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

of the individuals concerned. 31 Presumably these Islamic legal documents were registered at
consulates because they would also have held up as evidence in a consular court; notarization by
‘udūl became the gold standard for legal evidence even outside of sharī‘a courts.
In addition to civil cases, Islamic legal documents were just as central to the functioning
of consular law in criminal cases. The standard procedure for recording oral testimony in
consular courts was to have a legal official from the witness’ nationality notarize the document.
That is, a Spanish subject would record his testimony before a Spanish consul, a French subject
before a French consul, etc. Muslim Moroccan subjects normally testified before ‘udūl, while
Jewish Moroccan subjects usually testified before sofrim and/or a beit din. It was thus no
surprise that in 1864, when the British subject Juan Damonte was attacked by a Muslim, a Jewish
witness to the crime recorded his testimony before a beit din. 32 In a case from Essaouira
involving a missing case of pearls, ‘Umar b. Muḥammad al-Kasūl, a Muslim Moroccan subject,
testified before ‘udūl that he did not know anything about the whereabouts of the pearls. 33
Avraham Bendahan, a British subject, swore to the same effect before the acting British vice-
consul, and Bernardo Blanco, a Spanish subject, did so before the Spanish consul. 34
However, if the case were to be tried in a Moroccan court—which did not accept
documents from consulates or batei din—it was often in the interest of foreign nationals and
protégés to have their testimony recorded before ‘udūl. For instance, in 1909, the store of Judah
31
For French consulates, this practice probably fell under the regulations for “réception de dépôts de pièces”: Clercq
and Vallat, Guide pratique des consulats, v. 1, 421.
32
FO, 631/3, William James Elton to John Drummond Hay, 1 March 1864. See also MAE Nantes, Tanger B 986, P.
Achille Gambaro to Auguste Beaumier, 10 January 1870.
33
MAE Nantes, Tanger B 1002, 16 Rajab 1291.
34
The testimonies of Bendahan and Blanco, from 29 and 28 August 1874 respectively, were copied into the registers
of the French consulate in Essaouira (in MAE Nantes, Tanger B 1002).
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