al-Saqati al-Malaqi
- Died
- 550 AH
- Born in
- -
Abu Abd Allah al-Saqati al-Malaqi (fl. c. 500–550 AH / 1100–1155 CE) was an Andalusian jurist from Malaga, best known for authoring the early market inspection manual Adab al-Hisba (The Manners of Market Inspection).
Life and Background
His full name appears in manuscripts as Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Abi Muhammad al-Saqati al-Malaqi al-Andalusi, though some later citations record his patronymic as Muhammad ibn Ahmad. In his youth, al-Saqati traveled extensively across different regions, gathering firsthand observations and consulting experienced merchants and travelers on trade customs. Alongside his travels, he undertook administrative responsibilities related to market governance and oversight.
Legal and Administrative Contribution
Al-Saqati composed Adab al-Hisba to address the widespread malpractice, adulteration of goods, and fraudulent weights and measures he observed among market vendors and craftsmen. He noted that individuals appointed to oversee market regulation often lacked the necessary legal grounding to distinguish between lawful and unlawful transactions, prompting him to compile practical rules based on the legal obligation of enjoining good and forbidding wrong.
In defining the jurisdictional scope of market inspection, al-Saqati placed the office of hisba as an intermediate authority between standard judicial courts (qada') and the court of grievances (mazalim), sharing procedural and punitive characteristics with both. In addition to monitoring commercial transactions, he required the inspector to maintain urban cleanliness by clearing market waste and mud to prevent public harm, and to penalize fraudulent or illicit street practitioners such as fortune-tellers and sorcerers. His work is recognized as one of the earliest extant specialized manuals on hisba and municipal market regulation produced in al-Andalus and the Islamic West.
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List of Works
Adab al-Hisba (The Manners of Market Inspection) is an Andalusian legal and administrative manual focused on market oversight and public morality. It is one of the earliest surviving specialized treatises addressing the institution of hisba in the Islamic West, covering al-Andalus and the Maghrib.