Muhtasib
A muḥtasib (Arabic: محتسب, from the root حسبة ḥisbah, or "accountability"[1]) was "a holder of the office of al-hisbah in classical Islamic administrations", according to Oxford Islamic Studies.[2] Also called ‘amil al-suq or sahib al-suq,[3] the muḥtasib was a supervisor of bazaars and trade, the inspector of public places and behavior in towns in the medieval Islamic countries, appointed by the sultan, imam, or other political authority. His duty was to ensure that public business was conducted in accordance with the law of sharia.
This article is about the traditional Islamic inspector of bazaars and trade. For overview of the duty to enjoin good and forbid wrong in Islam, see Hisbah. For the general duty of all Muslims to enjoin good and forbid wrong and scholarly study of the duty, see Enjoining good and forbidding wrong.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".[4] 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 the marketplace, regulating weights, money, prices (though sometimes collecting bribes), is disputed.[5]
Literature[edit]
While most of the literature describing of the function of muhtasib[7] 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 the muhtasib in his work in a particular place and time".[3]
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).[15] 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 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".[16]
Manuals written specifically for instruction and guidance in 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.[17]
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 the existence of a muhtasib, his activities", are valuable because they "tell us how the muhtasib really was, not how he ought to be".[18]