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In our view no change in the law was brought about with regard to the purposes, namely, religious, pious or charitable. Those purposes had always previously been recognised and this is perfectly clear from the Privy Council decision Ramanandan v. Vava Levvai Marakqyar (1916) 32 M.L.J. 101 : L.R. 44 I.A. 21 : I.L.R. 40 Mad. 116 (P.C.) and Ors. cases and it is not right to say that the words 'or charitable' really provide an alternative to religious and pious'.
That is to say, as we understand it, in Muhamadan Law religious and pious purposes were always recognised as charitable. The point actually decided was that reading the Koran at the tomb of dead persons was not a charitable object under Muhammadan law, a view with the correctness of which we are not here concerned. No doubt, charity in the English sense was in some cases assumed to be an essential element in the constitution of a wakf, a tendency deprecated by Ameer Ali, J., in the judgment referred to above. But the Act has made it perfectly clear, that, in the context of Mussalman wakfs, " religious, pious or charitable purposes " refer only to purposes 'recognised' as such by the Mahomedan law. We cannot therefore accede to the suggestion that the test of a valid object of a wakf is benefit to the public as in the English law of charitable trusts. Pious acts recognised among the Mussalmans as being for good of the soul of the settlor or his ancestors have been upheld as valid objects of a wakf. In the judgment already referred to Ameer Ali, J., observes thus:
a man may make a wakf either directly constituting himself and his descendants the recipients of the benefaction with an ultimate reserve for the poor; or may make a wakf in general terms or expressly in favour of the poor and reserve the usufruct for himself and his family so long as they exist. The dedication is valid in both cases.
It is no doubt a matter of form. But it seems to us that an inference of ultimate trust for the poor or for other unfailing charitable object would arise more readily where the latter form was adopted as in the present case; for, the charge on the usufruct in favour of the family must necessarily lapse on the extinction of the family in the course of time, leaving the whole profits for the object for which the properties were originally endowed. Furthermore, the wakfnama Ex. I provides for the Advocate-General being added as a party to any litigation arising in regard to the properties or his opinion being taken for conducting it, and refers to the properties as " charity properties " which are to be inalienable and not answerable for the debts of the beneficiaries. These terms taken along with the provision for the augmentation of the charity fund by the plaintiff's share lapsing into it on her death indicate clearly to our minds that it was the settlor's intention that the entire usufruct should ultimately go to the specified charities on the extinction of the line of his descendants.

The Bombay High Court had, however, held in Nizamuddin Gulam v. Abdul Gafur valad Mainuddin (1888) I.L.R. 13 Bom. 264 that a grant in wakf to one's own family and descendants could not be supported where there was no express provision for the ultimate devolution of the property to any unfailing religious or charitable object, and this decision had been affirmed by the Privy Council in Abdul Gafur v. Mzamuddin (1892) L.R. 19 I.A. 170 : I.L.R. 17 Bom. 1 (P.G.). Subsequently, even an express ultimate trust for a permanent charitable object was, as we have seen, held to be ineffectual to validate a family wakf where such trust was to take effect on the extinction of the wakif's line of descendants and was thus remote and " illusory." (Abul Fata Mahomed Ishak v. Rasamaya Dhur Chowdhr (1894) L.R. 22 I.A. 76 : I.L.R. 22 Cal. 619(P.C.).)

15. The two Calcutta decisions to which also reference was made, viz., Masuda-khatun Bib'i v. Mahomed Ebrahim (1931) I.L.R. 59 Cal. 402 and Tahiruddin Ahmad v. Masihuddin Ahmad (1933) I.L.R. 60 Cal. 901 approve the decision in Irfan Ali v. Official Receiver, Agra (1930) I.L.R. 52 All. 748 and, in the former case, the learned Judges give two additional reasons in support of that view:

If the Legislature intended that the term ' wakf itself should be taken to imply an ultimate trust for the poor or other unfailing charitable object, nothing was easier for them than to have plainly said so.