الحسبة

الحسبة

An administrative and juristic institution of the Islamic state, rooted in enjoining good and forbidding wrong. The holder, the muhtasib, supervises markets, weights and measures, public morals and fraud in sales. The editors of Maʿalim al-Qurba note that the rightly guided caliphs held it themselves at first, then appointed deputies as the conquests grew ^{1 2}.