36 Jewish haw Association Studies XVUts The Har-Han Vtutfemme Volume reasons for this have been described above. The essential reason was the lack of will on the part of non-Jews to aid in locating die murderers and to bring diem to trial. It was also shown that in most cases where the relatives succeeded in bringing the assassin to the Moslem court, they did not demand retaliation but did receive the blood money. A fact that stands out is that most of the murderers escaped the death penalty and that the authorities did not strictly apply the law. This situation was not an official policy directed from the highest governmental authorities. Consequently, the responsa of the Rabbis must be viewed within the framework of what the general documentation tells us about the criminal judicial system with regard to citizens of the Empire, including both Moslems and members of other religious sects.103 A clear fact which stands out from these responsa is the routine disregard of the Moslem courts and authorities who had to carry out the qadis’ verdicts in criminal trials where the victims were Jews. Scholars may hope that, as more sicills of various cities in the Ottoman Empire are published, they will be able to determine the extent of practice of retaliation and blood money on the part of all segments of the population of the Empire, and to provide strong foundations for some of the conclusions of this article. 103 Heyd, 213-215,31 Iff. /