112 r Juliette Hassine
other witnesses can present his evidence, except in the case of slander and
compensation. Testimony is recorded, and the witnesses must sign the re-
cord. The La ̔lami (court scribe), who writes up the documents, also signs
them. Other witnesses may also add their signatures to the testimony of
the two primary witnesses.^10
According to the ordinances for prosecuting the crime of ridda, Sol
Hachuel was defined as a social apostate (a Muslim woman born of non-
Muslim parents), whose age and healthy state of mind made her liable to
the death penalty. Because she was female and because she was being tried
under Maliki law in Morocco, Sol was given the prescribed three days to
recant.
All the religious poetry written about her delves deeply into her incar-
ceration and the judges’ attempts to persuade her to recant. At the same
time, none of the Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic texts showed that the Jews
properly understood the concept of ridda in general or its application
in Sol’s case. The authors failed to comprehend that the aim of the per-
suasion as dictated by law constituted an attempt to get the accused to
recant in the hope of averting the death penalty. In Ma ̔ase ba-Na ̔ara ha-
Tsadeqet (A Tale of a Righteous Maiden), Yosef Ben-Na ̔im recounts that
she was not starved in prison but deprived of food because she refused
to eat the prison fare as it did not accord with Jewish dietary laws; hence
Rabbi Raphael Ha-Tsarfati smuggled food to her.^11 Seemingly, Ben-Na ̔im
thought that the provision of food and water to prisoners was an act of
goodwill and not dictated by the law.^12
Both the piyyutim in Hebrew and the q#sā in Judeo-Arabic hint that
there was a legal process including witnesses and official documents, for
example, in “In Praise of the Fortunate Maiden” by Ya ̔aqov Abihazirah:
Together they plotted perjury
They lied that she converted to the worthless religion
They wrote and signed a wicked plot
And she, perish the thought, had expressed no such wordsיחדיו להעיד שקר הסכימו
אמרו המירה לדת הבל למו
קשר רשעים כתבו וחתמו
והיא חלילה לא נשמע בפיה