[Levin]

Amrit Dhillon

Published: 5:00pm, 7 Nov, 2021


A US$1 billion fortune left behind by a 19th century Muslim shipping magnate who built a guest house for pilgrims to Mecca is being fought over by two feuding families in India.

The money has been lying in a Saudi Arabian coffer for decades due to the inability of both the Saudi and Indian governments to adjudicate which of the two families, who live within a few miles of each other in Kannur, Kerala, has the rightful claim.

At the heart of the dispute between the Keyi family, who number around 1,500, and the formerly royal Arakkals, is whether the Muslim spice trader Mayankutty Keyi – who married into the Arakkal family – had any children or not.

Both families have been lobbying the Saudi government for the money but the Saudis, confused by the conflicting claims, have had to ask government after government in India whose claim is genuine. New Delhi, for its part, has been unable to help as it is equally baffled.

The dispute reaches back to the 1870s


Interesting read with map and photos at: https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/ar...y-shipping

[sgbuffett]

I looked through the case

Like the Hindus of Kerala, they follow the matrilineal system in which property is passed on through the mother and female relatives. The head of the dynasty has often been a woman, known as “Beevi”. The current head is octogenarian Cheriya Bikkunhu Beevi, who was formally appointed as the head of the family in 2019. The grand durbar, or court, of the family palace on the coast was turned into a museum in 2005.

Assuming the magnate had no children

If wife died after the magnate ..money would flow to wife side and go to her family and their descendents?

If wife died first, it would flow to husband family.

[Blin]

people still think the money is there.