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

In this case the qāḍī upheld the agreement reached in a Jewish court and the rabbis’
authority was maintained. Eliyahu and Nathan’s dispute is a textbook example of how Jews used
non-Jewish courts to reinforce the authority of Jewish courts. When Eliyahu threatened to ignore
the rabbis’ ruling, Nathan got permission from local Jewish leaders to bring the case to a sharī‘a
court where the earlier agreement sanctioned by the beit din was upheld. This case demonstrates
that even while intra-Jewish lawsuits adjudicated in Islamic courts could threaten Jewish legal
autonomy, they did not always do so.
Jews chose to adjudicate their intra-Jewish lawsuits in sharī‘a courts relatively rarely,
perhaps out of deference to the guidelines set forth by halakhah and the taqqanot. Nonetheless,
the fact that some Jews did sue their coreligionists in non-Jewish courts shows that jurisdictional
boundary crossing could have negative consequences. While most of the time Jews moved
relatively freely among the different jurisdictions available to them in Morocco’s legally pluralist
environment, doing so could cause problems for the judicial authorities concerned.
Muslims in Batei Din
Perhaps most surprising of all the jurisdictional boundary crossings in Morocco is that of
Muslims using Jewish courts for their legal needs. As we have seen, when Jews and Muslims
were involved in commercial affairs they nearly always went to the sharī‘a court for whatever
legal matters might arise—including notarizing contracts and adjudicating disputes.
Nonetheless, Muslims did at times make use of batei din as notary publics, engaging sofrim to
notarize their legal contracts with Jews for transactions like property sales, leases, and bills of
debt. (I have never come across a case of Muslims using Jewish courts for an intra-Muslim
matter.) An Ottoman historian has noted instances of Muslims using Jewish courts in passing,
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