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

without their consent. 117 The sultan chastised al-Jilālī and ordered him to treat the Jews well
(an…yuḥsina al-sīrata ma‘ahum) as was customary with Jews in other cities. Mawlāy Ḥasan
also assured al-Jilālī that he had reminded the Jews that they, in turn, should not exceed the
boundaries of behavior allotted them—that is, the conditions of the dhimma contract. 118 Nearly
a year later, Mawlāy Ḥasan wrote another letter to al-Jilālī in response to the Jews’ repeated
complaint that al-Jilālī had prevented them from nominating their own shaykh. 119 The sultan
ordered al-Jilālī to convene the Jews along with the qāḍī and the tax collector—to whom he also
sent letters—to ensure that the Jews were able to choose a shaykh to act as their intermediary
with the Makhzan. 120
When Jews felt that the right to their own legal system was threatened, they appealed to
the state to ensure that their judicial autonomy was respected. Moreover, the state responded by
affirming the jurisdictional boundaries which determined the authority of Jewish courts. These
appeals demonstrate the extent to which the functioning of Jewish law depended on and was
inherently embedded in the state.
Collective Appeals against Jews
Although the vast majority of Jews’ collective petitions to the Makhzan concerned the
abuses of Makhzan officials, there were also instances in which groups of Jews complained
117
DAR, Demnat, 15598, copy of ẓahīr from Mawlāy Ḥasan, 23 Dhū al-Qa‘da 1301. The other complaints
included: forcing Jews to work without compensation and on days which are holy in their religion; forcing Jews to
sell their goods at half the market price, or to sell when prices were low; seizing Jews’ goods when prices were high;
and putting the Jews’ domestic animals to work without compensation.
118
Kamā na’muruhum hum [sic] an…yaqifū ‘inda al-ḥudūdi al-ma’khūdhati minhum ‘alayhā al-‘uhūd.
119
DAR, Demnat, Mawlāy Ḥasan to al-Ḥājj al-Jilālī al-Dimnātī, 1 Sha‘bān 1302. A similar incident occurred in
Radānā in 1891; in this year the Jews wrote to the Ministry of Complaints about their governor, al-Rāshidī, who
insisted on choosing their shaykh al-yahūd (BH, K 174, p. 79, 29 Rajab 1308).
120
DAR, Demnat, Mawlāy Ḥasan to amīn al-mustafādāt of Demnat, 1 Sha‘bān 1302 and Mawlāy Ḥasan to qāḍī of
Demnat, 1 Sha‘bān 1302. Both these letters are quite similar to the letter from Mawlāy Ḥasan to al-Jilālī of the same
date.
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