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

French civil and penal laws to apply….” 104 A year later, he repeated his insistence on having the
case judged in a sharī‘a court: “We are under the jurisdiction of the sharī‘a; I was not the one
who asked to appear before this court, it was the French consular court [which directed the case
to the sharī‘a court]…” 105 Ultimately the qāḍī’s decision was appealed before a special tribunal
of five ‘ulamā’ (Muslim scholars) convened in 1909. 106 Although the archival records trail off
before a decision was recorded, for our purposes the significance of the case lies in the fact that
both Pariente and Kohen tried to ensure adjudication in the tribunal they felt would be most
amenable to their interests.
In some real estate disputes, Jews with foreign nationality or protection appealed the
decision of a sharī‘a court in a consular court, hoping to get a more favorable ruling. 107 In 1904,
Moshe (Moise) Emsellem, a French protégé residing in Tangier, filed a complaint with the
French ambassador (Saint René Taillandier) against Meir Benhaim, a Belgian protégé.
Emsellem informed Saint René Taillandier that Benhaim had refused to pay the rent for a store
that Emsellem had sublet to him. 108 In the course of the investigation it turned out that the store
actually belonged to the shurafā’ (descendents of the Prophet Muḥammad) of Ibn Masar, a
Muslim family, and that the nāẓir of a nearby mosque was in charge of the rent. 109 The nāẓir
104
Pariente to Wyldbore Smith, 5 October 1905.
105
Pariente to White, 2 October 1906.
106
One of the last letters, from Kohen to le Comte de Saint Aulaire (the French ambassador to Morocco), dated 23
June 1909, expressed Kohen’s objections to the way the council of ‘ulamā’ was conducting the trial; it is possible
that Kohen simply refused to proceed and, essentially, dropped the case. See also Cohen to Saint Aulaire, 22 June
1909.
107
In most such cases, consular officials upheld the decision of the sharī‘a court. See, e.g., MAE Nantes, Tanger F
2, Schott vs. Cohen, 8 October 1894. Schott claimed that a building belonged to him while Kohen refused to
recognize Schott’s ownership. The French consular court in Tangier ruled in Schott’s favor since he was the only
one who produced documents according to “local law.”
108
MAE Nantes, Tanger B 461, Emsellem to Saint René Taillandier, 3 November 1904.
109
MAE Nantes, Tanger B 461, Belgian consul to Saint René Taillandier, 19 November 1904. The details in this
paragraph all stem from this letter. The store in question was most likely part of the pious endowment of a mosque;
although this was never explained explicitly, the fact that the nāẓir of the nearby mosque was in charge of the rent
for the store suggests that this was the case.
318