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Debts were not the only intra-Jewish complaint which led Jews to petition the Makhzan.
Jews also complained about intra-Jewish theft, such as the case of Sa‘ādā bint Dāwūd (of
Tangier) who accused her coreligionist Sulayka (from Casablanca) of stealing from her. 174
Muḥammad b. Qāsim, a Makhzan official in Casablanca, investigated the matter and imprisoned
Sulayka in the woman’s prison until she settled with Sa‘ādā, after which he released her. Other
cases concerned property disputes amongst Jews. 175 Some Jews even petitioned the Makhzan
about their marital woes, as in the case of Simḥah bint Makhlūf Tībrūt who complained that her
husband, Yitzḥaq b. ‘Atīya, had disappeared and had not sent her anything with which to support
herself. 176 Simḥah wanted Yitzḥaq to either pay her maintenance (nafaqa) or divorce her. But
when the local Makhzan official confronted Yitzḥaq, the supposedly delinquent husband
“produced a legal proof signed by Jewish notaries and a Jewish judge (adlā bi-ḥujjatin thābitatin
bi-‘udūli al-yahūdi wa-qāḍīhim)” stating that Simḥah had stolen “all his belongings.” Yitzḥaq
“requested her to proceed with him according to [Jewish] law (yaṭlubu minhā al-sulūka ma‘ahu
‘alā sabīli shar‘ihim),” which is how the matter was settled. 177 It seems that Simḥah’s
motivation for writing to the Makhzan was to evade the jurisdiction of the Jewish court which
had already sided with her husband in notarizing a document proving that she had stolen his
174
DAR, Yahūd, Muḥammad b. Qāsim to Muḥammad Tūrīs, Ṣafar 1326. In another case, a Jew from Demnat
accused two other Jews of drilling a hole through his store and robbing him: BH, K 157, p. 27, 6 Ramaḍān 1306.
175
One case concerns a Jewish protégé from “the east” (ahl al-sharq) who opposed selling a store to a Jewish buyer
(BH, K 181, p. 270, 10 Rabī‘ I 1310). In another case, the qā’id of Meknes transmitted the complaint of Ya‘aqov
Oḥānā from Meknes about the behavior of another Jew from Fez who was mishandling a funduq belonging to the
endowment which the sultan gave for poor Jews. This Jew had put a stable and a winepress in the funduq—both of
which presumably interfered with the endowment’s original purpose (DAR, Yahūd, 16936, Ḥammu b. al-Jīlālī to
Mawlāy Ḥasan, 29 Dhū al-Qa‘da 1306). See also DAR, Yahūd, al-Mas‘ūdī to al-Ḥājj Muḥammad, 25 Muḥarram
1314, in which the Jew Salām b. al-Shaykh Ḥāyim b. al-Dayān claimed that the Makhzan gave his sister’s late
husband a piece of property in the millāḥ, but that a number of Jews had illegally built on this property.
176
DAR, Yahūd, al-Ḥājj Muḥammad b. al-Jīlālī to Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. al-‘Arabī Tūrīs, 13 Rajab 1323.
177
DAR, Yahūd, al-Ḥājj Muḥammad b. Aḥmad (?: last name unreadable) to Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. al-‘Arabī
Tūrīs, 18 Shawwāl 1323. Al-Ḥājj Muḥammad reported that Yitzḥaq and Simḥah reached a settlement (ṣulḥ) with
the shaykh al-yahūd.
224