Who kept the market honest and the sick cared for?

This lesson asks you to describe how an early society was governed and to describe the social and work-related groups in it and their roles. The curriculum asks for a few societies, including a First Nation and an Inuit society; the museum links only medieval Islamic examples, so your class will add the others. The hospital record lists the people who worked there but says nothing of their roles or status; those come from your class. ¹

The expectations ask how a society was governed and what roles its work-related groups had. List the officials and workers you meet in the linked records and say what each one was responsible for.

Walk through the market with the inspector for one morning. Ibn al-Ukhuwwa wrote a handbook that says what he does. He checks the big scale often, and the weights are made of iron and stamped with his seal ². He tells the bakers to bake their bread through, and sets each one a daily amount so the town never runs short of bread ³. The inspector was watched as well. The record of the hisba says that one early market officer was paid two dirhams a day and was later dismissed for abusing his post ⁴.

The inspector acted without waiting for anyone to complain. Which is fairer to the people who shop in a market, and why: checking every scale before anyone is cheated, or waiting until a buyer complains?

• Hisba and the market inspector: the story of the office, from the market of Medina onwards.
• The muhtasib: what the job was and what the person who held it had to know.
• al-Shifa' bint Abd Allah: a woman named among the early officers of the market of Medina.

Choose the muhtasib or the 'Adudi Bimaristan. Draw a poster that shows who worked there, what each person did, and who they served.