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

Mohammed Kenbib and Khalid Ben Srhir, on the other hand, explain that the Makhzan had
simply followed the law in punishing Dahan for having illegal sexual relations with a Muslim
woman. 98
The details of this case are worth exploring, especially since two distinct narratives of the
Ntifa events emerged following Dahan’s death. All agreed that Jacob Dahan was in the habit of
distributing food to indigent Jews and Muslims during the famine of 1878-9. 99 After the famine,
a Muslim woman chose to remain in his household as a sort of domestic servant. This
arrangement aroused suspicions that Dahan had become sexually intimate with her, which would
have constituted a violation of Islamic law (since Muslim women were not allowed to marry
non-Muslim men, much less engage in extra-marital sexual acts with them). When the qā’id of
Ntifa, ‘Abdallāh b. al-Ḥasan al-Ntīfī, found out about this, he summoned Dahan and punished
him, either by beating him or by imprisoning him. At this point, the narratives diverge.
One interpretation of events, promulgated by a group of Jews in Ntifa, their foreign allies,
and the press, claimed that Dahan was severely beaten by al-Ntīfī and that he died from his
wounds. The Jews of Ntifa were not even permitted to bury Dahan’s body until they sacrificed
seven bulls to the Ntifa tribe and paid them eighty riyāls. 100 Dahan’s son initiated an appeal to
foreigners by traveling to Tangier; once there, he earned the sympathies of the Italian, French,
and British ambassadors. 101 Haim Benchimol, among the most prominent Jews in Tangier and
indeed all of Morocco, mentioned Dahan’s murder in a letter to the AIU concerning recent
mistreatment of Jews. 102 As with the Safi affair, the foreign press (including Le Petit
98 Kenbib, Juifs et musulmans, 224-9: Ben-Srhir, Britain and Morocco, 193-6.
99 On this famine, which lasted until 1884, see Holden, The Politics of Food in Modern Morocco, 7, 24-5.
100 DAR, Yahūd, 32511, al-ḥazān Abnīr to Muḥammad b. al-‘Arabī b. al-Mukhtār, 28 Shawwāl 1297.
101 See DAR, Yahūd, 32491, Muḥammad Bargāsh to Mawlāy Ḥasan, 21 Shawwāl 1297.
102 Fenton and Littman, L’exil au Maghreb, 509-11. The letter is dated October 7, 1880.
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