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

Chapter Seven: Foreign Protection and Consular Jurisdiction
Shalom Assarraf had been active as a businessman since the 1850s; by the following
decade his business was growing rapidly and he was well on his way to building the modest
commercial empire which helped earn him a prominent role as a leader of his community. 1 In
1871, Shalom took a step that increasing numbers of his fellow Moroccans were taking; he
acquired a patent of foreign protection. This patent gave him a degree of extraterritoriality; he
was no longer required to pay taxes to the Makhzan, and, in theory at least, he could not be
prosecuted in a Moroccan court of law (including both sharī‘a and Makhzan courts). Shalom’s
patent of protection came from the United States of America, where a relative of his (described
as a Mr. Azeraf of New York) was living and had appointed him as his agent. 2
Shalom leveraged his status as a foreign protégé to have the American ambassador, Felix
A. Mathews, intervene on his behalf with the Makhzan concerning legal disputes in which he
was involved. In one incident, Shalom was attacked by some soldiers as he arrived at his store in
Fās al-Jadīd. 3 The soldiers “arrested him, beat him, and were about to kill him; were it not for
the Muslims who removed him and took him to his house, they would have killed him.” 4
Mathews wrote to the sultan demanding that he order his officials to make sure that Shalom “got
his due,” by which he presumably meant that Shalom wanted to be compensated financially for
1
I have in mind Shalom’s election as nagid of the Jewish community of Fez in 1873: see Chapter One.
2
USNA, reg. 84, v. 48, “List of Individuals (not citizens of the US) under the jurisdiction or protection of the U.S.
Consulate in the Empire of Morocco according to ancient custom and treaty stipulations” (p. 81). I have not yet
been able to locate any information about Mr. Azeraf of New York, but presumably he was a relative of Shalom
who had moved to the United States.
3
USNA, reg. 84, v. 141A, Felix A. Mathews to Mawlāy Ḥasan (letter #26), 26 Dhū al-Ḥijja 1301.
4
Qabaḍūhu ba‘ḍu al-‘askari wa-ẓarabūhu wa-kādū an yaqtalūhu wa-law lā āl al-muslimīn naza‘ūhu wa-ḥamalūhu
li-dārihi la-qatalūhu.
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