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emphasized a rejection of foreign protection and a reaffirmation of these Jews’ acceptance of the
sultan’s dhimma. 37
Jews and the Makhzan had a common language with which to talk about the rights of
Morocco’s non-Muslims. This language was rooted in a shared conception of the basis of these
rights in the dhimma contract. What remains to be seen is how Jews used the framework
provided by Islamic law in order to ensure that their rights were respected. Jews’ collective
appeals to the Makhzan suggest that they took the sultan’s claim to ensure justice seriously.
Avenues of Appeal
Jews had a number of options in how they petitioned the state for redress against
injustice; appealing to the Makhzan was not necessarily as simple as writing a letter and
receiving a reply. The avenue Jews chose depended largely on the nature of the senders’
connections, for the sultan was more likely to answer a petition delivered through favorable
channels. This feature of statecraft was hardly unique to this period; the importance of personal
connections in getting one’s case heard has been demonstrated in contexts as disparate as
medieval Egypt and twentieth-century Morocco, not to mention present-day America. 38
37
This document uses ḥimāya to refer both to Muslims being under the protection of God, the Prophet, and the
sultan, as well as Jews being under the protection of the sultan (though not of God or the Prophet). One could read
this as indicating that the dhimma contract—a pact between the state and non-Muslims alone—was not what the
authors of the document had in mind. However, given the fact that the sultan’s protection of Jews was entirely
bound up with the idea of dhimma, it seems more likely that the specific protection of Jews implied in the Pact of
‘Umar was intended.
38
On the medieval period, see Marina Rustow, “A Petition to a Woman at the Fatimid Court (413-414 A.H./1022-23
C.E.),” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 73, no. 1 (2010): 6. On modern Morocco, see Dale F.
Eickelman, Moroccan Islam: Tradition and Society in a Pilgrimage Center (Austin: University of Texas Press,
1976), 161-2. There is a vast literature on the sociology of law in the present-day United States which addresses the
influence of personal ties in determining individuals’ experience with the legal system; see, e.g., Carroll Serron and
Frank Munger, “Law and Inequality: Race, Gender...and, of Course, Class,” Annual Review of Sociology 22 (1996);
Erin York and Benjamin Cornwell, “Status on Trial: Social Characteristics and Influence in the Jury Room,” Social
Forces 85, no. 1 (2006).
238