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

actively upholding justice in Morocco, especially for its Jewish subjects. Foreigners were highly
critical of the functioning of justice in Morocco during the nineteenth century, as we have seen
(and will discuss further in Chapter Nine). Letters dating from Mawlāy Ḥasan’s rule explicitly
invoke the role of the Ministry of Complaints in addressing the concerns of foreign officials. In
January 1881, Muḥammad Bargāsh, the foreign minister, wrote a collective letters to the foreign
ambassadors in Tangier concerning their alarm about fourteen murders of Jews in recent
months. 70 Bargāsh explained that the sultan was worried about his subjects’ claims of
mistreatment (maẓālim), and that in order to address their appeals, “he had appointed a special
minister to [address] their claims…and that anyone who brought a complaint to the sultan would
[have his complaint] addressed according to justice and the law.” 71 This letter almost certainly
referred to the Minister of Complaints whom the sultan had already appointed (rather than a new
position he had created). 72 It was intended to inform the foreign ambassadors about the ministry
as a way to convince them that justice—especially for the murdered Jews—would be done.
Admittedly this letter, and others like it, are from at least a decade after the founding of the
ministry, and it is possible that the reasoning they cite for the appointment of a minister to hear
the appeals of Moroccan subjects had nothing to do with Muḥammad IV’s decision to create a
Ministry of Complaints. Nonetheless, given that the kinds of concerns they address were already
present in the 1860’s, it seems more likely that the motivations expressed during Mawlāy
Ḥasan’s reign were similar if not identical to those driving the reforms of Mawlāy Muḥammad.
70
DAR, Yahūd, 36069, Muḥammad Bargāsh to Ambassadors in Tangier, 6 Ṣafar 1298.
71
Kallafa bi-da‘āwīhim wazīran mustaqillan khāṣṣan…wa-anna kullu man rafa‘a shikāyatahu li-ḥaḍratihi al-
‘āliyati bi-Llāhi tajrī ‘alā tarīqi al-ḥaqqi wa-’l-shar‘.
72
This is especially likely since Muḥammad Ṣaffār was the Minister of Complaints at the time and remained so until
his death in the middle of Dhū al-Qa‘da 1298—ten months after this letter was written. See also DAR, Fez, 20647,
Muḥammad al-Ṭūrīs to Muḥammad b. al-‘Arabī b. al-Mukhtār, 4 Jumādā II 1302; in this letter, concerning the
French ambassador’s complaints about the treatment of a Moroccan subject, al-Ṭūrīs (Torres) conveys that the
sultan “settled all [appeals] that came from his subjects, both Muslim and non-Muslim” (bi-annahu taqarrara lahu
jamī‘a mā yaṣduru min ra‘yatihim al-muslimati wa-’l-ghayri muslimati).
170