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Intra-Jewish Complaints
Thus far I have looked exclusively at Jews’ complaints concerning cases involving
Muslims. Yet Jews also wrote to the Makhzan in order to lodge complaints against other
Jews. 165 (I further discuss how Jews collectively petitioned the state on intra-Jewish matters in
the following chapter.) Although intra-Jewish complaints are relatively rare in the Ministry of
Complaints registers, they are more common in other parts of the Makhzan archives. 166 I believe
that this difference stems from the nature of the Ministry of Complaints rather than the nature of
Jews’ relationship to the state, since Jews clearly wrote to the Makhzan concerning intra-Jewish
matters. It is possible that the Ministry of Complaints was simply not held responsible for intra-
Jewish complaints, so such petitions were not sent to this office. 167 The few intra-Jewish
complaints which did wind up in the registers of the Ministry of Complaints concern a range of
issues, though it is difficult to find any sort of pattern connecting these cases.
Debts which Jewish debtors owed to Jewish creditors were a common cause for
complaint. 168 In at least one instance a Jewish debtor was imprisoned for his unpaid debts. 169
One particularly detailed case illustrates why Jewish creditors at time petitioned the state to
165
This is familiar from other times and places in the history of Jews under Islam: see, e.g., Wittmann, “Before Qadi
and Vizier,” Chapter 2.
166
Out of the 511 cases I found in the Ministry of Complaints registers which concerned Jews, only four (1%)
involved individual complaints against other Jews. However, in the DAR, where I looked at a much broader range
of correspondence with the Makhzan, I found a higher instance of Jews petitioning the state to intervene in matters
concerning other Jews. Out of a total of eighty-six cases concerning individual Jews’ complaints to the state, twelve
(approximately 14%) were about intra-Jewish matters.
167
This hypothesis is supported by the fact that at least one complaint from a Jew concerning an intra-Jewish matter
which reached the Makhzan during the period covered by the Ministry of Complaints registers did not show up in
those registers (DAR, Yahūd, 16936, Ḥammu b. al-Jīlālī to Mawlāy Ḥasan, 29 Dhū al-Qa‘da 1306).
168
One such case is found in the Ministry of Complaints records and relates to a debt owed to a Jew by three other
Jews and a man who was not identified as Jewish (and thus was probably Muslim): BH, K 157, p. 158, 12 Jumādā II
1307. See also DAR, Tetuan, 22068, ‘Abd al-Qādir Ash‘āsh to Mawlāy ‘Abd al-Raḥmān, 3 Jumādā II 1265; DAR,
Marrakesh, Muḥammad b. Dānī to Aḥmad b. al-Ṭāhir, 30 Muḥarram 1283; Muḥammad b. Ṣāliḥ to Aḥmad b. al-
Ṭāhir al-Samlālī, 11 Rabī‘ II 1283; DAR, Yahūd, al-‘Arabī b. al-Sharqī to Muḥammad Tūrīs, 4 Jumādā I 1319;
Muḥammad b. Qāsim to Muḥammad Tūrīs, 24 Jumādā II 1320; Muḥammad b. al-Baghdādī to Muḥamamd al-Miyāṣ,
27 Rabī‘ II 1327.
169
DAR, Marrakesh, Muḥammad b. Dānī to Aḥmad b. al-Ṭāhir, 30 Muḥarram 1283.
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