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

Causes for Complaint
Most of the appeals to the Makhzan made by Jews involved unpaid debts. While the
records rarely specify the exact nature of the debts, it seems safe to assume that the loans
discussed in the registers of the Ministry of Complaints were similar to those practiced by the
Assarrafs and their associates (discussed in Chapter Two). 16 On all types of loans, creditors
normally charged interest; however, this was usually disguised in ways that conformed to the
stipulations of Islamic law. 17
In the cases recorded in the Ministry of Complaints registers, Jews were almost
exclusively the creditors and Muslims almost always the debtors. This does not mean that Jews
only loaned money to Muslims; Jews also extended credit to other Jews. For the most part, these
types of intra-Jewish disputes did not arrive on the desk of the Minister of Complaints (although
I discuss petitions concerning intra-Jewish debts in the final section of this chapter). Muslims
rarely loaned money to Jews, 18 although it was not uncommon for them to loan money to other
Muslims. 19 Overall, it is important to emphasize that Jews were overrepresented as
16
The Assarrafs and their business associates mostly loaned money by selling goods on credit. Additionally, some
debts were incurred from sales in kind, such as when peasants sold their crops to Jews before the harvest out of a
need for cash. Jews would wait to re-sell the crops until shortly before the next harvest, when supply was low and
prices were high. Peasants, meanwhile, would run out of money by the end of the agricultural year and again have
to sell early, before the next harvest when prices were low. Some moneylenders amassed considerable fortunes in
this way. For an explanation of how this type of moneylending worked in Marrakesh, see Bénech, Explication d’un
mellah, 36-39. At other times, Jews (including the Assarrafs) made straightforward loans of cash; this type of loan
became more common in the nineteenth century as Moroccans’ demand for foreign goods rose and they became
increasingly impoverished: Miège, Le Maroc et l’Europe, v. 2, 533-45; Kenbib, Juifs et musulmans, 254.
17
Saeed, Islamic Banking and Interest, especially 37-39.
18
I came across only two cases in which Jews owed debts to Muslims: BH, K 181, p. 138, 23 Sha‘bān 1309; p. 236,
13 Muḥarram 1310. See also a case in which a Jew and a Muslim in partnership together were jointly owed money
by another Muslim: BH, K 181, p. 138, 23 Sha‘bān 1309. In addition to the Ministry of Complaints registers, see
DAR, Yahūd, Ya‘aqov b. Sa‘īd to Muḥammad Tūrīs, 3 Muḥarram 1325, concerning the claim of Aḥmad b. Manṣūr
al-‘Alawī al-Ribāṭī that Ya‘aqov (a Jew) owed him money for a transaction involving cattle (the exact nature of
which is not specified).
19
Although the registers of the Ministry of Complaints certainly contain cases in which Muslims petitioned about
the debts they are owed by other Muslims, I did not conduct a thorough search for such entries since I am primarily
concerned with Jews. But see, for instance, BH, K 157, p. 31, 14 Ramaḍān 1306; p. 39, 4 Shawwāl 1306; BH, K
181, p. 13, 28 Qa‘dā 1308; p. 304, 9 Jumādā I 1310.
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