The seal & opening
Doc. 14 · p. 186
The Emperor’s opening ʿalāma and seal — the sovereign mark by which the instrument authenticates itself and declares the peace a standing grant.
The instrument
A peace set down to remain.
صُلْح · مُسْتَمِرًّا
“…trusting in God it will remain permanent.”
Certified 1786 translation · approved by Jefferson & Adams
Article 4 · the ʿalāma
p. 190 · 8 Stat. 484 (1836)
A “signal” given that the parties may know one another — the term the series traces from Mālikī pledge law into the 1836 codification.
The series takes its name from the instrument itself. In 1786 the Emperor of Morocco set his seal to a peace declared not as a passing courtesy but as a standing grant — a hiba made to endure. That stated intent — permanence — is the architecture the whole series is built to read.
The same document fixes, in Article 4, the ʿalāma — the sovereign mark by which the parties are to know one another. In the series’ reading the grant is a hiba that conveys a branch of the Emperor’s own prerogative, the honours he bestows included; the ʿalāma is the sign by which the honoured beneficiary class is recognised, and the hinge on which the later volumes turn.
The instrument names itself ṣulḥ — a peace; C. Snouck Hurgronje, the Orientalist the United States retained to examine the Arabic, rendered its duration دائمة (dāʾima) — permanent. Facsimile: Hunter Miller, Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States, vol. 2, Document 14 — seal and opening at p. 186, Article 4 at p. 190. Public-domain United States government record; the treaty is codified at 8 Stat. 484 (1836).
Correction of record — August 3, 2026. The instrument's duration word is دائمة (dāʾima, “permanent”), in the preamble; the certified translation reads “trusting in God it will remain permanent” (Miller vol. 2, Doc. 14). An earlier rendering on this page used “mustamirran”; it is corrected on verification against the certified translation.
