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

under the jurisdiction of Makhzan officials) with justice, just as he judged the cases of
Muslims. 134 This reprimand came on the heels of the British consulate’s intervention on behalf
of Marrakshi Jews. 135 Mawlāy Ḥasan apparently felt compelled to send his message of equal
treatment to his own officials in addition to reassuring foreigners of his good intentions. 136 He
also made sure that his foreign minister wrote to the Jews of Marrakesh informing them that he
had sent a letter of rebuke to the governor who mistreated them. The sultan reassured the Jews
that they were “under his protection and among his subjects (ahl dhimmatihi wa-min
ra‘īatihi).” 137
However, the Makhzan’s new language of equality did not signal a wholesale rejection of
the dhimma contract or a complete adoption of Western concepts such as freedom of religion.
Quite the contrary; as evidenced in the letter just cited, Jews were still very much considered to
be under the dhimma, or protection, of the sultan. Equally importantly, in a number of instances
in which Moroccan Jews and/or foreigners attempted to push the envelope by challenging the
precepts of Islamic law concerning the rights of non-Muslims, the Makhzan pushed back by
reasserting the limits on equality demanded by its understanding of Islamic law. Although the
134
Min al-ḥukmi ‘alayhim fī al-da‘āwā al-makhzaniyyati bimā yaqtaḍīhi al-ḥaqqu fīhā mithla mā taḥkumu fīhī ‘alā
al-muslimīn.
135
We know this because the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Muḥammad Mufaḍḍal Gharrīt, wrote separately to the
British consul to assure him that the sultan had received the consul’s letter urging that the abuse of the Jews of
Marrakesh be ended, and that the sultan was taking care of the matter: DAR, Marrakesh, Muḥammad al-Mufaḍḍal
Gharrīt to British Consul, 24 Jumādā II 1310. In addition, a copy of the sultan’s letter was sent to the British consul
(probably in Tangier); this can be inferred from the fact that the copy of the letter in the DAR is from the archives of
the Foreign Office, indicating that the British consulate received a copy.
136
For another instance of intra-Makhzan correspondence discussing the equality of Jews and Muslims, see Mawlāy
Ḥasan to Ḥammu b. al-Jīlālī, 29 Ṣafar 1302 (in Ibn Zaydān, Al-‘Izz wa-’l-ṣawla, v. 2, 138). In this letter the sultan
instructed the qā’id of Meknes to treat Jews and Muslims equally since “Muslim and dhimmī are equal before the
law (al-muslimu wa-’l-dhimmīyu fī al-ḥaqqi sawā’).” See also DAR, Yahūd, Shalom b. Harūsh to Muḥammad al-
Madanī Banīs, 5 Jumādā II 1284, in which Harūsh recounted the plight of the Jews of Taza who came to Fez to seek
redress from mistreatment at the hands of their governor. Shalom wrote that the sultan did not discriminate between
his Muslim and non-Muslim subjects. (The word used for non-Muslim here is naṣarā [sic; it should be naṣārā],
which literally means Christians but in this case was used to mean both Jews and Christians, since the sultan did not
have any Christian subjects.)
137
DAR, Yahūd, 18152, Muḥammad Mufaḍḍal Gharrīt to Jews of Marrakesh, 7 Jumādā II 1310.
365