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“right”—as in, the rights to which individuals and collectives were entitled under Islamic law.
For instance, the Jews of Safi registered a complaint that their governor (‘āmil) did not permit
them to obtain their rights from their legal adversaries (‘adam al-idh‘ān li-akhdhi al-ḥaqqi lahum
min khuṣamā’ihim). 16
Another verb commonly used to invoke justice is anṣafa, meaning “to do justice to
someone, to give someone his right or due,” in the sense of treating someone with fairness. 17
Makhzan officials used the verb anṣafa to describe the ideal of justice, such as in a letter from
Mawlāy Ḥasan to an official in Meknes in which he accused the official of not giving justice
(lam tunṣifhu) to a Jew whose donkey was stolen by a gatekeeper. 18
Although neither Jews nor Makhzan officials were consistently explicit about the legal
framework within which justice was conceived, the evidence indicates that the dhimma contract
provided the legal basis for Jews’ rights. Dhimma, based largely on the Pact of ‘Umar (thought
to have been authored in the eighth or ninth century), guarantees non-Muslims a number of rights
in exchange for some restrictions on their social and religious lives and the payment of a head
tax called the jizya. 19 Dhimma literally means “protection,” and refers to the guarantee of
protection for non-Muslim monotheists—known as dhimmīs—who accept the sovereignty of the
Farajī, 24 Shawwāl 1299 (in which the sultan discussed the confusion, fear, and abuse that Jews experienced when
leaving the millāḥ or traveling to the medina and ordered Farajī to “uphold the justice of the laws” (qiyāman biwājibi
ḥaqqi al-aḥkām)).
16
BH, K 157, p. 107, 23 Rabī‘ I 1307. See also DAR, Yahūd, 15118, Mawlāy Ḥasan to Muḥammad Bargāsh, 22
Jumādā II 1297.
17
Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, 3033.
18
DAR, Meknes, 2250, Mawlāy Ḥasan to ‘Abdallāh b. Aḥmad, 28 Muḥarram 1303.
19
On the Pact of ‘Umar and dhimmī status, see Fattal, Statut légal, 60-9: Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross,
Chapter 4; Milka Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire: From Surrender to Coexistence
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). On the form of the pact, see Mark R. Cohen, “What was the Pact
of ‘Umar? A Literary-Historical Study,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 23 (1999). Arthur Tritton was the
first to suggest that the pact probably dated from the period of ‘Umar b. ‘Abd al-‘Azīz (who ruled in the early eighth
century), as opposed to the traditional ascription to ‘Umar b. al-Khattāb (d. 644): Arthur Stanley Tritton, Caliphs
and their Non-Muslim Subjects (London: Oxford University Press, 1930).
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