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

is no mention of written translations). This system seems to have been relatively informal,
probably because the relative rarity of Hebrew documents in Makhzan courts precluded the need
for professional translators. 105
There could be a number of different explanations for why Makhzan courts sometimes
deemed Jewish legal documents legitimate evidence. Perhaps the fact that Makhzan courts did
not follow the procedural and evidential requirements of Islamic law as carefully as did sharī‘a
courts made it possible for Makhzan judicial authorities to draw on extra-legal material. Another
possibility is that sharī‘a courts did accept Jewish legal documents as evidence on exceptional
occasions, although rarely enough that I have not found any records of this practice. Either way,
it is clear that Islamic judicial authorities—including both qāḍīs and Makhzan officials—were
aware of Jewish law and even at times understood rather complex aspects of halakhah, such as
the existence of ḥazaqot. The fact that Jewish law inserted itself into the legal proceedings of
sharī‘a courts demonstrates yet another way in which the two legal systems did not only function
alongside each other, but were entwined together in a complex web of overlapping jurisdictions
and legal practice.
* * *
When Shalom Assarraf’s sons went to the sharī‘a court to notarize the division of their
father’s estate at which they had arrived according to Jewish law, they were in some ways
making an unusual choice. The jurisdictions assigned to Jews and Muslims gave the Assarraf
brothers the right to adjudicate matters such as inheritance strictly within the Jewish legal
system, with Jewish notary publics and Jewish judges. A sharī‘a court had no place in resolving
how Jews inherited from one another. Yet when understood in the broader context of Jews’ and
105
See DAR, Demnat, al-Ṭayyib al-Mayānī to Muḥammad Bargāsh, 30 Muḥarram 1281, which discusses the need
to find someone to read the Hebrew documents in question.
148