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the remaining two subjects. Only after this failed did the Jews appeal once again to foreign
representatives, including those of France and Britain. 86
Mawlāy Muḥammad was correct in assuming that foreign diplomats would question the
Makhzan’s handling of the matter. On October 6, the British consul Thomas Reade wrote to
Bargāsh insisting that an investigation take place and claiming that “the two Jews who were
executed in Safi and Tangier [Akkan and Lalouche] as suspects in the death of the Spaniard [had
been executed] without a proper investigation.” 87 Bargāsh reassured Reade that the sultan had
already stayed the execution because the suspects’ guilt had not been firmly established, since
one of them denied any involvement and the other had recanted his confession. 88 Nonetheless,
the British ambassador wrote to his superiors about plans for Britain to take all Moroccan Jews
under its protection if he deemed this necessary. 89
In late November, Aflalo and Ben Moyal were released from prison following
Montefiore’s visit to the Queen of Spain in Madrid, whom he convinced to drop Spain’s
demands for the execution of the perpetrators. 90 In Moroco, Montefiore went on to have two
audiences with Mawlāy Muḥammad, during which he obtained a famous ẓahīr on behalf of
Moroccan Jews, dated February 5, 1864/ 5 Sha‘bān 1280. 91 The ẓahīr reiterated the principles of
the dhimma contract, albeit with new language that was undoubtedly a response to foreign
intervention on Jews’ behalf; for instance, the ẓahīr declared that “all people are equal in
86
Ibid., 224.
87
Al-yahūdiyayn al-maqtūlayn fī Asafī wa-fī Ṭanja ‘alā tuhmati mawti al-isbanyūlī dūna taḥaqquqin ‘alayhim
(DAR, Yahūd, 17018, Thomas Reade to Muḥammad Bargāsh, 6 October 1863/ 22 Rabī‘ II 1280).
88
DAR, Safi, 16349, Muḥammad Bargāsh to Thomas Reade, 24 Rabī‘ II 1280.
89
Kenbib, Juifs et musulmans, 145.
90
DAR, Safi, 4736, al-Ṭayyib al-Yamānī to Muḥammad Bargāsh, 18 Rajab 1280. See also Littman, “Mission to
Morocco,” 184-7.
91
The ẓahīr is published in al-Nāṣirī, Kitāb al-istiqṣā, v. 8, 129 and translated into English in Stillman, The Jews of
Arab Lands, 371-3.
353