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Makhzan’s conception of the position of Jews was changing, it was not so totally transformed
that it abandoned the framework of dhimma entirely. In this sense, Morocco differed
significantly from the Ottoman Empire, which formally abolished dhimmī status as part of the
Tanzimat reforms starting in 1839—a model which many European diplomats and activists had
in mind in their quest to change the treatment of Jews in Morocco. 138
In 1876, Tissot, the French ambassador, wrote to the Makhzan requesting that an
Algerian Jew (and thus a French subject) living in Fez be allowed to build a bath (ḥammām) in
his house. 139 The question of whether Jews were permitted to build their own bathhouses had
arisen some decades earlier in Fez. A leading jurist of the time, ‘Abd al-Hādī b. ‘Abdallāh b. al-
Tuhāmī, ruled that it was against the principles of the dhimma—and thus against Islamic law—
for Jews to build a bathhouse of their own. 140 The Makhzan still considered this principle
binding in 1876, and responded to Tissot’s request with a resounding “no”: “It is clear that this
matter is one pertaining to religion [such that] we are not permitted to allow them to do this [i.e.
build a bathhouse] because it would open doors that are closed in sharī‘a law.” 141 The
Makhzan’s representatives felt strongly that allowing Jews to build a bathhouse constituted a
violation of Islamic law in a way that declaring that Jews and Muslims should be treated in the
same way did not.
A similar challenge to the principles of Islamic law occurred during the Conference of
Madrid when a number of Europeans proposed that the Makhzan adopt a policy of religious
138
See, e.g., Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000),
65-6. Moses Montefiore invoked the model of the Ottoman Empire in his effort to convince the Moroccan sultan to
declare Jews equal to Muslims: Abitbol, Le passé d’une discorde, 168.
139
DAR, Yahūd, 14039, Mūsā b. al-Ḥadd to Tissot, 4 Rabī‘ II 1293.
140
This fatwā is found in al-Wazzānī, Nawāzil, v. 3, 109-12. See also a translation of this fatwā in Fenton and
Littman, L’exil au Maghreb, 269-72.
141
Fa-lā yakhfā annahu amrun min umūri al-dīni lā yasūghu lanā al-idhnu lahum fīhi limā fīhi min fatḥi al-abwābi
al-masdūdati bi-qānūni al-shar‘ (DAR, Yahūd, 14039, Mūsā b. al-Ḥadd to Tissot, 4 Rabī‘ II 1293).
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