Muhtasib (market inspector)

The muhtasib is the official charged with hisba: enjoining good and forbidding wrong in public life. He watches the markets, weights and measures, and prices, and he keeps public order and public morals. Jurists treat hisba as a collective duty on all Muslims, and as a personal duty for the official who holds it. ¹

The Turkish encyclopaedia says the Prophet ﷺ inspected the markets himself and appointed Companions to oversee them in Mecca and Medina. The sources name five early overseers, among them Said ibn al-As in Mecca, Abdullah ibn Said ibn Usayha in Medina, Umar ibn al-Khattab (may God be pleased with him), Samra bint Nuhayk and Shifa bint Abdullah. Umar, Uthman and Ali are said to have inspected the markets themselves. Uthman appointed al-Harith ibn al-Hakam as overseer of the Medina market and removed him for abusing his authority. ¹

The post was first called sahib al-suq or amil al-suq. The entry does not settle when the title muhtasib became the usual one. Some researchers date its spread to the reigns of al-Mahdi, al-Hadi or al-Ma'mun, but the change in meaning is not settled. ¹

Hisba covers three kinds of right: God's right, the rights of people, and rights that are both. The first includes the call to prayer, congregational and Friday and festival prayers, public breaches of worship and innovation, drunkenness, mixing of the sexes beyond the limit, and quacks and unqualified people who give fatwas. The second includes roads, canals and public works, labour disputes, the rights of neighbours, debtors who delay, and weights, measures and coins. The third includes protecting orphans, slaves and animals, cleaning and lighting roads, and forbidding building that harms the public. ¹

In the markets the muhtasib may act against fraud and short measure, fix prices when sellers collude, and decide quick commercial disputes. He does not hear evidence or administer oaths, and he does not judge homicide or the fixed penalties. He may act without a complaint, which sets him apart from the judge, who hears only the cases brought to him. ¹

He may impose discretionary penalties: reproof, prison, public exposure, beating, a ban from the trade and destruction of the tools of fraud. He uses the police and works alongside the judge and the head of grievances (nazir al-mazalim), and refers to the judge whatever falls outside his remit. ¹

Most jurists required a muhtasib to be a Muslim, free, of age and sound of mind, and to know what is right and what is wrong in the matters he oversees. Some required him to be a mujtahid. The arithmetic needed to check weights and exchange rates was also expected. ¹

The entry says the Prophet and Umar appointed women Companions to hisba work, so jurists allowed a woman to be appointed muhtasib. Justice, good character and trustworthiness were among the virtues of the post, and some jurists counted them as conditions. ¹

A muhtasib was paid from the treasury, and he and his assistants were forbidden to take anything from the public while they were on salary. The office was sometimes farmed out (mukataa): the muhtasib paid a fixed sum to the state and collected a hisba levy from the guilds and merchants for himself. In Baghdad that levy was abolished in 403 AH (1013 CE). ¹

He had deputies and assistants, called in the sources arif, amin, ghulam and others. Each trade had its own arif, the head of the guild, who reported to the muhtasib and settled disputes among its members. ¹

Under the Fatimids, Jawhar al-Siqilli appointed a muhtasib for Cairo in 358 AH (969 CE). Cairo and Fustat had two hisba centres answerable to the caliph. Appointments were read from the pulpits of the principal mosques, and the new muhtasib received a robe and a turban. If he also held the police, he was given a sword as well. The muhtasib appointed deputies in Fustat and in the provinces. ¹

In the Mamluk period the muhtasib of Cairo was usually chosen from the scholars, though some sources say that in one reign military men were also appointed. The muhtasib of Damascus was appointed by the viceroy and did not sit in the courts of justice, but he could appoint deputies in towns such as Aleppo, Tripoli and Hama. ¹

Judge Sahnun (about 849–854) in Kairouan took over the supervision of the market and then gave it to Habib ibn Nasr. The Cordoban scholar Yahya ibn Umar al-Kinani (d. 289 AH / 902 CE) wrote al-Nazar wa-l-ahkam fi jami' ahwal al-suq, one of the oldest surviving books on the market. Under the Almoravids Maliki law was restored, and their state came to be described as a government of jurists, judges and muhtasibs. ¹

In al-Andalus the market overseer was usually answerable to the judge or to the chief judge of the community, and was often chosen from jurists who knew the law. A physician was once put in charge of police and the market, to control pharmacists and herbalists. ¹

The entry describes a manual of hisba ascribed to al-Hasan al-Utrush (d. 304 AH / 917 CE), which treats hisba as completing the judicature. A learned, experienced muhtasib should be appointed in every city. In Seljuk Anatolia there was a diwan of hisba with its own head, and the muhtasib collected the levy from the trades by farming. ¹

The Ottomans called the office ihtisap ağası or ihtisap emini, and it appeared with the founding of the state. Each judge had a muhtasib to assist him, and Istanbul had muhtasibs in Galata, Üsküdar and Eyüp. The Istanbul regulation of Mehmed II's reign (1451–1481) holds the muhtasib responsible for the rights of everything God created. ²

The Ottoman muhtasib set prices, supervised the trades and their people, issued the permit needed to open a shop, and collected the ihtisabiyye levy on imports that competed with local goods. In the sixteenth century he was also used to check migration into Istanbul. After the abolition of the Janissaries in 1242 AH (1826 CE) a new regulation was issued. The muhtasib became responsible for checking imams and muezzins, and for punishing people who neglected prayer or fasting after referral to the judge. ²

In 1851 some of his work went to the police directorate. The Ihtisap Nezareti (ministry of the ihtisab) was set up again in 1852 and abolished in 1855, when its work passed to the Istanbul municipality. ²

The entry's section on the subcontinent says that the classical hisba did not exist there, mainly because most of the population was not Muslim. ¹

The functions of the muhtasib are now spread across specialist bodies: the Turkish Standards Institute, the ministries of finance, trade, industry and health, the municipalities, the ministry of construction, the Directorate of Religious Affairs, and the ministries of education and the interior. The office itself has gone; its work is shared among modern agencies. ¹

• TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, "HİSBE", Cengiz Kallek, A. S. Bazmee Ansari and Ziya Kazıcı. ¹