The scythe would be idle, the granaries would be empty, the tillers of the ground would come hungry into the markets, and they themselves that were town-dwellers and tradesmen would be perishing for bread, both they and their children with them.
Thus in Israel's absence, while he was away at Shawan, the three-and-twenty judges of the new Synhedrin of Tetuan had--contrary to Jewish custom--tried and convicted him.

God would not let them perish for this man's life, and neither would He charge them with his blood.
Nevertheless, judges though they were, they could not kill him.

They could only appeal against him to the Kaid.

And what could they say?
That the Lord had sent this plague of locusts in punishment of Israel's sin?
Ben Aboo would laugh in their faces and answer them, "It is written." That to appease God's wrath it was expedient that this Jew should die?
Convince the Muslim that a Jew had brought this desolation upon the land of the Shereefs, and he would arise, and his soldiers with him, and the whole community of the Jewish people would be destroyed.
The judges had laid their heads together.

It was idle to appeal to Ben Aboo against Israel on any ground of belief.