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The Language of Rights
All the actors concerned in these appeals used a particular language when talking about
the legal rights at stake. Both Jews and Makhzan officials invoked the dhimma contract—the
basis of non-Muslims’ legal status in the Islamic world—as the basic arbiter of Jews’ rights. The
commonality of this language implies a shared understanding of the legal framework that
prevailed in Morocco. This language also challenges a propensity among neo-lachrymose
historians to depict the dhimma contract as representing the oppression of non-Muslims under
Islamic law, while ignoring how dhimmī status also delineated a set of rights to which non-
Muslims were entitled. 12
A few key words occur repeatedly in the correspondence concerning Jews’ petitions to
the state. Perhaps the most common word which both Jewish subjects and state actors invoked is
ḥaqq. Ḥaqq has a wide variety of meanings in Arabic; the best translations of the word ḥaqq as
it appears in Makhzan correspondence are “right, one’s due” and “justice, fairness.” 13
Sometimes authors used ḥaqq to describe the ideal way in which a judge should mete out
judgment, as in the incident with which this chapter began when the Jews of Casablanca
requested that their qā’id judge their case fairly or justly (taḥkumu fīhī bi-’l-ḥaqq). 14 Here, ḥaqq
simply connotes “justice.” This meaning is also evident in Mawlāy ‘Abd al-Raḥmān’s order to
the qā’id Aḥmad al-Mu‘ṭī to make sure that “pure justice” (ṣarīḥ al-ḥaqq) is done with regard to
the Jews under al-Mu‘tī’s jurisdiction. 15 At other times, ḥaqq was used more in the sense of a
12
See especially Bat Ye‘or’s discussion of “dhimmitude”: Ye‘or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam,
Chapters 2 and 3.
13
Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, 607-08. For a discussion of the meanings of ḥaqq in the Moroccan context, see
Geertz, Local Knowledge, 187-9.
14
DAR, Yahūd, 15587, Jews of Casablanca to Jews of Tangier, 26 Rabī‘ I 1294.
15
DAR, Yahūd, 23088, Mawlāy ‘Abd al-Raḥmān to Aḥmad al-Mu‘ṭī, 27 Rabī‘ I 1261. See also DAR, Demnat, al-
Ṭayyib al-Yamānī to Muḥammad Bargāsh, 24 Muḥarram 1281 (in which al-Yamānī commanded Bargāsh to do
justice on behalf of the sultan (iẓhār al-ḥaqqi min jānibi sayyidinā)); DAR, Fez, 5991, Mawlāy Ḥasan to Sa‘īd b.
232