وَظِيفة

وَظِيفة

Wazifa, lexically, is what is fixed of food, sustenance or work for a given time; it is also used for the daily litany of the recitation and for an office and a particular service, a later usage, and figuratively for the tithe and the land tax. Mihna is service and work, and wazifa is the wider term. ¹

First, wazifa as the work required of a person; it is either general (public) or particular. ¹

Public offices: the power to appoint to public offices belongs to whoever's commands are obeyed and whose supervision is valid: the sovereign who holds all affairs, the minister of delegation, or a governor of a general charge, such as a provincial governor. An appointee must be trusted in honesty, able to discharge the duty alone, and the best suited; the book cites a saying about appointing a man when others are better, noting that one of its transmitters is weak. ¹²

At the appointment the work that falls to the officer must be defined, its rules and rights known, and the place where he works specified. ²

The period of an officer's charge depends on the terms of appointment: a fixed term in months or years, a task that ends with its completion, or an unlimited charge. Al-Mawardi distinguishes whether the officer is bound when the pay is known and valid for a contract, from the case where pay is not so fixed. ²³ If the appointment is valid, a continuing charge (collecting revenue, judging) continues until dismissal, while a charge that ends (such as the division of spoils) lapses; a charge that recurs every year (such as the land tax) has two views: confined to the year of appointment, or read as continuing each year until dismissal, by custom. ³

Particular offices: those tied to the contracts that the parties make, including endowments. In an endowment the ruler or any officer may not create an office that the founder's terms did not provide, nor spend from the endowment on it; whoever does so is a sinner, and the administrator who does so is dismissed; no one but the founder may dismiss the appointee except for a clear cause such as incapacity or betrayal. ³⁴

The wording of the appointment is express or allusive; appointment by word or by writing, when accompanied by evidence, is permitted, and the details are under the appointment heading. ⁴

Wording of the appointment, continued: an appointment may be made in express or allusive words, by writing when the circumstances supply evidence, and in an immediate form. ⁴ On conditional appointment: the Hanafis and one Shafi'i view opposite the sounder view allow it, citing the Prophet's appointment of Zayd, then Ja'far, then Ibn Rawaha at the battle of Mu'ta; the Malikis and Hanbalis are read to accept it in their statements. The sounder Shafi'i view forbids the conditioning of offices on a condition except in necessity, as in a bequest or a command. ⁴⁵

Buying an office for money: the Shafi'is, and one view of the Hanafis and Malikis, forbid it; the Hanbalis, the Hanafi view on which fatwas are given, one Maliki view (weak according to al-Hattab) and some Shafi'is such as al-Subki, permit it. ⁵

Absence that leads to dismissal: the Hanafis distinguish. If the holder goes a journey's distance and returns, he forfeits what he would have received during the absence; if he stays in the countryside fifteen days or more without excuse he forfeits it, while an excuse such as seeking a living is pardoned unless the absence exceeds three months, when another may take the office; if he is in the town and does not occupy himself with religious learning, he may be dismissed. Where he appoints a deputy, no one else may take his office. The book cites al-Khassaf: if a custodian suffers an incapacity that prevents him from acting, he takes no pay, but if he can still speak, command, forbid, take and give, he takes it. ⁵⁶

Resigning an office: the Hanafis hold that a holder who dismisses himself is not dismissed until the judge is informed and appoints another. The Hanbalis hold that if a person resigns an office such as the imamate, preaching or teaching to one who is qualified, the resignee is not superseded; if the official with authority appoints him, the matter is complete; if not, the office stays with the resignor. Al-Ruhaybani gives the conditions for the resignation to be complete: acceptance by the appointee and approval by the authority. ⁶⁷

The children of officials after their death: the Hanafis hold that where a holder of an office in the public treasury, for the sake of religion and the strengthening of Islam, such as the imam's or muezzin's pay, dies leaving sons who perform the duty and maintain the same, they have the better claim to it; the details continue on the next page. ⁷

The children of holders after their death: the Hanafis hold that where a holder of an office in the public treasury, for the sake of God's law and the strengthening of Islam, dies leaving sons who perform the duty, the imam may give the office to the sons and to no one else, to secure the purpose and to console them; al-Bayri says this is an accepted custom in the two holy cities, Egypt and Rum, where the sons are qualified. ⁷

The holder's death before receiving his pay: if the work could not lawfully be hired for, as with sins, his claim lapses; if it could be hired for, he receives the pay for what he did and it passes as an inheritance. If the work is an act of worship, such as the call to prayer, the imamate, teaching the Qur'an or the pilgrimage, the jurists differ according to whether it may be hired for. ⁸

Entitlement to pay for an office: an office is either a particular task or a public charge of the state, such as the emirate, judgeship, imamate, call to prayer or teaching the Qur'an. The jurists differ on taking pay for these; hiring for sins is forbidden by agreement. Detail is under hire. ⁸ Al-Mawardi and Abu Ya'la say the pay of an agent has three cases: a named pay, which he earns if he does the work and loses part of if he neglects it or embezzles; an unnamed pay, which he earns at the wage of the like; and no pay named at all. In the last case the Shafi'i school view has him a volunteer with no pay; al-Muzani holds he has the wage of the like; Ibn Suraij distinguishes whether he is known for taking pay; Abu Ishaq al-Marwazi distinguishes whether he was called to the work. Abu Ya'la holds with Ibn Suraij, and where there is no fund to draw on the pay comes from the public treasury, from the share for public interests. ⁸⁹

The office as a daily litany: what a person sets himself each day or night of work; the details are under its own heading. ⁹

The office as a levy on land: the jurists divide what is due on land into tithe and tax, and the land tax into the fixed tax and the sharing tax; the rules are under land reclamation and tax. ⁹

The office as a daily allowance of food or sustenance: if it comes from the public treasury it is a sustenance, the measure being sufficiency; if it comes from another source, what the giver fixed governs, however little or much. ¹⁰