IN THE COURTS OF THE NATIONS - DataSpace - Princeton ...

‘udūl], may God protect them. And [Vidal] knows that the aforementioned Shalom died,
and that his heirs are his three sons, the full brothers Ya‘aqov, Yehudah, and the bachelor
(al-munfarid) Moshe—[and that Shalom] has no other heir according to their religion.
And he knows the aforementioned heirs and their aforementioned inheritance
(mawrūthuhum). 40
This document and others like it demonstrate another way in which Jewish and Islamic courts
could work together. 41 Shalom’s heirs had already divided up their inheritance according to
Jewish law and presumably had had this agreement notarized by sofrim (although I have not
found such a document). Yet they wanted to make sure that their agreement could not be
challenged in a sharī‘a court. The best way to do so was to have an Islamic legal document
drawn up which confirmed that the division of inheritance had been made in accordance with
Jewish law and with the approval of the relevant rabbinic authorities. Once in possession of this
document, Ya‘aqov, Yehudah, and Moshe could rest assured that no one would bypass the beit
din and challenge their claim to their father’s inheritance in a sharī‘a court. It is particularly
interesting to note that a rabbi—in this case, Vidal ha-Tzarfati, a dayyan in Fez 42 —was
summoned in order to testify about Jewish inheritance laws, and that the ‘udūl cited his authority
in the Islamic legal document.
Intra-Jewish Lawsuits in Sharī‘a Courts
Jewish and Islamic courts did not always interact as harmoniously as when Jews
simultaneously notarized real estate transactions in both kinds of institution. When Jews chose
40
TC, File #3, 5 Ṣafar 1336.
41
The other document from the Assarraf collection concerns the inheritance of Maymon b. Ya‘aqov al-Ḥayyānī:
TC, File #4, 4 Dhū al-Qa‘da 1326. See also similar documents preserved in DAR, Safi, 6, 11, and 30 Jumādā II
1294 (which included the testimony of a lafīf concerning the inheritance) and in JTS, box 2, folder #7, 24 Dhū al-
Ḥijja 1330.
42
On Tzarfati, see Ovadyah, Fas ve-ḥakhameha, v. 1, 359. Tzarfati (lived 1862-1921) came from a long lineage of
rabbis originally from Spain (see ibid., 358-9); he became a dayyan in 1891 and was nominated as the head of the
beit din in 1919.
130