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Moroccan legal system. On the one hand, they indicate that Islamic legal institutions were
important enough to Jews that they deemed it worthwhile to petition the Makhzan when these
institutions malfunctioned. On the other, they show that Jews were willing and able to weigh in
on the functioning of Islamic law. As the highest legal authority of the state, the Makhzan was
held accountable by Jews for flaws in the execution of justice, even when that justice was
Islamic and its beneficiaries were non-Muslims.
Jews were aware of their right to access the services of Islamic legal institutions,
including sharī‘a courts and Makhzan courts, and felt entitled to petition the Makhzan when they
encountered obstacles to using these institutions. For instance, in the fall of 1889, the Jews of
Safi wrote to the Makhzan accusing their governor of preventing them from using the services of
the city’s ‘udūl in order to notarize their legal contracts. 96 The inability to access Islamic
notaries would have severely limited Jews’ commercial transactions, especially those with
Muslims; as we have seen, Jews relied on legal documents notarized according to Islamic law to
conduct their quotidian business.
At other times, Jews claimed that local Makhzan officials obstructed justice by
consistently ruling against Jews or otherwise preventing them from obtaining a just outcome. In
the spring of 1885, the Jews of Demnat complained to Mawlāy Ḥasan about their governor, al-
Ḥājj al-Jilālī al-Dimnātī. 97 The Jews were mainly concerned about al-Jilālī’s refusal to “give
[the Jews] their rights in their lawsuits which were close to settlement, [in addition to] other
96
BH, K 157, p. 107, 23 Rabī‘ I 1307. See also BH, K 157, p. 121, 24 Rabī‘ II 1307; in this entry recorded one
month later, it was again reported that the Jews of Safi had complained about their governor. This time, they
specified that whenever Jews had lawsuits with Muslims, a group of Muslims physically assaulted the Jew
concerned.
97
DAR, Demnat, Mawlāy Ḥasan to al-Ḥājj al-Jilālī al-Dimnātī, 1 Sha‘bān 1302. In this case a group of Jews from
Demnat had appeared before the sultan in person when he was in Marrakesh.
255