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74-450: Hisbah , the office and root of muḥtasib , is an Islamic doctrine referring to " enjoining good and forbidding wrong " of shariah law, and "by extension, to the maintenance of public law and order and supervising market transactions". But whether muḥtasibs devoted themselves to hisbah frequently or vigorously in every region of the Muslim world, or focused instead on the orderly function of

148-560: A "personal" duty of Muslims enjoined in Quranic verses such as 3:110 and 9:71, to right wrongs "committed by fellow believers, as and when one encountered them." It was "mainly an invention" of Al-Ghazali " (d.1111). Al-Ghazali also used the term muhtasib , but to refer to "the one who performs hisba" -- a forbidder of wrong in general and not specifically a functionary overseeing marketplaces -- leading to some confusion, according to historian Michael Cook . A large "scholastic heritage" on

222-610: A "religious-judicial ... conceptual framework" on it to add enforcement of Islamic law to the list of their duties. According to Islamic tradition, the first persons with jurisdiction over the markets in Mecca and Medina, were appointed by the Islamic prophet Muhammad . Muhammad engaged Saʿid b. Saʿid b. al-As over the suq (Arab for marketplace) of Medina sometime after the conquest of Mecca (629 AD). Later, Rashidun ('Rightly Guided Caliph') Umar also had "two men working for him over

296-462: A bad reputation in general", Floor speculates bribes were solicitated to "get back" their monthly payment. Nizam al-Mulk writes that the muhtasib "must take particular care ... that moral and religious principles are observed", and since scholars of Islamic law would have particular expertise in this regard, it would make sense that muhtasib would often be someone learned in Islamic "moral and religious principles". However, according to Willem Floor, this

370-484: A claimant to that title." Below the level of Mujtahid Mutlaq is the Mujtahid Muqayyad or Restricted Jurist-Scholar. A Mujtahid Muqayyad must pass rulings according to the confines of his particular madhhab (school of jurisprudence), or particular area of specialization. This is according to the view that ijtihad or the ability of legal deduction can be achieved in specified areas, and does not require

444-494: A duty to call on the wrongdoer to stop, but carrying "no power or duty of enforcement"; and ḥisbah or censorship, (according to ʿAbd al-Ghani), being the duty to enforce right conduct ( ḥaml al-nās ʿalā ʾl-ṭāʿa ) and reserved to authorities—unless the offense was being committed while the "ordinary believer" could intervene. Scholars opinions and ideas on forbidding wrong are found in legal literature such as collections of fatawas , in theological handbooks, monographs devoted to

518-476: A later origin, and the difference in the terms has caused some confusion. According to Michael Cook, the second use is "mainly an invention" of Al-Ghazali " (d.1111), who followed a precedent set by "a somewhat earlier scholar", Mawardi (d.1058) and "adopted the word hisba" as it is currently used. A slightly different definition than Al-Ghazali's comes from ʿAbd al-Ghani al-Nābulusī (d.1731), who distinguished between forbidding wrong and ḥisbah . The first being

592-521: A muhtasib is called a muhtasibat . There were about 44 muhtasibat s in Tatarstan as of 2002. The position appears to have disappeared in the nineteenth century, as law enforcement across the Muslim world underwent modernization. In Pakistan, the Mohtasib is an Ombudsman , responsible for the prosecution and redressal of grievances against federal or provincial government functionaries. In Iran,

666-543: A number of factors both intrinsic and extrinsic to their legal schools, scholars apportioned this labor in differing ways, some reserving the execution of the duty by "tongue" for the scholars and by "hand" for the political authorities such as the muḥtasib , or those invested with the authority to carry out the duty on their behalf, and others arguing that these modes extended to all qualified believers. Scholars argue that free (non-slave) adult male Muslims are obliged to forbid wrongdoing, and that non-Muslims are excluded from

740-450: A rapist to collapse, etc. In Islamic literature on the subject, an "ubiquitous theme" is attack on forbidden objects—the overturning of chessboards, the destruction of musical instrument and sacred trees, defacing of decorative images. Punishment could be very broadly enforced. Cook writes that "according to a thirteenth-century geographer, a custom was observed each year in Gilan in

814-446: Is "in accordance with the custom", while munkar, which has no place in the custom, as its opposite, singular ( nukr ). In today's religious expression, maʿrūf sunnah (this concept was not different from custom in the beginning ), munkar is meant as bid’a . (a related topic: Istihsan ) Some jurists classified human behavior ( Ahkam ) and linked the definition of good and evil to this classification. In theory, what Allah sees as good

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888-453: Is a duty of Muslims is "very rare", and non-existent after the first two centuries of Islam. Some scholars (Hasan al-Basri, Abdullah ibn Shubruma d.761) have argued that forbidding wrong is to be encouraged but not an obligation. Other groups (Hanbalites, Shia) have been accused (unjustly or with exaggeration) of denying it is obligatory. Fuqaha A faqīh ( pl. : fuqahāʾ , Arabic : فقيه ; pl. : ‏ فقهاء ‎)

962-682: Is a famous report: Mutazilite and Shia Imamis quote different traditions than this Sunni Hadith, but all agree on the Quran and on "the existence of the duty" to command and forbid. According to historian Michael Cook (whose book Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought is the major English language source on the issue), a slightly different phrase is used in a similar hadith -- 'righting wrong' ( taghyir al-munkar ) instead of 'forbidding wrong' ( an-nahy ʿani-l-munkar ) -- but "scholars take it for granted" that 'the two "are

1036-511: Is an Islamic jurist, an expert in fiqh , or Islamic jurisprudence and Islamic law . Islamic jurisprudence or fiqh is the human understanding of Sharia , which is believed by Muslims to represent divine law as revealed in the Quran and sunnah (the practices of the Islamic prophet Muhammad ). Sharia is expanded and developed by interpretation ( ijtihad ) of the Quran and sunnah by Islamic jurists ( ulama ) and implemented by

1110-419: Is an "individual duty" (i.e. an obligation of all believers described above), or collective duty (an obligation where once a sufficient number of Muslims undertake it, others cease to be obligated). According to Cook, "the standard view" of pre-modern scholars was that the duty was collective, though some held it was individual or both collective and individual, meaning that "at the point at which we come upon

1184-402: Is clear that a community is enjoined to command right and forbid wrong, it does not indicate whether this included all Muslims or only some. Three "basic questions arising "about the duty of forbidding wrong" are Differences in scholarly debates over the duty of "commanding right and forbidding wrong" stemmed from the positions taken by jurists ( Faqīh ) on questions regarding who precisely

1258-484: Is good, and what Allah sees as bad is bad. However, this classification reflected their interpretation and understandings on sharia. This expression is the base of the classical Islamic institution of ḥisba , the individual or collective duty (depending on the Islamic school of law ) to intervene and enforce Islamic law . It forms a central part of the Islamic doctrine for Muslims. The injunctions also constitute two of

1332-592: Is not really hisbah in the sense that it does not command or forbid. A step between use of the tongue and a "purely mental act" of the heart in fighting evil is showing disapproval by "range of behavior running from frowns to turning away from the offender to formally ostracising him ( hajr )". Some believed there was yet another mode beyond hand, voice and heart -- "spiritual power" ( inkār al-munkar biʾl-ḥāl ). According to some Sufis, they could fight wrongdoing by supernatural means—turning wine into vinegar or water, using spiritual force to cause wine vessels to break, or

1406-493: Is sometimes referred to as a Mujtahid Mutlaq or Unrestricted Jurist-Scholar, while one who has not reached that level generally will have mastered the methodology ( usul ) used by one or more of the prominent madhhab and will be able to apply this methodology to arrive at the traditional legal rulings of his/her respective madhhab. According to the Sunni Muslim website Living Islam, "There is no mujtahid mutlaq today nor even

1480-405: Is to inflicted only by the state, and not by individuals, is widespread, if not quite universal." Others argue that these modes extended to all qualified believers. According to Al-Nawawi , 'changing the reprehensible by hand,' or by compulsion, like jihad , was the purview of the state alone; changing with the tongue' was the right of the ulama; ordinary, individual Muslims should only reject

1554-450: The muḥtasib , officials who in Islamic law are following " fard 'ayniyya [political duty]" and mutatawwi ("true believers" or volunteers who follow fard kifaya [individual duty] of Islamic law to take "the initiative to see to the upholding of the requirements of the law and the hisbah". Another related definition of Hisbah is not as an official function with any special connection to marketplaces, weights and measures, etc.; but as

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1628-546: The Abbasid Caliphate that the first Muhtasibs are mentioned." Buckley states that "some later commentators" tell stories implying that the hisba duties of the Mutasib were undertaken by the early caliphs (such as Umar and Ali ), suggesting that they, not the ʿAmil ʿalā Sūq market inspectors, handled religious duties, and that later renaming the official Muhtasib "was intended to indicate ... an Islamicizing of

1702-538: The Buyids of the Abbasids ) the office of the muhtasib (along with offices such as qadi (judge), and sahib al-shurta (chief of police)), was for sale. In 961 CE the office was sold for 20,000 dirhams per month. Based on the fact that the office holders would very likely want to recoup the large sum of money they were paying, and that the historical literature of this time indicated it was "clear" that "the muhtasib had

1776-597: The "Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice" in their titles) have appeared in Iran , Saudi Arabia , Nigeria , Sudan , Malaysia , etc., at various times and with various levels of power, to combat sinful activities and compel virtuous ones. However, Saudi authorities have recently made it clear that men and women can co-exist in public areas in Islam. They paved the way by organizing concert and sports events open for

1850-750: The Hindu fashion. Among the Tatars of the Russian Empire the möxtäsip was a Muslim functionary expected to keep vigilant watch on the execution of the Sharia . In 1920s, after the October Revolution and ban on religion, their service was abolished. Today, in Russia and a number of former Soviet republics, a muhtasib is a regional representative of a spiritual board (muftiate). The office of

1924-715: The Khedive dynasty. Moreover, it was renewed in the Ottoman Empire in 1855, and in the Republic of Syria in 1925". According to authors Cahen and Talbi, writing in the Encyclopaedia of Islam , "it is now commonly accepted that the function of muhtasib in Islamic countries is the direct successor of that of the Byzantine agoranomo ", i.e. overseer or market inspector. Willem Floor writes that "we ... know that

1998-530: The Muntaseb family is a Muslim family in Palestine in the city of Hebron Hisbah Enjoining good and forbidding wrong ( Arabic : ٱلْأَمْرُ بِٱلْمَعْرُوفِ وَٱلنَّهْيُ عَنِ ٱلْمُنْكَرِ , romanized :  al-amru bi-l-maʿrūfi wa-n-nahyu ʿani-l-munkari ) are two important duties imposed by God in Islam as revealed in the Quran and Hadith . "The term that best helps us to understand

2072-501: The Religious Sciences , is "innovative, insightful, and rich in detail" and "achieved a wide currency in the Islamic world." He wrote: Every Muslim has the duty of first setting himself to rights, and then, successively, his household, his neighbours, his quarter, his town, the surrounding countryside, the wilderness with its Bedouins, Kurds, or whatever, and so on to the uttermost ends of earth. What Ghazali wrote about

2146-499: The duties of a Muḥtasib and that the Muḥtasib often relied on were called ḥisba ; they contained practical advice on management of the marketplace, as well as other things a muhtasib needed to know — for example, manufacturing and construction standards. Another source, though much more limited in volume, is especially important in understanding what Muḥtasib did. Sources, usually historical and geographical, "which occasionally refer to

2220-547: The duties of the Muhtasib" but preaches that it "is not just the commercial behavior of the Muslims that needs to be regulated, but also their behavior to God", and that fraud in business transactions is not wrong because it "was "judged 'immoral,' but because such behavior stemmed from a distorted notion of the deity and, therefore, violated the basic tenets of Islam". Manuals written specifically for instruction and guidance in

2294-408: The duties of the muḥtasib of Cairo included "the regulation of weights, money, prices, public morals, and the cleanliness of public places, as well as the supervision of schools, instruction, teachers, and students, and attention to public baths, general public safety, and the circulation of traffic." The muhtasib or muhtesip was authorized to audit the businesses if they were selling their products at

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2368-449: The duty. Michael Cook paraphrases al-Ghazali in asking, "After all, since the duty consists in coming to the aid of the faith, how could one of its enemies [an unbeliever] perform it?" and points out that if a nonbeliever upbraided a Muslim for wrongdoing he would "presuming to exercise an illegitimate authority over the Muslim", who should never be humiliated by an unbeliever. Those who lack legal competency ( mukallaf ), such as children and

2442-645: The early centuries of Islam are Jahm ibn Safwan (d.746), in late Umayyad Transoxiana , Yusuf al-Barm in Khurasan in 776 CE, Al-Mubarqa in Palestine 841/42 CE, Ibn al-Qitt in Spain in 901 CE and an `Abbasid who rebelled in Armenia in 960" CE. According to the well known exegete Al-Tabari (d.923) "right" refers to all that God and His Prophet have commanded, "wrong" to all that they have forbidden, i.e.

2516-429: The evil they come across, the Muslim might say to themselves: "O Allah, there is nothing that I can do to change this bad situation that You dislike and disapprove except that I hate it to take place. I do not agree to it. O Allah forgive me, guide me and save my heart to be influenced by it." In so doing "the heart of the believer who witnesses that evil" is protected from being influenced by it, though of course, this

2590-506: The existence of a muhtasib, his activities", are valuable because they "tell us how the muhtasib really was, not how he ought to be". Some examples of how widespread Muhtasib was in Islamic history are that "in Persia, the function of the mutasib continued to operate in a fashion practically unchanged until the 16th century, and in Egypt it existed until the reign of Muhammad Ali, the founder of

2664-404: The fight that far. Callers should possess virtuous "qualities": sincerity, knowledge, wisdom, forbearance, patience, humility, courage, generosity. Greater evils should get priority over lower ones. Callers should speak to wrongdoers in private when possible to avoid "scolding". When all else fails and the only portion of the hadith available to a Muslim witnessing an evil act is to dislike

2738-521: The founder the Buddha . A particularly similar formulation is found in the book of Psalms : "Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it". (Psalm 34:14) However, Michael Cook finds no "serious precedent" for use of the phrases "forbidding wrong" and "commanding right" in the literature of the immediate predecessors of Muhammad his companions, pre-Islamic Arabian traditions and poetry. Traditionally, in classical Islamic administrations, there

2812-499: The house may be one occupied illegally, or someone present may be drinking wine or wearing silk or a golden signet ring, or a heretic may be holding forth about his heresy, or some joker may be regaling the party with ribald and untruthful humour. (Humour that is neither untruthful nor indecorous is acceptable in moderation, provided it does not become a habit.) On top of all this there may be extravagance and wastefulness." Common wrongdoing described by Al-Ghazali committed (for example in

2886-477: The last of the great Mughal emperors , Emperor of India from 1658 to 1707, muḥtasibs were in contrast to polities to the west, "censors of morals", enforcers of "increasingly puritanical ordinances" by the militant orthodox Sunni Muslim emperor. They worked to destroy "Hindu idols, temples, and shrines" in the majority Hindu country, saw that the Muslim confession of faith, "was removed from all coins lest it be defiled by unbelievers", and that forbade from saluting in

2960-413: The law respecting what is required ( wajib ), sinful ( haram ), recommended ( mandub ), disapproved ( makruh ) or neutral ( mubah )". This definition is consistent amongst the jurists. Methods of derivation are laid out in the books of usul al-fiqh (principles of fiqh), and the types of evidence which are deemed valid for deriving rulings from are many in number. Four of them are agreed upon by

3034-499: The market overseer existed" in [pre-Islamic] Parthian (247 BC – 224 AD) and Sassanian Iran (224–651 CE). "We know that this official, who was referred to as agoranomos , existed in Babylonia, Seleucia, and Dura". Floor notes that the societies conquered by early Muslims had market inspectors similar to muhtasib; that the muhtasib technical manuals that dealt with the market inspection "came into being earlier than those" that put

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3108-410: The marketplace) may be divided into categories such as On the other hand, looking at the violations (found not just in the marketplace) through modern eyes, they can be categorized into a different set of norms being violated: A pious tract Commentary of Forty Hadiths of An Nawawi , citing different scholars, gives various advice to "callers" who enjoin good and forbid evil. They should first warn

3182-480: The marketplace, regulating weights, money, prices (though sometimes collecting bribes), is disputed. According to Sami Hamarneh, in "religious terminology", hisbah "denotes providing for ... for oneself, or seeking reward in life to come for a good deed." It acquired another meaning sometime early in the 9th century" as "a religious position or bureau the aim of which was to carry out" enjoining good and forbidding evil. At least one scholar (Willem Floor) distinguishes

3256-423: The mentally ill, are also excluded. However, scholars are generally "reluctant to restrict the range of those for whom forbidding wrong is a duty", and so usually include two other groups not possessing the rights of free adult male Muslims—namely slaves and women. "Sinners" are also not exempt according to the "standard" view of Islamic scholars. Schools of law differ over whether hisbah (forbidding wrong)

3330-525: The mosque, the market, the street, the bath-house and hospitality". For example, in "hospitality" there may be, "laying out silk coverings for men, using censers made of silver or gold, hanging curtains with images on them [images of sentient beings are forbidden among some branches of Islam] and listening to musical instruments or singing-girls. Then there is the scandal of women gathering on roofs to watch men when there are youths among them who could give rise to temptation. Or forbidden food may be served or

3404-446: The mosques for eating, sleeping, giving verdicts, and disturbing the performance of the daily prayers", pigeon flying, making music, were less than rare occurrences in the jurisdiction of muhtasibs in medieval Baghdad, Seljuq, Ilkhan, Timurid, Safavid Afshars, Zands, and Qajar periods . Floor argues that the all this may be explained by Islamic legal scholars ( fuqaha ) taking "the existing institution" of market inspector and imposing

3478-524: The muhtasib in his work in a particular place and time". One of the earliest and most influential manuals for a muḥtasib is the Nihāyat al-rutba fī ṭalab al-ḥisba by Abd al-Rahman ibn Nasr ibn Abdallah al-Shayzari (d. 1193). Another example of book on hisbah (by a famous scholar ( Ibn Taymiyya ) translated as Public Duties in Islam the institution of the Hisba ) that as one review put it, not only "delineates

3552-589: The muhtasib was "as unpopular a figure as had been his predecessors in earlier periods," accepting presents and bribes, and it was said one "could neither expect good nor profit from the muhtasib." In Mamluk Egypt , muḥtasibs were appointed by the sultan to inspect marketplaces and monitor the honesty of merchants. According to Kristen Stilt, "muḥtasibs in Cairo markets had a stand ( dikka ) from which they observed and whipped those who cheated when weighing their goods". "Muḥtasibs were instructed to parade cheaters" before

3626-632: The muḥtasib was abolished in Shiraz around 1852, in Isfahan , in 1877. In Tehran it lived on as the idara-yi ihtisa losing its "police and judicial functions and developed into a city cleaning department" that was "sold" each year to the highest bidder. While city dust removal carried on, the "definitive end" of the ihtisab came with its abolition in 1926 following the fall of the Qajar dynasty . With variant spellings as Muhtasib, Muhtaseb, and Montase,

3700-561: The nature of Qurʾān ethical prescriptions is ma'ruf , as it appears 38 times in slightly varying forms in the Qurʾān, and they are important because of the duties imposed on believers through these words also. Traditional commentators oppose the association of maʿrūf with its cognate urf , "custom." Although most common translations of the phrase is " good and evil ", the words used by Islamic philosophy in determining good and evil discourses are ḥusn and qubh . In its most common usage, maʿrūf

3774-402: The north of Iran, [whereby] scholars would seek permission from the ruler to command right. Once they had it, they would round up everyone and flog them. If a man swore that he had neither drunk nor fornicated, the scholar would ask him his trade; if he said he was a grocer, the scholar would infer that he cheated his customer, and flog him anyway." "Straightforward denial" that forbidding wrong

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3848-446: The offenders of the consequences of evil, and only after this approach has been "fully utilised" should they proceed to "the hand". Use of the tongue could vary from "a delicate hint" to "a ruthless tongue lashing", and the hand from "a restraining hand" to use of arms. Al-Ghazali believed the use of a group of armed fighters to combat wrongdoing did not require the permission of the ruler if good Muslims thought it necessary to escalate

3922-475: The office of hisba "in its religious-judicial context"; and that the general historical and geographical Islamic sources that mention the muhtasib's tasks indicate these were primarily market supervision, as in real life the medieval muhtasib either didn't have much to do with moral and religious tasks or "just didn't bother with them", as according to sources describing life in the Muslim world, un-Islamic activities like "begging, vagrancy, gambling, castrating, using

3996-464: The post". According to Oxford Islamic Studies, the office of muḥtasib, in classical Islamic administrations, fell "roughly between" that of judge ( qadi ) and court magistrate". Unlike a qadi , he "had no jurisdiction to hear cases—only to settle disputes and breaches of the law where the facts were admitted or there was a confession of guilt". In the reign of the Sultan Barqūq , for example,

4070-453: The price limits set by the government. In addition, craftsmen and builders were usually responsible to the muhtasib for the standards of their craft. The muhtasib also inspected if the food sold was safe and the measuring equipment was accurate. "The Muḥtasib also inspected public eating houses. He could order pots and pans to be re-tinned or replaced; all vessels and their contents had to be kept covered against flies and insects... The Muḥtasib

4144-437: The public as both punishment and deterrence against cheating by other merchants. The manuals of the Muhtasib included "information on merchants’ tricks." In 1837, Mehmed Ali (aka Muhammad Ali of Egypt ) "issued a siyāsa code" (a legislative order} that "completely abolished the muḥtasib offices in Cairo and Alexandria and transferred their duties to police and the health administration" in those two cities. Under Aurangzeb ,

4218-496: The public. Answering the question of why there is a duty among Muslims to forbid wrong are statements in the Quran and hadith. Scholars have provided a number of reasons why the obvious reading of this verse is incorrect, such as that it refers not to the present but "to some future time when forbidding wrong will cease to be effective." Appearing in Sahih Muslim , the second most prestigious collection of Sunni hadith

4292-406: The reprehensible with their hearts. In practice, as far as can be determined, the people who went around commanding and forbidding in pre-modern Islam, were "overwhelmingly scholars", according to Michael Cook. Regarding rebellion as a means of overturning state/ruler wrong, Cook finds the opinions of Islamic scholars "'heavily stacked' against this approach. In general this was when (and if) it

4366-549: The rulings ( fatwas ) of jurists on questions presented to them. Fiqh deals with the observance of rituals, morals and social legislation in Islam. In the modern era there are four prominent schools ( madhhab ) of fiqh within Sunni practice and two (or three) within Shia practice. The historian Ibn Khaldun describes fiqh as "knowledge of the rules of God which concern the actions of persons who own themselves bound to obey

4440-625: The same thing, ..." Sunnis , Ibadis and Twelver (also called Imami) Shia schools of Islam "made extensive use of" the "schema" set out by this hadith Depending on the translation from the Quran, the phrase may also be translated as commanding what is just and forbidding what is evil , commanding right and forbidding wrong , and other combinations of "enjoin" or "command", "right" or "just", "wrong", "unjust", or "evil". Phrases similar to forbidding evil and commanding good can be found examining texts of ancient Greek philosophers -- Stoic Chrysippus (d.207 BC) and Aristotle (d.322) -- and

4514-635: The same weight as the Quran and sunnah , this is not accepted by Sunni jurists. A faqih is one who has fulfilled the conditions for ijtihad either in their entirety or piecemeal. In the Sunni view it is generally held that there are no or very few jurists that have reached the level of Mujtahid Mutlaq (see below) in our day and age. In the Twelver Shia view, each of the Marja' have reached this level. The faqih who fulfills all conditions of ijtihad

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4588-596: The sharia. Al-Nawawi also stated that Shariah principles determined what was to be commanded and forbidden. However, the verses are vague and do not speak of Sharia/God's law. According to Michael Cook, "a trend" in early exegesis ( tafsir ) indicated the duty referred to affirming the basic message of Islam—and so commanded only the "unity of God" and "veracity" of his prophet, and forbade polytheism and denial of Muhammad's prophethood. There are also scholarly disagreements between schools of fiqh ( madhhab ). Al-Ghazali provides "a survey" of wrongs commonly found in

4662-407: The subject of who was to do the forbidding, what was to be forbidden, and whom was to be told there actions were forbidden, was developed by Al-Ghazali and other medieval scholars. While most of the literature describing of the function of muhtasib that scholars use comes from two sources: the "theoretical writings on the role, function, and tasks of the muhtasib", and from "practical manuals to guide

4736-512: The subject, and in commentaries on the Qur'an and Hadith. Sunni works of jurisprudence do not cover the topic of Forbidding Wrong, but Twelver ( Ja'fari school of thought ) scholars along with others among Zaydis and Ibadi branches of Islam do. Al-Ghazali (1058-1111 CE) was "perhaps the first major Islamic thinker to devote substantial amount of space" to these two duties, and his account of forbidding wrong in (Book 19 of his) The Revival of

4810-512: The suq of Medina". One of whom used the title ʿAmil ʿalā Sūq . During the Umayyad period there were reports of four market inspectors, including those covering the sūq of Mecca for Ibn al-Zubayr, sūq of Wāsit under the governor of Iraq and the East for Yazld II. The market inspector in Umayyad dynasty in Spain was called Sāḥib al-Sūq . According to R.P. Buckley, "it is during the early years of

4884-452: The ten Ancillaries of the Faith of Twelver Shi'ism . Pre-modern Islamic literature describes pious Muslims (usually scholars) taking action to forbid wrong by destroying forbidden objects, particularly liquor and those who had the view that certain types of musical instruments are haram. In the contemporary Muslim world, various state or parastatal bodies (often with phrases like

4958-575: The vast majority of jurists. They are: These four types of evidence are seen as acceptable by the vast majority of jurists from both the schools of Sunni jurists (the Hanafi , Maliki , Shafi'i , and Hanbali and sometimes the Zahiriyah ), as well as Shia jurists. However, Zahiriyah or Literalists do not see qiyas as valid. While Twelver Shia see edicts of the Twelve Imams as holding

5032-594: The wrongdoing, or the wrongdoer starts his mischief, we are all obligated; but once you take care of the matter, the rest of us have no further obligation." Who is eligible to use force (their "hand") to command and forbid is disputed, some reserving it for the political authorities or their underlings. ("At different times" a position supported by the Shafites, the Malikis and the Hanafis). "The view that punishment

5106-413: Was also expected to keep a close check on all doctors, surgeons, blood-letters and apothecaries." After 1500 C.E, the muhatsib was almost exclusively responsible for ensuring that the weights and measures used in the market were fair and consistent. According to Ahmed Ezzat, there are "three common features shared by all ḥisba treatises, from Yahya ibn ‘Umar to Mamluk Egypt": However, after 950 C.E. (in

5180-443: Was an office of al-hisbah, an inspector of "markets and morals", the holder of which was called a muhtasib . He was appointed by the caliph to oversee the order in market places, in businesses, in medical occupations, etc. He "had no jurisdiction to hear cases—only to settle disputes and breaches of the law where the facts were admitted or there was a confession of guilt." Hisbah as a "general term for 'forbidding wrong'" has

5254-646: Was foolhardy and dangerous to the subject doing the forbidding, not because it was disrespectful to the ruler. This did not stop political rebels in the early centuries of Islam from using forbidding wrong as their slogan, according to Cook. Examples were "found among the Kharijites , including the Ibadis , among the Shi'ites , including Zaydis , and among the Sunnis , especially the Malikis. Some instances of such rebels in

5328-539: Was not "the normal practice". An example being the Shi'ite poet Ibn al- Hajjaj, who was muhtasib of Bagdad, was at the same time one of the most notorious authors of sexually explicit poetry". Nizam al-Mulk , grand- vizir and de facto ruler of the Seljuk empire from 1064 to 1092, categorically stated: "the post [of muhtasib] always used to be given to one of the nobility or else to an eunuch or an old Turk." In Safavid times

5402-418: Was responsible for carrying out the duty, to whom it was to be directed, and what performance of the duty entailed. Often, these debates were framed according to what Michael Cook calls the "three modes" tradition, a tradition based on a prophetic hadith which identifies the "heart" ( qalb ), "tongue" ( lisān ), and "hand" ( yad ) as the three proper "modes" by which one should fulfill the obligation. Depending on

5476-594: Was the "personal duty to right wrongs committed by fellow believers as and when one encountered them." This theme also formed the "core" of the "scholastic heritage" on the subject created by other medieval scholars. But in the modern era "the conception" of forbidding wrong has changed and become more systematic. Now opposing wrongdoing involves "the organised propagation of Islamic values," according to Cook, which requires missionary work and organisation. And several contemporary Muslim majority states or provinces have some kind of Islamic " religious police ". While scripture

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