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

creditor was at a distinct advantage if he could prove his suit for payment with the original bill of
debt signed by ‘udūl.
Almost every bill of debt I examined in the Assarraf collection concerned a Jewish
creditor and a Muslim debtor. 58 This reflects the fact that Jews in Morocco were over-
represented as moneylenders during the nineteenth century. 59 Nonetheless, there were instances
in which Jews borrowed money from Muslims, although the Assarraf collection does not
preserve legal documents attesting these kinds of transactions. 60
Bills of debt generally followed standard formulae and resembled one another except for
minor variations. These formulae were elaborated in scribal manuals providing templates for
various types of legal documents. 61 All bills of debt specify the name of the debtor (or debtors,
as many concern debts owed by multiple people) and that of the creditor (or, at times, creditors).
The debtor’s name is usually preceded by the phrase “owed by” (bi-dhimmati wa-māli). The
following is a typical beginning of a bill of debt: “Owed by Sīdī Muḥammad b. ‘Allāl al-Shargī
al-Shaja‘ī al-Ḥamrānī, to the dhimmī Shalom b. Yehudah Assarraf (Shalūm b. Yehūdā
Ṣarrāf)….” 62 Many also include a physical description of the debtor, though this seems to have
58 The single exception is a bill of debt from December 19, 1848 (23 Muḥarram 1265 TC, File #5), in which two
Jews, Yitzḥaq b. Maymon b. Mamān and Shmuel b. Rūsā (?) b. Sa‘dūn, testify that they owed money to the
merchant al-Ḥājj al-Madanī b. Muḥammad Banīs. The Jewish debtors mortgaged property they owned as surety for
the loan, and then ended up selling al-Madanī the property as partial payment; eventually, on April 10, 1886 (6
Rajab 1303), Ya‘aqov Assarraf bought the mortgaged property from al-Madanī’s heirs, which is recorded on the
same document as the initial debt (and why the initial debt is included in the Assarraf collection).
59 However, in Ottoman Palestine during the seventeenth century, Jews borrowed money from Muslims far more
often than they lent money to Muslims (Cohen and Ben Shim‘on-Pikali, Yehudim be-veit ha-mishpat, ha-me’ah ha-
17, v. 1, 538). By the eighteenth century, though, it was more common for Jews to lend to Muslims (idem, Yehudim
be-veit ha-mishpat, ha-me’ah ha-18, 355-6).
60 See, e.g., Bension Collection of Sephardic Manuscripts, University of Alberta, Ms. 188 (p. 248a), described in
Saul I. Aranov, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Bension Collection of Sephardic Manuscripts and Texts (Edmonton:
The University of Alberta Press, 1979), 108. In the Ottoman Empire, it was far more common for Jews to borrow
from Muslims: see, e.g., Gerber, Crossing Borders, Chapter 6.
61 Particularly relevant for nineteenth century Fez is the manual composed by Muḥammad b. Aḥmad Binānī (d.
1261/1845), who was a muwaththiq—that is, a legal scribe—and who recorded the legal conventions of
contemporary Fez: Binānī, al-Wathā’iq al-fāsīya. See also the brief discussion in Buskens, “Mālikī Formularies.”
62 TC, File #1, 25 Ramaḍān 1281.
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