Mishcon de Reya's Property Litigation team has advised the successful Respondents in the Court of Appeal in a dispute over the ownership of Abbey Mills Mosque. The Mosque is also known as the London Markaz or Masjid-e-Ilyas, and is situated in 16 acres of mixed-use freehold development land in East London.
The land had been bought in 1996 by adherents of the Tablighi Jamaat movement of Sunni Islam. The movement had come to England in the 1940s, and by the 1990s it was centred on a mosque and madrasa in Dewsbury, South Yorkshire. In 2017, however, there was a leadership dispute resulting in a schism in the worldwide Tablighi Jamaat movement. It divided into two opposing factions: one following the leadership of Saad Kandhlawi at the Nizamuddin mosque in New Delhi and the other following the leadership of a council of elders at the Raiwind mosque in Lahore, known as the ‘World Shura’. The schism led to a dispute about the ownership of the East London site. Did the legal proprietors hold it on trust for the society of elders in Dewsbury, who had been the leaders of the movement in the UK at the time when the land was originally purchased? Or did they hold it on trust for the local London community of Tablighi Jamaat followers?
At first instance, HHJ Cadwallader (sitting as a Chancery Judge in the High Court) found the latter to be the case, finding in favour of the trustees of the London Community for whom Mishcon acted.
A subsequent appeal was heard over 1.5 days, resulting in the appeal being dismissed. The Appeal judges unanimously supported the trial judge's approach and findings.
Mark Sefton KC acted for the London community, leading Jonathan Fowles of Serle Court and instructed by Daniel Levy, Chhavie Kapoor, Sabrina Furneaux-Gotch and Michael Clarke.
The decision is of significance for trusts and charities lawyers, setting out and applying the law relating to trusts established by charitable appeals for donations against a complex factual background.