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Makhzan officials’ abuse of Jews stemmed from anti-Jewish sentiment. 128 Yet local officials’
treatment of Jews did not always reflect systematic hatred against Jews. Although the
motivations of Makhzan officials are not always discernible, it is possible to measure the impact
of anti-Jewish sentiment in part by comparing officials’ abuse of Jews to their abuse of Muslims.
A comprehensive study of Muslims’ appeals to the Makhzan concerning their mistreatment at
the hands of local government representatives is beyond the scope of this dissertation.
Nonetheless, there is evidence that like their Jewish neighbors, Moroccan Muslims were at times
badly treated by Makhzan officials.
Soundings in the Makhzan’s correspondence and the registers of the Ministry of
Complaints suggest that Muslims often suffered at the hands of local officials—and, like Jews,
appealed to the Makhzan to right the wrong. In 1873, the Zarhūn tribe complained about their
governor, whom they accused of taxing them unfairly (and thus illegally confiscating their
possessions). 129 In March, 1890, the Makhzan addressed the appeal of the Muslims of Radānā
who complained about their qāḍī. 130 In 1887, the Jews of Meknes wrote to the sultan’s vizier to
128
I deliberately avoid the term anti-Semitism because it denotes a particular form of racism that originated in
Europe, based originally on Christian anti-Jewish myths and later drawing on scientific ideas about race. Islamic
and Arab anti-Semitism certainly existed, though scholars have convincingly argued that anti-Semitism in the
Middle East drew principally on European anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism began to take hold among Arab Christians
and Muslims in the nineteenth century, and spread to Morocco after colonization. (On anti-Semitism in the Middle
East, see Mark R. Cohen, “Modern Myths of Muslim Anti-Semitism (in Hebrew),” Politiqah 19, no. Spring (2009).)
Thus whatever anti-Jewish sentiment Makhzan officials displayed in the nineteenth century drew on a tradition of
prejudice indigenous to the Islamic tradition and the Moroccan context.
129
DAR, Meknes, 35078, Muḥammad b. (?) and ‘Abdallāh b. Muḥammad Banāna to Muḥammad b. al-Madanī
Banīs, 6 Jumādā II 1290. For more complaints by Muslims against a Makhzan official, see 28 Shawwāl 1300,
Mawlāy Ḥasan to ‘Abdallāh b. Aḥmad, in Ibn Zaydān, Al-‘Izz wa-’l-ṣawla, v. 2, 115-16 (in which the notables of the
Raḥwīyīn complained about their muḥtasib); DAR, Ḥimāyāt, 20646, Bū Shaz (?) al-Baghdādī to Mawlāy Ḥasan, 13
Jumādā II 1301 (in which he reported that both the Jews and Muslims of Ouezzane had complained to him about
mistreatment at the hands of their governor); BH, K 181, p. 285, 11 Rabī‘ II 1310 (in which Muslims from Meknes
complained about mistreatment at the hands of their pasha).
130
BH, K 171, p. 26, 6 Sha‘bān 1307. However, the nature of their complaint was not recorded. See also BH, K
181, p. 175, 11 Shawwāl 1309; here Bin‘īmī al-‘Abarī reported that the qāḍī of his region had been preventing
Muslims from accessing the services of the ‘udūl. When locals went to the ‘udūl of Sufyān instead, the qāḍī refused
to sign their documents. For more examples of Muslims who complained about their treatment at the hands of
Makhzan officials, see BH, K 157, p. 39, 30 Ramaḍān 1306; p. 62, 24 Dhū al-Qa‘da 1306.
268