: Islamic Inheritance Law in Australia's Secular Legal Framework" (2022) 41 University of Queensland Law Journal 89 Elizabeth Butler-Sloss and Mark Hill, "Family Law: Current Conflicts and Their Resolution", published as Chapter 7 of RG Jones (ed) Islam and English Law: Rights, Responsibilities, and the Place of Shari'a (Cambridge University Press, 2013) G E Dal Pont, Law of Succession (LexisNexis, Australia, 3rd edition, 2021 Ghena Kayem, Islamic Family Law in Australia: To Recognise or Not to Recognise (Melbourne University Press, 2014) Halsbury's The Laws of England (subtitled "A Complete Statement of the Whole of Law of England" containing in Volume 11 of the first edition, 1910) Hamid Khan, The Islamic Law of Inheritance: A Comparative Study of Recent Reforms in Muslim Countries (Oxford University Press, 3rd edition, 2007 Jamila Hussain, Islam: Its Law and Society (Federation Press, Sydney, 3rd edition, 2011) Jan A Ali, Islam and Muslims in Australia: Settlement, Integration, Shariah, Education and Terrorism (Melbourne University Press, 2020) JD Heydon and MJ Leeming (ed), Jacobs' Law of Trusts in Australia (LexisNexis Butterworths, Australia, 8th ed, 2016) John M. Bennett, A History of the Supreme Court of New South Wales (Law Book Co, Sydney, 1974) Kristen Stilt, Islamic Law in Action: Authority, Discretion, and Every Day Experiences in Mamluk Egypt (Oxford University Press 2011) MB Voyce, in "The Impact of the Testator's Family Maintenance Legislation as Law and Ideology on the Family Farm" (1993) 7 Australian Journal of Family Law 191 Malcolm Voyce, "Islamic Inheritance in Australia and Family Provision Law: Are Sharia Wills Valid?" (2018) 12 Contemporary Islam 251 Mona Atia, Building a House in Heaven: Pious Neoliberalism and Islamic Charity in Egypt (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2013) Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi'i Islam (Yale University Press, 1987) Prue Vines, "Cultural Negotiation of Inheritance Law in Australia" in Kit Barker, Kate Faulkner and Andrew Fell FE.L (Eds), Life and Death in Private Law (Hart Publishing, Oxford, forthcoming, 2024) Peter Young AO, Clyde Croft KC and Megan Smith, On Equity (Lawbook Co, Sydney, 2009) Richard Burn, Ecclesiastical Law (H Woodfall and W Strahan, 1763) Rosalind Atherton (Croucher) in D Kirkby (Ed), Sex, Power and Justice: Historical Perspective of Law in Australia (Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995) Rosalind Croucher and Prue Vines, Succession: Families, Property and Death (6th ed, 2024 LexisNexis, Australia) Scott Edgar, "The Five Pillars of Islam in the Hadith" (2002) 2 Studia Antique 71, 73 Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (9th "received" edition, London, 1783) The Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of England (Sweet and Maxwell, London) The Intersection of the Australian Law and the Islamic Faith (Judicial Commission of New South Wales, 2015 and updated 2021, Governor of NSW, Her Excellency the Hon Margaret Beazley AC KC) The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (4th edition, Oxford University Press, 2022, edited by Andrew Louth) Timur Kuran, Islam and Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism (Princeton University Press, 2010) Toby Matthiesen, The Caliph and the Imam: The making of Sunnism and Shiism (Oxford University Press, 2023) Wael B Hallaq, Shari'a: Theory, Practice, Transformations (Cambridge University Press, 2009) Category: Principal judgment Parties: Plaintiff: Tamara Jayne Goodwin in her capacity as administrator of the estate of the Late Ahmed Abou-Khalid Representation: Counsel: Plaintiff: H Morrison and D Yazdani