ABSTRACT
By contrast with the position in Kenya, of course, the Tanganyika Order in Council of 1920 was the first of its kind, so no prior" law, practice or procedure established by or under" some previous repealed Order in Council may here be held to have remained in force until some other provision is made. But it is evident that Muslim judges-whether Liwalis or Qa<;lis4-were applying Islamic law, to a greater or lesser extent according to locality, at least in those coastal districts (and inland centres such as Tabora and Ujiji) where Kitchener, as the British representative on an International Delimitation Committee, had found the Sultan of Zanzibar to be exercising sovereignty in 1886.5 It was, of course, only over a much narrower area that the Germans-and eventually the full Committee-acknowledged his sovereignty to exist,6 and his claims even over that were the subject of a permanent cession to the Germans in 1890.7 But while it seems clear that the German Administration paid little regard, in general, to
123 native law and native institutions, it is certain that Muslim Liwalis continued to exercise jurisdiction in many localities, and it seems equally clear that they continued to apply Islamic law, at least in so far as the personal status of
~luslims was concerned. Precisely the same holds true, moreover, from the time of the British Occupa-
tion. Thus the Courts Ordinance, 1920,' expressly provided for "Courts of a Liwali, Qiic;li, Akida, Chief, Headman (etc.) ... to be called Native Courts "," although-like the Kenya Ordinances of 1907 and 1931 noted above-it makes no reference whatever to the law which these various courts were to apply. An even earlier Ordinance, however, had given an unmistakable indication that this must include Islamic law, for the Muhammadan3 Estates (Benevolent Payments) Ordinance, 1918, had provided that "In any case in which, according to the law of Islam, the whole or part of an estate is payable to the Public Treasury (Bayt at-Mill) a District Officer may, in his discretion, order that the whole or a part of the amount ... not exceeding Shs. 1,000 be distributed, in such proportions as he may think fit, among the husband, wife or wives, or any other dependents of the deceased."4
