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Chapter Three: Crossing Jurisdictional Boundaries
Shalom Assarraf passed away in the fall of 1917. As a prominent businessman, a savvy
lawyer, a leader of his community, and—perhaps most important of all—the patriarch of a large
and prosperous family, Shalom’s death almost certainly had an impact beyond the walls of Dar
Assarraf, the familial abode. Practically, Shalom’s relatives had to sort out what was
undoubtedly a large and fairly complex estate. Shalom was survived by three sons who,
according to Jewish inheritance law, were his sole heirs. 1 The brothers divided up their late
father’s estate so that each would get his fair share, and almost certainly had sofrim draw up a
record of the ensuing settlement so that no one could dispute it in the future. 2 But the Assarraf
brothers were not satisfied with this assurance of their agreement. After having notarized the
division of inheritance in a beit din, Shalom’s sons also went to a sharī‘a court to record the
settlement before ‘udūl. 3 For good measure they brought along one of the leading rabbis of Fez,
who testified that the three brothers were Shalom’s only heirs according to Jewish law.
Islamic law granted Jews the right to adjudicate succession according to Jewish law and
without the interference of Islamic legal institutions. This meant that had the Assarraf brothers
so desired, they could have had their inheritance settlement recorded in a Jewish court and left it
at that—no need at all to go to a sharī‘a court. Yet the Assarraf heirs chose to have their
1 Although I do not know if Shalom had daughters, Jewish law allows for all the inheritance to go to sons even if a
man is survived by daughters (daughters only inherit if there are no sons); similarly, it is not clear if Shalom was
survived by a wife (or wives), but in any case she would not have inherited (except the amount of her ketubbah,
were that still unpaid). See Menachem Elon, “Succession,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, ed. Fred Skolnik and
Michael Berenbaum (Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2007).
2 I say “almost certainly” because I have not actually found a legal document drawn up in a beit din attesting to the
division of Shalom’s estate. However, I have found many such documents for other families (see Chapter One), and
venture to hazard an educated guess that given the importance of the estate, Shalom’s heirs would have done the
same.
3 TC, File #3, 5 Ṣafar 1336.
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