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central government could only do so much, especially in areas that had not submitted to the
Makhzan’s rule. This reality also suggests the limitations of scholarship which emphasizes the
bad faith of Makhzan officials in their treatment of Jews. While a few officials deliberately
obstructed the settlement of Jewish claims, many others were hindered by obstacles beyond their
control.
Determining the jurisdiction of a case could pose problems for the Makhzan in
addressing Jews’ complaints. As we have seen, the normal procedure was for the Minister of
Complaints to write to the Makhzan official who had jurisdiction over those responsible for the
crime or the unpaid debt. However, the central government sometimes wrote to the wrong local
official. In these cases, the official wrote back to the Ministry of Complaints saying that the case
at hand fell under someone else’s jurisdiction and that he could do nothing to resolve it. 107 In
addition, with theft and murder cases it was often difficult to determine where the crime had
taken place and thus under which Makhzan official’s jurisdiction it fell. 108 One murder case, to
107
For debt cases, see: BH, K 174, p. 37, 22 Rabī‘ II 1308; BH, K 181, p. 110, 9 Rajab 1309; p. 119, 21 Rajab 1309;
p. 127, 4 Sha‘bān 1309; p. 200, 15 Dhū al-Qa‘da 1309; p. 253, 6 Ṣafar 1310; p. 253, 8 Ṣafar 1310; p. 274, 25 Rabī‘ I
1310; p. 373, 29 Ramaḍān 1310. For murder cases, see BH, K 181, p. 176, 13 Shawwāl 1309; p. 260, 23 Ṣafar
1310; p. 260, 23 Ṣafar 1310. For theft cases, see BH, K 181, p. 212, 29 Dhū al-Qa‘da 1309, two entries. In one case
the Ministry of Complaints wrote to two Makhzan officials, both of whom responded that yet a third had jurisdiction
over the murderers. One of the local Makhzan officials involved in this case, ‘Alī al-Shaghrūshī, also wrote twice to
say that a murder had taken place among the Ayt Yūsī tribe (though it is not clear whether these were two separate
incidents as the entries provide few details): BH, K 181, p. 137, 23 Sha‘bān 1309 and p. 232, 1 Muḥarram 1310. In
some instances, local Makhzan officials simply reported that another official was handling the case: BH, K 181, p.
131, 15 Sha‘bān 1309; loose sheet, 4 Ramaḍān 1310. Finally, it also happened that the debtors were unknown to the
Makhzan officials involved and thus impossible to find: BH, K 171, p. 13, 25 Rajab 1307; BH, K 174, p. 91, 29
Sha‘bān 1308; BH, K 181, p 6, 2 Dhū al-Qa‘da 1308; p. 90, 8 Jumādā II 1309; p. 101, 25 Jumādā II 1309; p. 153, 13
Ramaḍān 1309; p. 340, 23 Rajab 1310.
108
In most cases the Makhzan officials specified that the theft occurred in someone else’s region, and thus that they
were not responsible: BH, K 157, p. 35, 22 Ramaḍān 1306; BH, K 171, p. 126, 20 Dhū al-Ḥijja 1307; BH, K 181, p.
19, 14 Dhū al-Ḥijja 1308; p. 82, 23 Jumādā I 1309; p. 222, 15 Dhū al-Ḥijja 1309; p. 254, 9 Ṣafar 1310. See also the
case of Esther al-Ṭanjawīya, in which a number of letters were exchanged to determine the location of the theft; BH,
K 157, p. 171, 1 Rajab 1307 (two entries); BH, K 171, p. 47, 3 Ramaḍān 1307; p. 48, 3 Ramaḍān 1307 (two entries).
In one case the Makhzan official responded by saying that he forwarded the case to two other officials—probably
because the thieves were not under his jurisdiction: BH, K 181, p. 307, 14 Jumādā I 1310. See also DAR, Yahūd,
32719, Muḥammad b. ‘Abd al-Salām to Muḥammad Bargāsh, 4 Dhū al-Ḥijja 1297, in which the author claimed that
his tribe had already paid its share of the theft indemnity and that the rest was the responsibility of another tribe.
209