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{{Short description|Islamic Supervisor of bazaars, trade and inspector of public places hammams and even mosques }}
{{about|the traditional Islamic inspector of bazaars and trade|overview of the duty to enjoin good and forbid wrong in Islam|Hisbah|the general duty of all Muslims to enjoin good and forbid wrong and scholarly study of the duty|Enjoining good and forbidding wrong}}
[[File:Ralamb-93.jpg|thumb|"Muhtasib weighs the bread", from the Rålamb Costume Book, 1657]]
A '''muḥtasib''' ({{langx|ar|محتسب}}, from the root {{Lang|ar|حسبة}} ''ḥisbah'', or "accountability"<ref name=sz>Sami Zubaida (2005), Law and Power in the Islamic World, {{ISBN|978-1850439349}}, pages 58-60</ref>) was "a holder of the office of al-hisbah in classical Islamic administrations", according to Oxford Islamic Studies.<ref name="Muhtasib-OISO">{{cite web |title=Muhtasib |url=http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e1589 |website=Oxford Islamic Studies Online |access-date=2 September 2021}}{{dead link|date=January 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> Also called ''‘amil al-suq'' or ''sahib al-suq'',<ref name="Mottahedeh-2003">{{cite journal |last1=Mottahedeh |first1=Roy |last2=Stilt |first2=Kristen |title=Public and Private as Viewed through the Work of the Muhtasib |journal=Social Research: An International Quarterly |date=Fall 2003 |issn=1944-768X |volume=70 |issue=3 |pages=735–748 |doi=10.1353/sor.2003.0036 |s2cid=55354657 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/558587/summary |access-date=20 August 2021}}</ref> the ''muḥtasib'' was a supervisor of [[bazaar]]s 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]].
''[[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".<ref>{{cite web |title=Hisbah |url=http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/print/opr/t125/e851 |website=Oxford Islamic Studies Online |access-date=19 July 2021}}{{dead link|date=January 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Floor-1985"/>
==Terminology==
According to Sami Hamarneh, in "religious terminology", hisbah "denotes providing for ... for oneself, or seeking reward in life to come for a good deed." It acquired another meaning sometime early in the 9th century" as "a religious position or bureau the aim of which was to carry out" enjoining good and forbidding evil.<ref name="Hamarneh-1964">{{cite journal |last1=Hamarneh |first1=Sami |title=Origin and Functions of the Ḥisbah System in Islam and its Impact on the Health Professions |journal=Sudhoffs Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften |date=June 1964 |volume=48 |issue=2 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20775086 |access-date=3 September 2021 |pages=157–173|jstor=20775086 |pmid=14212666 }}</ref>
===Volunteers===
At least one scholar (Willem Floor) distinguishes the  ''muḥtasib'', officials who in Islamic law are following "''fard 'ayniyya'' [political duty]" and  ''mutatawwi'' ("true believers" or volunteers who follow ''fard  kifaya'' [individual duty] of Islamic law to take "the initiative to see to the upholding of the requirements of the law and the hisbah".<ref name="Floor-1985-60">{{cite journal |last1=Floor |first1=Willem |title=The Office of Muhtasib in Iran |journal=Iranian Studies |date=Winter 1985 |volume=18 |issue=1 |page=60 |doi=10.1080/00210868508701647 |jstor=4310481 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4310481 |access-date=20 August 2021}}</ref>
===Personal duty===
{{main|Enjoining good and forbidding wrong}}
Another related definition of ''Hisbah'' is not as an official function with any special connection to marketplaces, weights and measures, etc.; but as a "personal" duty<ref name=Cook-4>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.4</ref> of Muslims enjoined in Quranic verses such as 3:110<ref name="3:110">{{cite web |url=https://quran.com/3/110 |website=Quran.com |access-date=3 September 2021|title=Surah Ali 'Imran - 110 }}</ref> and 9:71,<ref name="9:71">{{cite web |url=https://quran.com/9/71 |website=Quran.com |access-date=3 September 2021|title=Surah At-Tawbah - 71 }}</ref> to right wrongs "committed by fellow believers, as and when one encountered them."<ref name=Cook-122>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.122</ref> It was  "mainly an invention" of [[Al-Ghazali]]" (d.1111).<ref name=Cook-4/> Al-Ghazali also used the term ''muhtasib'', but to refer to "the one who performs hisba" -- a forbidder of wrong in general and not specifically a functionary overseeing marketplaces<ref name=Cook-4-5>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.4-5</ref> -- leading to some confusion, according to historian [[Michael Cook (historian)|Michael Cook]].<ref name=Cook-5>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.5</ref>
A large "scholastic heritage" on the subject of who was to do the forbidding, what was to be forbidden, and whom was to be told there actions were forbidden, was developed by Al-Ghazali and other medieval scholars.<ref name=Cook-11>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.11</ref>
==Literature==
While most of the literature describing of the function of muhtasib<ref name="Floor-1985-60"/> 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".<ref name="Mottahedeh-2003"/>
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).<ref>{{cite book |editor-first=R. P. |editor-last=Buckley |title=The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector: Nihāyat al-Rutba fī Ṭalab al-Ḥisba (The Utmost Authority in the Pursuit of Ḥisba) by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Naṣr al-Shayzarī |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1999 |url=https://archive.org/details/buckley-book-of-the-islamic-market-inspector/}}</ref> 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".<ref>{{cite journal |author=Muhammad Umar Memon. |title=Review of ''Public Duties in Islam: The Institution of the Hisba''. by Ibn Taymiya; Muhtar Holland (trans.) |journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies |volume=17 |issue= 1 |date=February 1985 |pages=141–142 |doi=10.1017/S0020743800028919 |jstor=163324 |s2cid=162051128 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/163324 }}</ref>
Manuals written specifically for instruction and guidance in the duties of a Muḥtasib and that the Muḥtasib  often relied on were called ''[[hisbah|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.<ref>Ibn al-Ukhuwwa. ''Ma'alim al-Qurba fi Akham al-Hisba'', Gibb Memorial Series, London, 1938; Arabic text, edited and translated (in abridgement) by Reuben Levy.</ref>
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".<ref name="Floor-1985-59">{{cite journal |last1=Floor |first1=Willem |title=The Office of Muhtasib in Iran |journal=Iranian Studies |date=Winter 1985 |volume=18 |issue=1 |page=59 |doi=10.1080/00210868508701647 |jstor=4310481 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4310481 |access-date=20 August 2021}}</ref>
==History==
Some examples of how widespread Muhtasib was in Islamic history are that "in Persia, the function of the mutasib continued to operate in a fashion practically unchanged until the 16th century, and in Egypt it existed until the reign of Muhammad Ali, the founder of the Khedive dynasty. Moreover, it was renewed in the Ottoman Empire in 1855, and in the Republic of Syria in 1925".<ref name="Hamarneh-1964"/>
===Connection with pre-Islamic world===
According to authors Cahen and  Talbi, writing in the ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'',<ref>Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.), article "Hisbah"</ref> "it is now  commonly accepted that the function of muhtasib in Islamic  countries is the direct successor of that of the Byzantine ''agoranomo''", i.e. overseer or market inspector.{{#tag:ref|Another author, Benjamin Foster, disputes that agoranomo was the direct predecessor and maintains we do not know for sure the official title of the market inspectors in the Byzantine cities up to the Arab conquest, although he states there were "many remarkable  parallels between the development of the agoranomia and  the hisba, and does not deny there were market inspectors in the Byzantine cities up to the Arab conquest.<ref>Benjamin R. Foster, "Agoranomos and Muhtasib," ''Journal  of the Economic and Social History of the Orient'',  Vol. 13 (1970), p. 128.</ref>|group=Note}}<ref name="Floor-1985">{{cite journal |last1=Floor |first1=Willem |title=The Office of Muhtasib in Iran |journal=Iranian Studies |date=Winter 1985 |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=53–74 |doi=10.1080/00210868508701647 |jstor=4310481 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4310481 |access-date=20 August 2021}}</ref>
Willem Floor writes that "we ... know that the market overseer  existed" in [pre-Islamic] [[Parthian Empire|Parthian]] (247 BC – 224 AD) and [[Sasanian Empire|Sassanian]] Iran (224–651 CE). "We know that this official, who was referred to as ''agoranomos'', existed in  Babylonia, Seleucia, and Dura".<ref name="Floor-1985-57">{{cite journal |last1=Floor |first1=Willem |title=The Office of Muhtasib in Iran |journal=Iranian Studies |date=Winter 1985 |volume=18 |issue=1 |page=57 |doi=10.1080/00210868508701647 |jstor=4310481 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4310481 |access-date=20 August 2021}}</ref>
Floor notes that the societies conquered by early Muslims had market inspectors similar to muhtasib; that the muhtasib technical manuals that dealt with the market inspection "came into being earlier than those" that put the office of hisba "in its religious-judicial context";<ref name="Floor-1985-59"/> and that the general historical and geographical Islamic sources that mention the muhtasib's tasks indicate these were primarily market supervision,<ref name="Floor-1985-62">{{cite journal |last1=Floor |first1=Willem |title=The Office of Muhtasib in Iran |journal=Iranian Studies | date=Winter 1985 |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=62 |doi=10.1080/00210868508701647 |jstor=4310481 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4310481 |access-date=20 August 2021}}</ref> as in real life the medieval muhtasib either didn't have much to do with moral and religious tasks or "just didn't bother with them", as according to sources describing life in the Muslim world, un-Islamic activities like "begging, vagrancy, gambling, castrating, using the mosques for eating, sleeping, giving verdicts, and disturbing the performance of the daily prayers",<ref name="Floor-1985-62-3">{{cite journal |last1=Floor |first1=Willem |title=The Office of Muhtasib in Iran |journal=Iranian Studies |date=Winter 1985 |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=62–3 |doi=10.1080/00210868508701647 |jstor=4310481 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4310481 |access-date=20 August 2021}}</ref><ref>C. E. Bosworth, ''The Mediaeval Islamic Underworld''  (Leiden, 1976), p. 86</ref><ref>A. Mez, Die Renaissance des Islams, reprint 1968, p. 321</ref> pigeon flying, making music,<ref>M. Canard, Bagdad au IVe siecle de 1'Hegire (Aarabica, 1960), p. 286; C. E. Bosworth, ''The Mediaeval Islamic Underworld''  (Leiden, 1976), p. 65.</ref>  were less than rare occurrences in the jurisdiction of muhtasibs in medieval Baghdad, Seljuq, Ilkhan, Timurid, Safavid  Afshars, Zands, and Qajar periods .
Floor argues that the all this may be explained by Islamic legal scholars (''[[fuqaha]]'') taking "the existing institution" of market inspector and imposing a "religious-judicial ... conceptual framework" on it to add enforcement of Islamic law to the list of their duties.<ref name="Floor-1985-60"/>
===Early Islam===
{{See also|Rashidun Caliphate|Umayyad Caliphate|Abbasid Caliphate}}
According to Islamic tradition, the first persons with jurisdiction over the markets in Mecca and Medina, were appointed by the Islamic prophet [[Muhammad]]. Muhammad engaged Saʿid b. Saʿid b. al-As over the [[suq]] (Arab for marketplace) of [[Medina]] sometime after the conquest of Mecca (629 AD).  Later, [[Rashidun]] ('Rightly Guided Caliph') [[Umar]] also had "two men working for him over the suq of Medina". One of whom used the title ''ʿAmil ʿalā Sūq''.<ref name="Buckley-1992-60">{{cite journal |last1=Buckley |first1=R.P. |title=The Muhtasib |journal=Arabica |date=1992 |volume=39 |issue=1 |url=https://www.scribd.com/document/73449607/Buckley-R-P-The-Muhtasib-Arabica-39-1-1992-p-59-117 |page=60-61 |doi=10.1163/157005892X00292 |access-date=20 August 2021}}</ref>
During the Umayyad  period there were reports of four market inspectors, including those covering the sūq of Mecca for Ibn al-Zubayr, sūq of Wāsit  under the governor of Iraq and the East for Yazld II. The market inspector in Umayyad dynasty in Spain was called ''Sāḥib al-Sūq''.<ref name="Buckley-1992-60"/>
According to R.P. Buckley, "it is during the early years of the [[Abbasid Caliphate]] that the first Muhtasibs are mentioned."<ref name="Buckley-1992-65">{{cite journal |last1=Buckley |first1=R.P. |title=The Muhtasib |journal=Arabica |date=1992 |volume=39 |issue=1 |page=65 |doi=10.1163/157005892X00292 |url=https://www.scribd.com/document/73449607/Buckley-R-P-The-Muhtasib-Arabica-39-1-1992-p-59-117 |access-date=20 August 2021}}</ref>  Buckley states that  "some later commentators" tell stories implying that the hisba duties of the Mutasib were undertaken by the early caliphs (such as [[Umar]] and [[Ali]]),{{#tag:ref|what he calls "a pious  wish" of the commentators|group=Note}} suggesting that they, not the ''ʿAmil ʿalā Sūq'' market inspectors, handled  religious duties, and that later renaming the official Muhtasib "was intended to indicate ... an Islamicizing of the post".<ref name="Buckley-1992-65"/>
===Medieval Muslim World===
According to Oxford Islamic Studies, the office of  muḥtasib, in classical Islamic administrations, fell "roughly between" that of judge (''[[qadi]]'') and court magistrate". Unlike a ''[[qadi]]'', he "had no jurisdiction to hear cases—only to settle disputes and breaches of the law where the facts were admitted or there was a confession of guilt".<ref name="Muhtasib-OISO"/>
In the reign of the [[Sultan]] [[Barquq|Barqūq]], for example, the duties of the muḥtasib of [[Cairo]] included "the regulation of weights, money, prices, public morals, and the cleanliness of public places, as well as the supervision of schools, instruction, teachers, and students, and attention to public baths, general public safety, and the circulation of traffic."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Broadbridge |first1=Anne F. |title=Academic Rivalry and the Patronage System in Fifteenth-Century Egypt |journal=Mamluk Studies Review |date=1999 |volume=3 |pages=85–108 |doi=10.6082/M1WW7FS6 |url=https://mamluk.uchicago.edu/MSR_III_1999-Broadbridge.pdf |access-date=5 July 2021 |language=en |issn=1947-2404}}</ref> The muhtasib or muhtesip was authorized to audit the businesses if they were selling their products at the price limits set by the government. In addition, craftsmen and builders were usually responsible to the muhtasib for the standards of their craft.<ref>{{cite book |last1= Hill |first1= Donald |title=A History of Engineering in Classical and Medieval Times |date= 1984 |publisher=Routledge Press |location= NY |isbn=978-1-315-80011-0 |url=https://www.routledge.com/A-History-of-Engineering-in-Classical-and-Medieval-Times/Hill/p/book/9780415152914 |access-date=5 July 2021 |language=en}}</ref> The muhtasib also inspected if the food sold was safe and the measuring equipment was accurate.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://tdkterim.gov.tr/bts/?kategori=verilst&kelime=muhtesip&ayn=tam |work=Definition of Muhtesip |title=Language Institute of Turkey |access-date=2010-10-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724104939/http://tdkterim.gov.tr/bts/?kategori=verilst&kelime=muhtesip&ayn=tam |archive-date=2011-07-24 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
"The Muḥtasib also inspected public eating houses. He could order pots and pans to be re-tinned or replaced; all vessels and their contents had to be kept covered against flies and insects... The Muḥtasib was also expected to keep a close check on all doctors, surgeons, blood-letters and apothecaries."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Stone |first1=Caroline |title=The Muhtasib |url=http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/197705/the.muhtasib.htm |work=Saudi Aramco World |agency= |issue= |publisher= |date=September–October 1977 |location= |pages= |language= |doi=}}</ref>
After 1500 C.E, the muhatsib was almost exclusively responsible for ensuring that the weights and measures used in the market were fair and consistent.<ref name="encyclopedia.com">{{cite web |title=MUHTASIB |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/muhtasib |website=encyclopedia.com |access-date=20 August 2021}}</ref>
According to Ahmed Ezzat, there are "three common features shared by all ḥisba treatises, from Yahya ibn ‘Umar to Mamluk Egypt":<ref name="Ezzat-2020"/>
#"the market, street, mosque, bathhouse, or funeral, was the main spatial focus of ḥisba";<ref name="Ezzat-2020"/>
#"although the muḥtasib was urged to first advise the wrongdoer to cease the reprehensible act, in most instances he also was authorized to use physical force against the individual";<ref name="Ezzat-2020"/>
#the aim of a ḥisba punishment was not only to correct deviant behavior in one individual, but also public deterrence. <ref name="Ezzat-2020"/>
====Departure from the ideal====
{{See also|Abbasid dynasty|Al-Muti|Al-Ta'i|Buyids}}
However, after 950 C.E. (in the [[Buyid dynasty|Buyids]] of the [[Abbasid dynasty|Abbasids]]) the office of the muhtasib (along with offices such as [[qadi]] (judge), and ''sahib al-shurta'' (chief of police)), was for sale. In 961 CE the office was sold for 20,000 dirhams per month.<ref name="Floor-1985-60-1">{{cite journal |last1=Floor |first1=Willem |title=The Office of Muhtasib in Iran |journal=Iranian Studies |date=Winter 1985 |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=60–1 |doi=10.1080/00210868508701647 |jstor=4310481 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4310481 |access-date=20 August 2021}}</ref> Based on the fact that the office holders would very likely want to recoup the large sum of money they were paying, and that the historical literature  of this time indicated it was "clear" that "the muhtasib had a bad reputation in general", Floor speculates bribes were solicitated to "get back" their monthly payment.<ref name="Floor-1985-62"/> Nizam al-Mulk writes that the muhtasib  "must take particular care ... that moral and religious principles are observed", and since scholars of Islamic law would have particular expertise in this regard, it would make sense that muhtasib would often be someone learned in Islamic "moral and religious principles". However, according to Willem Floor, this was not "the normal practice". An example being the Shi'ite poet Ibn al- Hajjaj, who was muhtasib of Bagdad, was at the same time  one of the most notorious authors of sexually explicit poetry".<ref name="Floor-1985-60-1"/> [[Nizam al-Mulk]], grand-[[vizir]] and de facto ruler of the [[Seljuk empire]] from 1064 to 1092, categorically stated: "the post [of muhtasib] always  used to be given to one of the nobility or else to an eunuch or an old Turk."<ref>Nizam al-Mulk, ''The Book of Governors or Rules for Kings'',  trans. H. Darke (London, 1960), p. 47, quoted in {{cite journal |last1=Floor |first1=Willem |title=The Office of Muhtasib in Iran |journal=Iranian Studies |date=Winter 1985 |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=61 |doi=10.1080/00210868508701647 |jstor=4310481 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4310481 |access-date=20 August 2021}}</ref>    In Safavid times the muhtasib was "as unpopular a  figure as had been his predecessors in earlier periods," accepting presents and bribes,<ref name="Floor-1985-66">{{cite journal |last1=Floor |first1=Willem |title=The Office of Muhtasib in Iran |journal=Iranian Studies |date=Winter 1985 |volume=18 |issue=1 |page=66 |doi=10.1080/00210868508701647 |jstor=4310481 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4310481 |access-date=20 August 2021}}</ref> and it was said  one "could neither expect good nor profit from the muhtasib."<ref>J. Chardin, Voyages en Perse , ed. L. Langles, 10 vols.  (Paris; 1811),  Vol. 6, p. 131.</ref>
===Egypt===
In [[Mamluk Sultanate|Mamluk Egypt]], muḥtasibs were appointed by the sultan to inspect marketplaces and monitor the honesty of merchants. According to Kristen Stilt, "muḥtasibs in Cairo markets had a stand (''dikka'') from which they observed and whipped those who cheated when weighing their goods".<ref>Stilt, Kristen, ''Islamic Law in Action: Authority, Discretion, and Everyday Experiences in Mamluk Egypt'' (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012) 49–50</ref> "Muḥtasibs were instructed to parade cheaters" before the public as both punishment and  deterrence against cheating by other merchants. The manuals of the Muhtasib included "information on merchants’ tricks."<ref name="Ezzat-2020">{{cite journal |last1=Ezzat |first1=Ahmed |title=Law and Moral Regulation in Modern Egypt: Hisba from Tradition to Modernity |journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies |date=November 2020 |volume=52 |issue=4 |pages=665–684 |doi=10.1017/S002074382000080X |s2cid=224988970 |doi-access=free }}</ref>
In 1837, Mehmed Ali (aka [[Muhammad Ali of Egypt]]) "issued a siyāsa code" (a legislative order} that "completely abolished the muḥtasib offices in Cairo and Alexandria and transferred their duties to police and the health administration" in those two cities.<ref>Fahmy, In Quest of Justice, 202.; cited in {{cite journal |last1=Ezzat |first1=Ahmed |title=Law and Moral Regulation in Modern Egypt: Hisba from Tradition to Modernity |journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies |date=November 2020 |volume=52 |issue=4 |pages=665–684 |doi=10.1017/S002074382000080X |s2cid=224988970 |doi-access=free }}</ref>
===South Asia===
{{See also|Mughal Empire}}
Under [[Aurangzeb]], the last of the great [[Mughal emperors]], Emperor of India from 1658 to 1707, muḥtasibs were in contrast to polities to the west, "censors of morals", enforcers of "increasingly puritanical ordinances" by the militant orthodox Sunni Muslim emperor. They worked to destroy "Hindu idols, temples, and shrines" in the majority Hindu country, saw that the Muslim confession of faith, "was removed from all coins lest it be defiled by unbelievers", and that forbade from  saluting in the Hindu fashion.<ref name="Spear">{{cite web |last1=Spear |first1=T.G. Percival |title=Aurangzeb, Mughal emperor |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aurangzeb#ref62839 |website=Britannica |access-date=20 August 2021}}</ref>
===Russia===
Among the [[Tatars]] of the [[Russian Empire]] the ''möxtäsip'' was a Muslim functionary expected to keep vigilant watch on the execution of the [[Sharia]].  In 1920s, after the [[October Revolution]] and ban on religion, their service was abolished.
====Post-Soviet Russia====
Today, in Russia and a number of former Soviet republics, a muhtasib is a regional representative of a spiritual board (muftiate).<ref>Islam in Post-Soviet Russia: Public and Private Faces http://metro-natshar-31-71.brain.net.pk/articles/0415297346.pdf{{dead link|date=February 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>  The office of a muhtasib is called a [[muhtasibat]]. There were about 44 ''muhtasibat''s in [[Tatarstan]] as of 2002.<ref>{{TES|Мөхтәсиб}}</ref>
===Modern times===
The position appears to have disappeared in the nineteenth century, as law enforcement across the Muslim world underwent modernization.<ref name="encyclopedia.com"/> In Pakistan, the Mohtasib is an [[Wafaqi Mohtasib|Ombudsman]], responsible for the prosecution and redressal of grievances against federal or provincial government functionaries.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Wafaqi Mohtasib (Ombudsman)'s Secretariat |url=https://mohtasib.gov.pk/ |access-date=2022-05-28 |website=mohtasib.gov.pk}}</ref> <ref>{{Cite web |title=Provincial Mohtasib (Ombudsman) Sindh |url=https://mohtasibsindh.gov.pk/ |access-date=2022-05-28 |website=mohtasibsindh.gov.pk}}</ref>
===Qajar dynasty in Iran===
In Iran, the muḥtasib was abolished in [[Shiraz]] around 1852, in [[Isfahan]], in 1877. In [[Tehran]] it lived on  as the ''idara-yi ihtisa''  losing its "police and judicial functions and developed into a city cleaning department" that was "sold" each year to the highest bidder. While city dust removal carried on, the "definitive end" of the  ''ihtisab''  came with its abolition in 1926 following the fall of the [[Qajar dynasty]].<ref name="Floor-1985-67-8">{{cite journal |last1=Floor |first1=Willem |title=The Office of Muhtasib in Iran |journal=Iranian Studies |date=Winter 1985 |volume=18 |issue=1 |page=67-8 |doi=10.1080/00210868508701647 |jstor=4310481 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4310481 |access-date=20 August 2021}}</ref>
==See also==
* [[Muhtasibat]]
* [[Mufti]]
* [[Muftiate]]
* [[Qadi]]
* [[Qadiyat]]
*''[[Sahih Muslim]]'': his collection of [[Sahih|authentic]] [[hadith]]
==Notes==
{{reflist|group=Note}}
=== Family Name ===
With variant spellings as Muhtasib, Muhtaseb, and Montase, the Muntaseb family is a [[Muslim]] family in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] in the city of [[Hebron]]
==References==
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==Further reading==
*Buckley, R. P. "The Muhtasib." Arabica 34 (1992): 59–117.
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:History of Tatarstan]]
[[Category:Arabic words and phrases in Sharia]]
[[Category:Heads of local government]]
[[Category:Government of the Ottoman Empire]]
[[Category:Government of the Abbasid Caliphate]]
[[Category:Government of the Fatimid Caliphate]]
[[Category:Government of the Mamluk Sultanate]]