IN THE COURTS OF THE NATIONS - DataSpace - Princeton ...

however, the archives preserve only the response of the sultan to a complaint, either in a letter to
the local governor accused of abuse or in a letter asking other officials for more information.
Sometimes only the responses of the accused officials survive—in which case we must imagine
the petitions and subsequent rebukes which engendered these letters of self-justification.
Some of these appeals show up in the registers of the Ministry of Complaints, often
specifying that, for instance, “the Jews of Fez” or “a group of Jews from Demnat” wrote with the
following complaint. It is not entirely clear to whom these groups of Jews initially wrote; it is
possible that petitions recorded in the Ministry of Complaints registers were sent directly to the
this ministry. It is also possible that Jews initially addressed their petitions to other Makhzan
officials, who passed them along to the appropriate ministry. Such collective complaints are
relatively rare in the Ministry Complaints registers where appeals by individuals are far more
common. The collective appeals by Jews which were recorded in the Ministry of Complaints
registers do not differ significantly from those found in other parts of the Makhzan archives.
The advantage of the Ministry of Complaints registers is that they show the approximate
frequency with which groups of Jews appealed to the Makhzan. During a typical span of two
years, Jews submitted collective petitions about abuse at the hands of Makhzan officials at least
every six months. 43 For instance, in the summer of 1889, the Jews of Demnat complained about
the harm to which they were exposed at the hands of an unspecified official. 44 Six months later,
the Jews of Debdou complained that their qā’id had taken their money illegally. 45 The following
summer (1890) the Jews of Ūrīka complained about their khalīfa (the representative of the
43 Ideally, I would be able to compare the frequency of Jewish collective appeals to the Ministry of Complaints with
Muslim ones; however, research has yet to be done on Muslims’ collective petitions to the Makhzan.
44 BH, K 157, p. 44, 12 Shawwāl 1306.
45 BH, K 157, p. 94, 16 Ṣafar 1307 and BH, K 157, p. 97, 24 Ṣafar 1307.
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