Risalat Umar ibn Uthman ibn al-Abbas al-Jarsifi fi al-Hisba
- Author died
- 1214 AH
- Editions
- Imprimerie de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale
Risalat Umar ibn Uthman ibn al-Abbas al-Jarsifi fi al-Hisba (The Treatise of Umar ibn Uthman ibn al-Abbas al-Jarsifi on Hisba) is a classical manual on market inspection, public morality, and municipal regulation written by the Maliki jurist Umar ibn Uthman ibn al-Abbas al-Jarsifi .
Concept and Legal Status of Hisba
Al-Jarsifi defines the office of hisba as one of the most critical administrative bureaus (diwan al-hisba), placing it immediately after the judgeship (qada) in honor and religious duty . Drawing on Abu al-Hasan al-Mawardi, he observes that early Muslim rulers exercised hisba directly due to its widespread public benefit, though later authorities neglected the post or delegated it to unworthy individuals, exposing it to bribery and diminishing its prestige . In essence, the office embodies the obligation of enjoining good and forbidding wrong through reasoned legal deduction, standardizing weights and measures, and preventing fraud, price gouging, and commercial deceit .
The author requires that the market inspector (muhtasib) possess qualifications exceeding even those of a judge: he must adhere to the teachings of Ahl al-Sunna wa-l-Jama'a, understand market trades and the tricks of merchants, remain vigilant and chaste, and maintain close communication with the sovereign to enforce discipline without vulnerability to corruption .
Content and Regulations
The treatise presents practical rules covering economic, social, urban, and judicial oversight:
- Market and Commercial Control: Standardizing measures and scales; preventing usury, obscure transactions, and forestalling goods before they arrive at the market; and banning commercial transactions during the Friday prayer sermon . It outlines regulations for pricing where permissible, inspects food cleanliness, and prohibits the sale of harmful, useless, or forbidden goods such as intoxicants, unauthorized musical instruments, and animal sculptures, while excepting girls' dolls used for educational play .
- Specific Trades: Inspection of pottery production (ensuring clay is not taken from usurped land), paper manufacture (sorting rags, thorough washing, fermentation, wheat sizing, and smooth pressing, noting that worldly and religious matters rely on papermakers), and parchment makers .
- Public Hygiene and Morality: Enforcing purity in food, beverages, and clothing; maintaining cleanliness around mosques and public ablution facilities; ensuring proper covering of the body in public baths; and curbing illicit gazing, quoting al-Nawawi and al-Shafi'i . It also regulates women attending funerals, visiting graves, or mingling inappropriately at celebrations .
- Urban Spaces and Public Welfare: Removing street obstructions, projecting balconies, and encroaching structures; managing drainage and waste disposal; preventing animal cruelty and overworking beasts of burden; and protecting cemeteries from degradation .
- Regulations for Non-Muslim Subjects (Ahl al-Dhimma): Restricting non-Muslims from overlooking Muslim homes, displaying wine or pork in public markets, or adopting prestigious Muslim dress and saddled horses, while requiring distinctive apparel markers .
- Public Order and Social Professions: Restraining charlatans, fraudulent healers, fortune-tellers, and untrained midwives; curbing public gambling and intoxication; and overseeing pious endowments (ahbas) such as bridges, roads, and mosques .
Legal Authorities and Penalties
The text relies heavily on Maliki jurisprudence, citing authorities such as Malik ibn Anas, Ibn al-Qasim, Ibn Sahl, Ibn Attab, Ibn al-Qattan, Abu al-Hasan al-Lakhmi, and Ibn Yunus .
For infractions, the muhtasib is empowered to enact financial and disciplinary penalties (ta'zir), including the destruction or charitable distribution of adulterated goods (such as watered-down milk or flawed textiles), market expulsion, and graded corporal punishments tailored to the offender's social standing and the severity of the offense . Permissible disciplinary measures include public reprimand, flogging within discretionary limits, shaving the offender's head hair, and public parading (tash-hir) for repeat offenders, while the execution of mandatory fixed penalties (hudud) remains strictly reserved for the judiciary .
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