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The evidence of Jews’ appeals to the Makhzan come in a variety of forms, largely
because the Moroccan archives do not preserve a complete record of correspondence with the
state. Nonetheless, it is clear that the standard way in which a petition initially reached the
Makhzan was through a collective letter, often signed by a group of Jewish leaders or written in
the name of “all” the Jews of a particular place. In the cases in which these petitions are
preserved, the basic form of the letters contained many of the same features found in medieval
petitions. 39 They began with an introduction that varied according to the addressee. 40 The
authors then went on to describe the matter at hand, after which they requested the addressee’s
intervention. 41 It is possible that the petitioners traveled to one of the capitals to deliver their
petition in person, though it seems to have been more common to send letters. 42 In many cases,
39
Stern, “Three Petitions of the Fatimid Period,” 186-92: Geoffrey Khan, “The Historical Development of the
Structure of Medieval Arabic Petitions,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 53, no. 1 (1990).
Khan is concerned with formulas which are rarely present in the Moroccan documents (such as the protasis-apodosis
construction in which the author of the petition asks the addressee to grant his request and suggests the good
outcome that will result). However, the basic form of the petitions he analyzes—that is, the introduction, followed
by an exposition, followed by a request—is found in the Moroccan letters. One of the major differences is that the
tarjama (the name of the supplicant) is not included either in the upper left-hand corner (as it was during the Fāṭimid
period) or after the predicate “kisses the earth” (as it was during the Ayyūbid and Mamlūk periods): see Stern,
“Petitions from the Ayyubid Period,” 7-8. Rather, in our petitions the authors signed their names at the end, after
the date.
40
When the petition was addressed to the sultan it was standard to include a more elaborate introductory formula.
See, for example, DAR, Yahūd, 19415, Jews of unknown place to Mawlāy ‘Abd al-Raḥmān, Dhū al-Ḥijja 1262.
After the basmala and the blessing of the Prophet, the letter begins: adāma Allāh ‘izza mawlānā al-imāmi wa-ẓilli
Allāh ‘alā al-anāmi nāṣiri al-ṣu‘bati wa-ma’wā al-aytāmi mudāfi‘u al-maẓlimati qāhiru al-ẓullām. (“May God
perpetuate the strength of our lord, the imam, and the shadow of God upon humanity, vanquisher of difficulties and
refuge of orphans, repeller of injustice and subduer of wrongdoers.”) It is also interesting to note that letters
addressed to the sultan never actually mentioned the sultan’s name; they referred to him by his titles only. The
closest one could come to actually naming the sultan was to invoke his ancestors by name. Petitions addressed to
viziers tended to be simpler. See, for instance, DAR, Yahūd, 33481, Jews of Meknes to Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-
Ṣanhājī, 28 Ramaḍān 1304. The letter begins: ba‘d taqbīl yadi sayyidinā al-faqīhi al-‘allāmati nā’ibi wazīri al-
ḥaḍrati al-‘āliyati bi-llāh sayyidī Muḥammad b. ‘Aḥmad al-Ṣanhājī… (“After kissing the hand of our lord the
learned scholar, the deputy of the vizier of the one who is exalted by God [i.e. the sultan], our lord Muḥammad b.
Aḥmad al-Ṣanhājī…”)
41
This is quite similar to the Fatimid petitions described in Stern, “Three Petitions of the Fatimid Period,” 191-2.
42
I surmise this from the fact that complaints which ended up in the Ministry of Complaints registers were clearly
sent as letters. See, for instance, BH, K 181, p. 87, 2 Jumādā II 1309, in which the petitioner’s name was unknown
and the appeal was described as “a letter whose author was not named (kitāb lam yusamma ṣāḥibuhu).” It seems
likely that other petitions went through similar channels since we know that they resembled complaints directed to
the wizārat al-shikāyāt in other ways. During the Fatimid period petitioners either delivered their appeals in person
or as a letter: ibid., 187, 96-7 and idem, “Petitions from the Mamluk Period,” 242.
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