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

English consul generally, foreign subjects and protégés might also choose to avoid consular
courts because the details of their case meant it was likely to be “spoilt” in a consular court. 125
This type of strategy also worked in the other direction; foreign subjects and protégés attempted
to avoid sharī‘a and Makhzan courts when they felt they would get an unfavorable ruling in these
institutions. 126
The case of Corcos v. Shedmi illustrates the kind of situation in which foreign subjects
and protégés found it more advantageous to bring their cases before Moroccan judicial
authorities. In 1867, Avraham Corcos, a Moroccan Jew and the American consul in Essaouira,
Essaouira, 22 April 1884). The translation actually reads “For he has no judgment,” but in this context ḥukm is
better translated as judiciousness (see Wehr, Dictionary of Modern Arabic, 196). Ḥukm could also be translated as
authority, which would suggest that a reason to avoid the British consular court might have been that the consul
lacked the authority to enforce his rulings; this, however, seems a less appropriate translation given the context.
125
See, e.g., MAE Nantes, Tanger A 138, Affaire Abraham Benchimol avec le gouvernement Français, 1833 (in this
case, Benchimol, the interpreter at the French legation discussed above, sued the French government for fees owed
to him; when he seemed unable to convince the French to pay him, he threatened to bring his case to the Makhzan);
MAE Nantes, Tanger A 138, Affaires de M. Benaim de Marseille, 1842 (in this case, Moshe Benaim, a French
subject, claimed debts owed to him by David Yitzḥaq Darmon, a Moroccan subject and a resident of Essaouira;
Benaim at first indicated that he wants to settle the matter in a French consular court, but then threatened to bring the
case to the local Makhzan authorities; although the case should have fallen under Makhzan jurisdiction, it seems that
the French consul planned to hear the case); FO, 830/1, Grace to Hay, 27 December 1851 (concerning a case in
which Damonte, a British protégé, refused a proposed extra-legal settlement to a case made by Grace, a British
consul, and took the case to the local sharī‘a court instead); MAE Nantes, Tanger A 159, Affaire Joseph Suiry v.
Menahem Nahon et Judah Benguigui, 1857 (this case was originally adjudicated in the French consular court, where
the consul ruled in Suiry’s favor; Nahon and Benguigui decided to take the case to the local pasha, who ruled in
their favor; finally, Suiry attempted to have the case re-tried in the French consulate—where, one assumes, he would
have won again); USNA, Reg. 84, v. 13A, Muḥammad b. al-‘Arabī to J. Toel, 19 Ṣafar 1322 (concerning a case
involving a Moroccan subject and a Muslim “mokhalet” (mukhāliṭ, partner) of the American protégé Shmuel
Benharrosh, in which both sides appealed to the Makhzan’s representative in Tangier, the sharī‘a court, and the
American consular court).
126
See: FO, 631/3, Carstensen to Hay, 29 March 1869 (this concerns the case of Aharon and Yosef Ben Addi,
British protégés who were robbed outside the city of Safi; the Ben Addis did not want to submit the case to the
sharī‘a court because the qāḍī was from Shedma, the area where the robbery occurred, and presumably would have
ruled in favor of his tribesmen); DAR, Tetuan, 1130, al-Ḥājj al-Madanī al-Duyūrī to al-Ḥājj Muḥammad al-Madanī,
14 Jumādā II 1289 (in which the Moroccan subject ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Sha‘shū‘ tried to insist that some contested
goods belonged to his partners who were protégés, and thus that the lawsuit against him had to be judged by the
consular courts in Tangier; the Makhzan insisted that because al-Sha‘shū‘ was a Moroccan subject, the case should
be judged by a sharī‘a court); MAE Nantes, Tanger B 459, Makhzan contre Ben Amar, 1908 (in this case, Ben
Amar, a Muslim and a French protégé, attempted to avoid the Makhzan’s jurisdiction by having his case judged by
the French consulate; this is of particular interest because it shows that Muslims were also sometimes eager to avoid
sharī‘a and Makhzan courts when these proved less favorable to their case).
324