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37-446: 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

74-555: 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

111-601: 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

148-462: 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

185-476: 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

222-511: 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,

259-555: 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

296-487: 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

333-450: 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

370-533: 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

407-529: 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

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444-719: 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

481-686: 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

518-668: The Muntaseb family is a Muslim family in Palestine in the city of Hebron Hisbah Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.226 via cp1108 cp1108, Varnish XID 758722957 Upstream caches: cp1108 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 05:36:45 GMT Fuqaha A faqīh ( pl. : fuqahāʾ , Arabic : فقيه ; pl. : ‏ فقهاء ‎)

555-499: 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

592-537: 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

629-408: 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

666-498: 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

703-477: 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

740-413: 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

777-494: 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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814-480: 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

851-446: 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

888-568: 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

925-585: 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

962-619: 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,

999-475: 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

1036-464: 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,

1073-453: 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

1110-437: 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 ,

1147-541: 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

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1184-621: 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

1221-407: 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

1258-551: 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

1295-560: 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

1332-413: 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

1369-532: 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

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