{{Short description|Two Islamic requisites from the Quran}} {{about|the duty to enjoin good and forbid wrong in Islam and scholarly study of the duty|the traditional Islamic inspector of bazaars and trade|Muhtasib}} {{Islam}} '''Enjoining good and forbidding wrong''' ({{langx|ar|ٱلْأَمْرُ بِٱلْمَعْرُوفِ وَٱلنَّهْيُ عَنِ ٱلْمُنْكَرِ|al-amru bi-l-maʿrūfi wa-n-nahyu ʿani-l-munkari}}) are two important duties imposed by God in Islam as revealed in the Quran and Hadith.<ref name="GFQ">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9v2qAgAAQBAJ |first1=Husein A. |last1=Rahim |first2=Ali Mohamedjaffer |last2=Sheriff |title=Guidance From Qur'an |publisher=Khoja Shia Ithna-asheri Supreme Council |location=Mombasa |year=1993 |pages=102–104}}</ref><ref name="TKFD">{{Cite book |title=The Koran For Dummies |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rkbPidh4plUC |first1=Sohaib |last1=Sultan |publisher=Wiley Publishing, Inc. |location=Hoboken, New Jersey |year=2004 |pages=238–240, 246–247 |isbn=9780764555817}}</ref>
This expression is the base of the classical Islamic institution of ''ḥisba'', the individual or collective duty (depending on the Islamic school of law) to intervene and enforce Islamic law. It forms a central part of the Islamic doctrine for Muslims. The injunctions also constitute two of the ten Ancillaries of the Faith of Twelver Shi'ism.<ref name="Momen 1987, p.180">Momen (1987), p.180.{{cnf|date=December 2024}}</ref><ref>Momem (1987), p.178.{{cnf|date=December 2024}}</ref><ref name="Britannica">{{cite web |date=23 June 2023 |title=Pillars of Islam |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pillars-of-Islam |website=Britannica }}</ref><ref>Momem (1987), p.176.{{cnf|date=December 2024}}</ref>
Pre-modern Islamic literature describes pious Muslims (usually scholars) taking action to forbid wrong by destroying forbidden objects, particularly liquor and musical instruments are haram.<ref name=Cook-31>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', p.31</ref> In the contemporary Muslim world, various state or parastatal bodies (often with phrases like the "Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice" in their titles) have appeared in Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia,<ref name=nbc-cats>[https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna14738358 "Cats and dogs banned by Saudi religious police"], NBC News, 18 December 2006.</ref> Nigeria, Malaysia, the Gaza Strip, etc., at various times and with various levels of power,<ref name=EI3>{{Cite encyclopedia|first=Jörn|last=Thielmann|title=Ḥisba (modern times)|encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of Islam|edition=3rd|editor1=Kate Fleet|editor2=Gudrun Krämer|editor3=Denis Matringe|editor4=John Nawas|editor5=Everett Rowson|publisher=Brill|year=2017|doi=10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_30485}}</ref> to combat sinful activities and compel virtuous ones. (The power of the Saudi religious police was sharply curtailed in 2016)<ref>{{cite web | url=https://english.alarabiya.net/en/life-style/travel-and-tourism/2017/04/08/Saudi-Arabia-plans-on-building-its-largest-cultural-sports-and-recreation-city.html | title=Prince Mohammed bin Salman announces Saudi plans for largest entertainment city | date=8 April 2017 }}</ref>
==Terminology== Ma'ruf,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Reinhart |first1=A. Kevin |title=What We Know about Maʿrūf |journal=Journal of Islamic Ethics |date=July 2017 |volume=1 |issue=1–2 |pages=51–82 |doi=10.1163/24685542-12340004|doi-access=free }}</ref> usually translated as "good", "right" or "just", appears 38 times in slightly varying forms in the Qurʾān. Traditional commentators oppose the association of maʿrūf with its cognate urf, "custom."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hazratji |first1=Z |title=The Application of ʻUrf in Islamic Law with Regard to Hijāb |journal=Astrolabe: A CIS Student Research Journal |date=September 2020 |url=https://www.hbku.edu.qa/sites/default/files/theapplicationofurfinislamiclaw.pdf}}</ref>
Although most common translations of ''maʿrūf'' is "good" and ''munkar'' "evil", the words used for good and evil in Islamic philosophy are ''ḥusn'' and ''qubh''. In its most common usage, ''maʿrūf'' is "in accordance with the custom", while ''munkar'' (singular ''nukr''), which has no place in the custom, is the opposite.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Mirshahvalad |first=Minoo |date=2017 |title=Can Iranian Women Compensate for Their Absence From the World of Fiqh? |url=https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/6896913.pdf |website=Dialnet |type=PDF download link}}</ref> In today's religious expression, ''maʿrūf'' is best translated as sunnah<ref name="Juynboll">{{Cite encyclopedia |last=Juynboll |first=G. H. A. |date=1997 |title=Sunna |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of Islam |edition=2nd |publisher=Brill |editor1-first=P. |editor1-last=Bearman |editor2-first=Th. |editor2-last=Bianquis |editor3-first=C. E. |editor3-last=Bosworth |editor4-first=E. |editor4-last=van Donzel |editor5-first=W. P. |editor5-last=Heinrichs |volume=9 |pages=878–879}}</ref><ref name="Hameed">{{cite web |last1=Hameed |first1=Shahul |title=Why Hadith is Important |url= http://www.onislam.net/english/shariah/hadith/hadith-studies/441273-prophet-hadith-sunnah-quran-importance-traditions.html |website=OnIslam.net |access-date=2 September 2015 |date=24 November 2014}}</ref> and ''munkar'' as ''bid’a''. (a related topic: Istihsan)
Depending on the translation from the Quran, the phrase may also be translated as '''commanding what is just and forbidding what is evil''',<ref name="Momen 1987, p.180"/> '''commanding right and forbidding wrong''',<ref name="Cook-2001">{{cite book |last1=Cook |first1=Michael |title=Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought |date=2001 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511497452 |isbn=9780521661744 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/commanding-right-and-forbidding-wrong-in-islamic-thought/62B835D9A1F7C7901FF9702FFF4AAECB#:~:text=The%20most%20striking%20exception%20is,already%20mentioned%20in%20the%20Koran.&text=His%20book%20represents%20the%20first,Islamic%20reflection%20on%20this%20obligation. |access-date=16 July 2021}}</ref> and other combinations of "enjoin" or "command", "right" or "just", "wrong", "unjust", or "evil".
==Scriptural basis== Answering the question of ''why'' there is a duty among Muslims to forbid wrong are statements in the Quran and hadith.<ref name=Cook-11>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.11</ref>
===Quran=== *''Let there arise out of you a band of people inviting to all that is good, '''enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong''': They are the ones to attain felicity.'' -- Quran 3:104 <sup>translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali</sup>{{#tag:ref|alternative translation of Q.3:104: ''Let there arise out of you a nation who invites to goodness and '''enjoin What is right and forbid What is evil''': They are the ones to attain felicity.''<ref name="GFQ"/>|group=Note}} *''Ye are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, '''enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong''', and believing in Allah. If only the People of the Book had faith, it were best for them: among them are some who have faith, but most of them are transgressors.'' -- Quran 3:110 <sup>translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali</sup>{{#tag:ref|alternative translation of Q.3:110: ''You are the best community that has been raised up for mankind: '''You enjoin What is right and forbid What is evil''', and You believe in Allah; if the people of the scripture deary it, it had been better for them, some of them believers, but most of them are evil-livers.''<ref name="GFQ"/>|group=Note}} *''The believers, both men and women, are guardians of one another. They '''encourage good and forbid evil''', establish prayer and pay alms-tax, and obey Allah and His Messenger...'' (Q.9:71)<ref name="GFQ"/>{{#tag:ref| translation from Mustafa Khattab, the Clear Quran|group=Note}} *''˹It is the believers˺ who repent, who are devoted to worship, who praise ˹their Lord˺, who fast, who bow down and prostrate themselves, who '''encourage good and forbid evil''', and who observe the limits set by Allah...'' (Q.9:112)<ref name="GFQ"/>{{#tag:ref| translation from Mustafa Khattab, the Clear Quran|group=Note}} *''“O people! Establish prayer, '''encourage what is good and forbid what is evil''', and endure patiently whatever befalls you.'' (Q.31:17)<ref name="GFQ"/>{{#tag:ref| translation from Mustafa Khattab, the Clear Quran|group=Note}} *''O you who have believed, upon you is [responsibility for] yourselves. Those who have gone astray will not harm you when you have been guided. To Allāh is your return all together; then He will inform you of what you used to do.'' (Q.5:105)<ref name="Cook-85-6">Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.85-6</ref> Scholars have provided a number of reasons why the obvious reading of this verse is incorrect, such as that it refers not to the present but "to some future time when forbidding wrong will cease to be effective."<ref name=Cook-85-6/>
===Hadith=== Appearing in Sahih Muslim, the second most prestigious collection of Sunni hadith is a famous report:<ref name=Cook-12>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.12</ref>
*Abu Sa‘id al-Khudri reported that the prophet Muhammad said, "Whoever amongst you sees an evil, he must change it with his hand. If he is not able to do so, then with his tongue. And if he is not able to do so, then with his heart, and that is the weakest form of faith".<ref name="TKFD"/><ref name="Hadith 34">{{cite web |title=Forty Hadith of an-Nawawi. Hadith 34, 40 Hadith an-Nawawi |url=https://sunnah.com/nawawi40:34 |website=Sunnah.com |access-date=17 July 2021}}</ref><ref name="Commentary-34">{{cite web |title=Hadith 34. Forbidding the evil COMPLETE |url=https://hadithcommentary.com/nawawi/hadith34/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CWhosoever%20of%20you%20sees%20an,is%20the%20weakest%20of%20faith.%E2%80%9D |website=Hadith Commentary | date=September 2013 |access-date=17 July 2021}}</ref><ref name="Badi-40-nawawi">{{cite book |last1=Badi |first1=Jamal Ahmed |title=''Sharh Arba'een an Nawawi''. COMMENTARY OF FORTY HADITHS OF AN NAWAWI. |chapter=Hadith 34 |url=https://ahadith.co.uk/downloads/Commentary_of_Forty_Hadiths_of_An-Nawawi.pdf |publisher=Ahadith |access-date=20 July 2021 |pages=166–170}}</ref> Mutazilite and Shia Imamis quote different traditions than this Sunni Hadith, but all agree on the Quran and on "the existence of the duty" to command and forbid.<ref name=Cook-12/>
According to historian Michael Cook (whose book ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'' is the major English language source on the issue),<ref name="Malczycki-review">{{cite journal |last1=Malczycki |first1=W. Matt |title=Reviewed Works: Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought by Michael Cook; Forbidding Wrong in Islam by Michael Cook |journal=British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies |date=April 2008 |volume=35 |issue=1 |page=144 |jstor=20455577 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20455577 |access-date=3 September 2021 |quote=[Summarizing reviews by scholars of ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'':] "Michael Chamberlain describes it as a 'masterpiece', Fredd Donner hails it as an example of traditional philological Orientalism at its best, Christopher Melchert, Paul R. Powers, and Andrew Rippen all write very positive reviews. Only Wilfred Madelung writes more than the single obligatory critical paragraph, but he nevertheless grants that the work will no doubt become a standard reference work in Islamic studies."}}</ref><ref name="Freitag-review">{{cite web |last1=Freitag |first1=Ulrike |title=Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought |url=https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/215 |website=Reviews in History |access-date=3 September 2021}}</ref> a slightly different phrase is used in a similar hadith -- 'righting wrong' (''taghyir al-munkar'') instead of 'forbidding wrong' (''an-nahy ʿani-l-munkar'') -- but "scholars take it for granted" that 'the two "are the same thing, ..."<ref name=Cook-4>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.4</ref>
Sunnis, Ibadis and Twelver (also called Imami) Shia schools of Islam "made extensive use of" the "schema" set out by this hadith.<ref name="Cook-27"/>
==History== ===Pre-Islamic=== Phrases similar to forbidding evil and commanding good can be found examining texts of ancient Greek philosophers -- Stoic Chrysippus (d.207 BC) and Aristotle (d.322) -- and the founder the Buddha.<ref name=Cook-147-8>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.147-8</ref> A particularly similar formulation is found in the book of Psalms: "Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it". (Psalm 34:14)
However, Michael Cook finds no "serious precedent" for use of the phrases "forbidding wrong" and "commanding right" in the literature of the immediate predecessors of Muhammad his companions, pre-Islamic Arabian traditions and poetry.<ref name=Cook-149-152>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.149-152</ref>
===Muhtasib=== {{main|Muhtasib}} Traditionally, in classical Islamic administrations, there was an office of al-hisbah, an inspector of "markets and morals", the holder of which was called a ''muhtasib''. He was appointed by the caliph to oversee the order in market places, in businesses, in medical occupations, etc.<ref name=Cook-5>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.5</ref> 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">{{cite web |title=Muhtasib |url=http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e1589 |website=Oxford Islamic Studies Online |access-date=2 September 2021 |archive-date=3 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170803222805/http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e1589 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
=== General term=== ''Hisbah'' as a "general term for 'forbidding wrong'"<ref name=Cook-4/> has a later origin, and the difference in the terms has caused some confusion.<ref name=Cook-4/> According to Michael Cook, the second use is "mainly an invention" of Al-Ghazali" (d.1111), who followed a precedent set by "a somewhat earlier scholar", Mawardi (d.1058) and "adopted the word hisba" as it is currently used.<ref name=Cook-4/>
A slightly different definition than Al-Ghazali's comes from ʿAbd al-Ghani al-Nābulusī (d.1731), who distinguished between forbidding wrong and ''ḥisbah''. The first being a duty to call on the wrongdoer to stop, but carrying "no power or duty of enforcement"; and ''ḥisbah'' or censorship, (according to ʿAbd al-Ghani), being the duty to enforce right conduct (''ḥaml al-nās ʿalā ʾl-ṭāʿa'') and reserved to authorities—unless the offense was being committed while the "ordinary believer" could intervene.<ref name=Cook-91-2>Cook, Forbidding wrong, 2003, p.91-2</ref>
===Islamic scholarship=== Scholars opinions and ideas on forbidding wrong are found in legal literature such as collections of fatawas, in theological handbooks, monographs devoted to the subject, and in commentaries on the Qur'an and Hadith.<ref name=Cook-7-9>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.7-9</ref> Sunni Scholar Ibn Taymiyya's work discusses [https://www.iium.edu.my/deed/articles/alhisba.html Enjoining Right and Forbidding Wrong].<ref>{{Cite web |author=Ibn Taymiyya |title=Enjoining Right and Forbidding Wrong |url=https://www.iium.edu.my/deed/articles/alhisba.html}}</ref> It could be said that some Sunni works of jurisprudence do not specifically cover the topic of Forbidding Wrong, but Twelver (Ja'fari school of thought) scholars along with others among Zaydis and Ibadi branches of Islam do.<ref name=Cook-7>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.7</ref><ref name=IW-2017-89>{{cite book |last1=Ibn Warraq |title=The Islam in Islamic Terrorism |date=2017 |publisher=New English Review Press |page=89}}</ref>
===Al-Ghazali=== Al-Ghazali (1058-1111 CE) was "perhaps the first major Islamic thinker to devote substantial amount of space" to these two duties,<ref name=IW-2017-89/> and his account of forbidding wrong in (Book 19 of his) ''The Revival of the Religious Sciences'', is "innovative, insightful, and rich in detail" and "achieved a wide currency in the Islamic world."<ref name=Cook-8>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.8</ref> He wrote: <blockquote>Every Muslim has the duty of first setting himself to rights, and then, successively, his household, his neighbours, his quarter, his town, the surrounding countryside, the wilderness with its Bedouins, Kurds, or whatever, and so on to the uttermost ends of earth.<ref>Cook, ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'', 445</ref></blockquote>
===Modern era=== What Ghazali wrote about was the "personal duty to right wrongs committed by fellow believers as and when one encountered them."<ref name=Cook-122>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.122</ref> This theme also formed the "core" of the "scholastic heritage" on the subject created by other medieval scholars. But in the modern era "the conception" of forbidding wrong has changed and become more systematic. Now opposing wrongdoing involves "the organised propagation of Islamic values," according to Cook,<ref name=Cook-122/> which requires missionary work and organisation.<ref name=Cook-123>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.123</ref> And several contemporary Muslim majority states or provinces have some kind of Islamic "religious police".
==Issues: By whom, to whom, about what==
While scripture is clear that a community is enjoined to command right and forbid wrong, it does not indicate whether this included all Muslims or only some.<ref name=Cook-11/>
Three "basic questions arising "about the duty of forbidding wrong" are *''who'' has to do it,<ref name=Cook-11/> *''to whom'', and *''about what''?"<ref name=Cook-11/>
Differences in scholarly debates over the duty of "commanding right and forbidding wrong" stemmed from the positions taken by jurists (''Faqīh'') on questions regarding who precisely was responsible for carrying out the duty, to whom it was to be directed, and what performance of the duty entailed. Often, these debates were framed according to what Michael Cook calls the "three modes" tradition, a tradition based on a prophetic hadith which identifies the "heart" (''qalb''), "tongue" (''lisān''), and "hand" (''yad'') as the three proper "modes" by which one should fulfill the obligation. Depending on a number of factors both intrinsic and extrinsic to their legal schools, scholars apportioned this labor in differing ways, some reserving the execution of the duty by "tongue" for the scholars and by "hand" for the political authorities such as the ''muḥtasib'', or those invested with the authority to carry out the duty on their behalf, and others arguing that these modes extended to all qualified believers.<ref name=sz>Sami Zubaida (2005), Law and Power in the Islamic World, {{ISBN|978-1850439349}}, pages 58-60</ref><ref name=Cook-2000-32-47>Michael Cook: ''Commanding right and forbidding wrong in Islamic thought.'' Cambridge University Press. Cambridge 2000, pp. 32-47 {{ISBN|0-521-66174-9}}</ref>
===Who should do the enforcing=== Scholars argue that free (non-slave) adult male Muslims are obliged to forbid wrongdoing, and that non-Muslims are excluded from the duty. Michael Cook paraphrases al-Ghazali in asking, "After all, since the duty consists in coming to the aid of the faith, how could one of its enemies [an unbeliever] perform it?" and points out that if a nonbeliever upbraided a Muslim for wrongdoing he would "presuming to exercise an illegitimate authority over the Muslim", who should never be humiliated by an unbeliever.<ref name=Cook-13>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.13</ref> Those who lack legal competency (''mukallaf''), such as children and the mentally ill, are also excluded.<ref name=Cook-13/> However, scholars are generally "reluctant to restrict the range of those for whom forbidding wrong is a duty",<ref name=Cook-18-9>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.18-19</ref> and so usually include two other groups not possessing the rights of free adult male Muslims—namely slaves<ref name=Cook-14>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.14</ref> and women.<ref name=Cook-15>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.15</ref><ref name=Cook-13-15>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.13-15</ref> "Sinners" are also not exempt according to the "standard" view of Islamic scholars.<ref name=Cook-18>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.18</ref>
Schools of law differ over whether ''hisbah'' (forbidding wrong) is an "individual duty" (i.e. an obligation of all believers described above), or collective duty (an obligation where once a sufficient number of Muslims undertake it, others cease to be obligated).<ref name=Cook-18-9/> According to Cook, "the standard view" of pre-modern scholars was that the duty was collective,<ref name="forbid wrong-n.55">Cook, ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'', 152; 176; 201; 216 and n. 101; 243 n.109; 273f; 290f; 313; 314; 317 n.68; 324; 336 n.206; 345 bis; 347 and n.65; 350 n.81, no. (5); 350 n.83; 351 n.91; 352; 365; 374; 375f; 428; cf. 18; 377; 419. Cited in Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.19:</ref> though some held it was individual or both collective and individual,<ref name="forbid wrong-n54">Cook, ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'', 274; cf. 131n.122;160 n.112; 216 n.101; 290 n.256; 365. cited in Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.19</ref> meaning that "at the point at which we come upon the wrongdoing, or the wrongdoer starts his mischief, we are all obligated; but once you take care of the matter, the rest of us have no further obligation."<ref name=Cook-18-9/>
Who is eligible to use force (their "hand") to command and forbid is disputed, some reserving it for the political authorities or their underlings. ("At different times" a position supported by the Shafites,<ref>Cook, ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'', 343. Cited in Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.33</ref> the Malikis<ref>Cook, ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'', 367. Cited in Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.33</ref> and the Hanafis).<ref>Cook, ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'', 326f. Cited in Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.33</ref> "The view that punishment is to inflicted only by the state, and not by individuals, is widespread,<ref>Cook, ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'', 176 n.73; 342; 343;380; 413; 414 n.159; cf.415. Cited in Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.25</ref> if not quite universal."<ref name=103-cook>Cook, ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'', 413. Cited in Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.25</ref> Others argue that these modes extended to all qualified believers.<ref name=sz/><ref name=Cook-2000-32-47/> According to Al-Nawawi, 'changing the reprehensible by hand,' or by compulsion, like jihad, was the purview of the state alone; changing with the tongue' was the right of the ulama; ordinary, individual Muslims should only reject the reprehensible with their hearts.<ref name="jacb">{{cite book|last1 = A.C. Brown|first1 = Jonathan|author-link = Jonathan A.C. Brown|title = Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy |date = 2014 |publisher = Oneworld Publications |isbn = 978-1780744209|page = [https://archive.org/details/misquotingmuhamm0000brow/page/130 130]|chapter = 4. Clinging to the Canon in a Ruptured World |chapter-url-access = registration|chapter-url = https://archive.org/details/misquotingmuhamm0000brow/page/130}}</ref><ref name=fatawa-Hindiyya>Fatawa Hindiyya / Fatawa Alamgiri, Dar el-Fekr, Beirut, 1310 A.H. vol.5 p.353. Quote: "Commanding the good with hand is for those in position of political authority, with tongue it is for the scholars and with the heart it for the laymen."</ref> In practice, as far as can be determined, the people who went around commanding and forbidding in pre-modern Islam, were "overwhelmingly scholars", according to Michael Cook.<ref name=Cook-102>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.102</ref>
====Rebellion==== Regarding rebellion as a means of overturning state/ruler wrong, Cook finds the opinions of Islamic scholars "heavily stacked" against this approach.<ref name="Danny Yee's Book Reviews">{{cite web |last1=Yee |first1=Danny |title=Forbidding Wrong in Islam: An Introduction Michael Cook |url=https://dannyreviews.com/h/Forbidding_Wrong.html |website=Danny Yee's Book Reviews |access-date=12 August 2021}}</ref> In general this was because rebellion was often foolhardy and dangerous to the rebel, not because it was disrespectful to the ruler.<ref name=Cook-22>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.22</ref> This did not stop political rebels in the early centuries of Islam from using forbidding wrong as their slogan, according to Cook. Examples were "found among the Kharijites, including the Ibadis, among the Shi'ites, including Zaydis, and among the Sunnis, especially the Malikis. Some instances of such rebels in the early centuries of Islam are Jahm ibn Safwan (d.746), in late Umayyad Transoxiana, Yusuf al-Barm in Khurasan in 776 CE,<ref>defeated and captured in 776/7 CE</ref> Al-Mubarqa in Palestine 841/42 CE, Ibn al-Qitt in Spain in 901 CE and an `Abbasid who rebelled in Armenia in 960" CE.<ref name=Cook-108-9>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.108-9</ref>
===What was enforced=== According to the well known exegete Al-Tabari (d.923) "right" refers to ''all'' that God and His Prophet have commanded, "wrong" to ''all'' that they have forbidden, i.e. the sharia.<ref name=77-cook>24. Cited in Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.22</ref> Al-Nawawi also stated that Shariah principles determined what was to be commanded and forbidden.<ref name="jacb"/><ref name=fatawa-Hindiyya/>
However, the verses are vague and do not speak of Sharia/God's law. According to Michael Cook, "a trend" in early exegesis (tafsir) indicated the duty referred to affirming the basic message of Islam—and so commanded only the "unity of God" and "veracity" of his prophet, and forbade polytheism and denial of Muhammad's prophethood.<ref name="forbid wrong-22-4">Cook, ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'', 22-24 Cited in Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.3</ref>
There are also scholarly disagreements between schools of fiqh (madhhab).
====Types of wrongdoing==== Al-Ghazali provides "a survey" of wrongs commonly found in the mosque, the market, the street, the bath-house and hospitality".<ref name=forbidding-98-9/> For example, in "hospitality" there may be, <blockquote>"laying out silk coverings for men, using censers made of silver or gold, hanging curtains with images on them [images of sentient beings are forbidden among some branches of Islam] and listening to musical instruments or singing-girls. Then there is the scandal of women gathering on roofs to watch men when there are youths among them who could give rise to temptation. Or forbidden food may be served or the house may be one occupied illegally, or someone present may be drinking wine or wearing silk or a golden signet ring, or a heretic may be holding forth about his heresy, or some joker may be regaling the party with ribald and untruthful humour. (Humour that is neither untruthful nor indecorous is acceptable in moderation, provided it does not become a habit.) On top of all this there may be extravagance and wastefulness."<ref name="Cook-99"/></blockquote>
Common wrongdoing described by Al-Ghazali committed (for example in the marketplace) may be divided into categories such as *commercial dishonesty (e.g. passing off used goods as new, concealing defects in goods), *transactions that violate Islamic law (e.g. allowing the customer to pay over time but charging interest), and *selling goods forbidden by Islamic law (musical instruments, wine).<ref name=forbidding-98-9/>
On the other hand, looking at the violations (found not just in the marketplace) through modern eyes, they can be categorized{{#tag:ref|by Michael Cook|group=Note}} into a different set of norms being violated: *Narrow "religious norms", such as "sloppy prayer, faulty recitation of the Quran".<ref name=forbidding-98-9>Cook (2003), ''Forbidding Wrong in Islam.'' p.98-9</ref> These were relatively rare, based on the fact that they were seldom mentioned <ref name="Cook-99"/> in sources available to determine "what forbidding wrong was really like" in the pre-modern Islamic world, i.e. the writings of the same scholars who wrote about forbidding wrong.<ref name=Cook-97>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.97</ref> *"Secular norms", i.e. the straightward "rights of other humans in this world", such as commercial dishonesty mentioned above and things like "blocking a street". These were even more rare than violations of the narrow "religious norms.<ref name="Cook-99"/> It "is worth noting", however, that among these violations Al-Ghazali gives no sign of ... a concern for what we might call social justice",<ref name="Cook-99">{{cite book |last1=Cook |first1=Michael |title=Forbidding Wrong in Islam: An Introduction By Michael Cook |publisher=Cambridge University Press. |page=99 |year=2003 |isbn=9781139440882 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s8E3DwAAQBAJ&dq=there+is+no+sign+of+a+concern+for+what+we+might+call+social+justice.+michael+cook&pg=PA99 |access-date=17 July 2021}}</ref> though there are occasional references to injustices such as a master beating his slave,<ref>Cook, ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'', 72. Cited in Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.101</ref> or a man depriving "his sisters of rights of inheritance",<ref>Cook, ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'', 93. Cited in Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.101</ref><ref name=forbidding-101>Cook (2003), ''Forbidding Wrong in Islam.'' p.101</ref> *"puritanical norms", usually involving "wine, women and song". These violations, "are by far" the most widespread of the three kinds of wrongs,<ref name=Cook-100/> and among these "puritanical" violations, "liquor and music" were "the most widespread" wrongs "by far", with forbidden relations between the sexes taking "a poor third" according to the scholars.<ref name=Cook-100/>
===How was good to be enforced=== A pious tract ''Commentary of Forty Hadiths of An Nawawi'',<ref name="Badi-40-nawawi"/> citing different scholars, gives various advice to "callers" who enjoin good and forbid evil. They should first warn the offenders of the consequences of evil, and only after this approach has been "fully utilised" should they proceed to "the hand".
Use of the tongue could vary from "a delicate hint" to "a ruthless tongue lashing", and the hand from "a restraining hand" to use of arms.<ref name=Cook-27>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.27</ref> Al-Ghazali believed the use of a group of armed fighters to combat wrongdoing did not require the permission of the ruler if good Muslims thought it necessary to escalate the fight that far.<ref>Cook, ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'', 441; Cited in Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.30, 34-5, 123</ref>
Callers should possess virtuous "qualities": sincerity, knowledge, wisdom, forbearance, patience, humility, courage, generosity.<ref name="Badi-40-nawawi-166-68">{{cite book |last1=Badi |first1=Jamal Ahmed |title=''Sharh Arba'een an Nawawi''. COMMENTARY OF FORTY HADITHS OF AN NAWAWI. |chapter=Hadith 34 |url=https://ahadith.co.uk/downloads/Commentary_of_Forty_Hadiths_of_An-Nawawi.pdf |publisher=Ahadith |access-date=20 July 2021 |pages=166–168}}</ref> Greater evils should get priority over lower ones. Callers should speak to wrongdoers in private when possible to avoid "scolding".<ref name="Badi-40-nawawi-169">{{cite book |last1=Badi |first1=Jamal Ahmed |title=''Sharh Arba'een an Nawawi''. COMMENTARY OF FORTY HADITHS OF AN NAWAWI. |chapter=Hadith 34 |url=https://ahadith.co.uk/downloads/Commentary_of_Forty_Hadiths_of_An-Nawawi.pdf |publisher=Ahadith |access-date=20 July 2021 |pages=169}}</ref>
When all else fails and the only portion of the hadith available to a Muslim witnessing an evil act is to dislike the evil they come across, the Muslim might say to themselves: <blockquote>"O Allah, there is nothing that I can do to change this bad situation that You dislike and disapprove except that I hate it to take place. I do not agree to it. O Allah forgive me, guide me and save my heart to be influenced by it."</blockquote> In so doing "the heart of the believer who witnesses that evil" is protected from being influenced by it,<ref name="Badi-40-nawawi-170">{{cite book |last1=Badi |first1=Jamal Ahmed |title=''Sharh Arba'een an Nawawi''. COMMENTARY OF FORTY HADITHS OF AN NAWAWI. |chapter=Hadith 34 |url=https://ahadith.co.uk/downloads/Commentary_of_Forty_Hadiths_of_An-Nawawi.pdf |publisher=Ahadith |access-date=20 July 2021 |pages=170}}</ref> though of course, this is not really hisbah in the sense that it does not command or forbid.<ref name=Cook-43>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.43</ref>
;Other means A step between use of the tongue and a "purely mental act" of the heart in fighting evil is showing disapproval by "range of behavior running from frowns to turning away from the offender to formally ostracising him (''hajr'')".<ref name=Cook-37>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.37</ref>
Some believed there was yet another mode beyond hand, voice and heart -- "spiritual power" (''inkār al-munkar biʾl-ḥāl''). According to some Sufis, they could fight wrongdoing by supernatural means—turning wine into vinegar or water, using spiritual force to cause wine vessels to break, or a rapist to collapse, etc.<ref name=Cook-38-9>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.38-9</ref>
====What was destroyed or disrupted==== In Islamic literature on the subject, an "ubiquitous theme" is attack on forbidden objects—the overturning of chessboards, the destruction of musical instrument and sacred trees, defacing of decorative images.<ref name=Cook-31/> Punishment could be very broadly enforced. Cook writes that <blockquote>"according to a thirteenth-century geographer, a custom was observed each year in Gilan in the north of Iran, [whereby] scholars would seek permission from the ruler to command right. Once they had it, they would round up everyone and flog them. If a man swore that he had neither drunk nor fornicated, the scholar would ask him his trade; if he said he was a grocer, the scholar would infer that he cheated his customer, and flog him anyway."<ref name=Cook-100>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.100</ref></blockquote>
===Arguments against, or for limitations on===
"Straightforward denial" that forbidding wrong is a duty of Muslims is "very rare", and non-existent after the first two centuries of Islam.<ref>Cook, ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'', 76f.; cf. 106 and n.186. Cited in Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.84</ref>
Some scholars (Hasan al-Basri, Abdullah ibn Shubruma d.761) have argued that forbidding wrong is to be encouraged but not an obligation.<ref name=Cook-84>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.84</ref> Other groups (Hanbalites, Shia) have been accused (unjustly or with exaggeration) of denying it is obligatory.<ref name=Cook-84-85>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.84-85</ref>
Sufis have been linked to concepts "that downplay forbidding wrong in one way or another" (tolerance, mysticism, introspection),<ref name=Cook-88>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.88</ref> but there is "no mainstream Sufi doctrine rejecting the duty as such", and many Sufis practice it.<ref name=Cook-91>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.91</ref>
The only "consolidated doctrine" that Muslims ought not to forbid wrong came from Sufi ʿAbd al-Ghani al-Nābulusī (d.1731),<ref>Cook, ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'', 326-328. Cited in Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.91-2</ref> a Sufi who lived in the midst of the Kadizadeli puritanical campaign in Baghdad, a campaign whose "prime target" was Sufis. ʿAbd al-Ghani argued that while forbidding wrong was righteous in theory, the intentions of the believers in forbidding wrong were paramount, and what with the danger of "those who whose obsession with prying into the faults of others" making "them blind to their own", what was needed instead was "less self-righteousness and more self-knowledge".{{#tag:ref|quotations from Cook|group=Note}}<ref name=Cook-92>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.92</ref><ref>Cook, ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'', Cf. 327 n.158. Cited in Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.92</ref> His argument "achieved no wider success".<ref name=Cook-95>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.95</ref>
====Hisbah v. privacy==== An argument for commanding right and forbidding wrong and against the concept of "minding ones own business" comes from Hanafi jurist `Ismat Allah of Saharanpur who writes: <blockquote>were it pleasing to God to leave people alone, He would not have sent prophets, nor established their laws, nor called to Islam, nor voided other religions, but would rather have left people to their own devices, untroubled by divine visitations; ...<ref name=Cook-89-90>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.89-90</ref></blockquote>
The issue is relevant to situations scholars examined (and disagree on) where an enforcers saw what ''could'' be a "bottle of liquor or lute" hidden under a robe, or a man and woman that looked like they ''might'' be unmarried, or heard music coming from a home.<ref name=Cook-57-60>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.57-60</ref>
Cook finds that Sunni fundamentalist clerics give relatively little attention to privacy rights, giving approval to the entering of a home when reliable information indicates there may be wrongdoing within.<ref name=Cook-129>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.129</ref>
On the other hand, at least one Iranian Twelve Shia cleric (Seyyed Hassan Eslami Ardakani), has argued that there are Islamic precedents for denouncing intrusive efforts to forbid wrong as violations of Islamic law,<ref>Cook, ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'', 2001, pp 556f, 557-560, Cf. 454 n.185, cited in Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p142-3</ref> and that the category of Islamic norms (''ādāb'') developed by Ghazali for forbidding sin should include prohibitions on interference in the private lives of others by "spying" or "curtain-ripping", (i.e. the "exposure of hidden sins").<ref name=Cook-142-3>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.142-3</ref> (Cook questions whether this suggestion is a contemporary attack on "the entire apparatus of religious enforcement in the Islamic Republic" and influenced by "Western conceptions of rights".)<ref name=Cook-142-3/>
Eslami cites the story of how the second Caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab, climbed a wall to catch a man in the act of wrongdoing but in so doing violated the Quran in three ways; by spying (''tajassus'') (Q.49:12), by entering through the roof (instead of the door) (Q.2:189), and by entering his home without first pronouncing a greeting (Q.24:27).<ref name=Cook-58>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.58</ref><ref name=102-cook>Cook, ''Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought'', 81f, cf.480 n.85. Cited in Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.58</ref><ref name="Reza-2009">{{cite web |last1=Reza |first1=Sadiq |title=Islam 's Fourth Amendment: Search and Seizure in Islamic Doctrine and Muslim Practice |url=https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1856&context=fac_articles_chapters |website=Digital Commons New York Law School |access-date=24 August 2021 |date=2009}}</ref>
==Modern world== ;Difficulties confronting pious forbidders Some of the challenges to Al-Ghazali's concept of individual Muslims forbidding wrong in the modern world include the influence of "universal" western values, and the growth of the strength and reach of the state.
While pious forbidders of wrong have always had to deal with the riposte: "What's it to you?", in the modern world they also hear "I'm free! It's a free country, it's a democracy!" from people "with their heads stuffed full of western ideas"<ref name=Cook-133>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.133</ref> like personal freedom and individualism. Conservatives despair that "debauchery and sin [when "victimless crimes"], are considered to be 'personal matters'" in which interference is a violation of the sinners' rights. Many Muslims live in secular countries where the charging of interest on loans, drinking of wine and fornication are all legal.<ref name=Cook-115-6>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.115-6</ref>
The decline in seclusion of Muslim societies and the stronger sense that the Muslim community is "just one among others" with no special "monopoly on moral judgement", has also brought an "unprecedented degree of moral scrutiny and condemnation from outside" the community.<ref name="Cook-169">Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.169</ref> The Western concept of universal human rights propagates the idea that it is both everyone's business how Muslims treat other Muslims (when human rights are violated), and no one's business how people choose to live their lives (when no one's rights are violated).<ref name="Cook-170">Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.170</ref>
The growth of the influence of the modern state over education, the economy, military, "intellectual life, culture", etc., has meant forbidding wrong has become "a function of the state apparatus" in states, including some Sunni states, and tendency of (Sunni) scholars to choose between two directions: either "giving ground" to the state and limiting the performance of forbidding; or confronting the state "in the name of Islam".<ref name=Cook-118>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.118</ref>
;Changes in Islamic scholarship since Medieval era Among the things that have changed in the Islamic world from the medieval to the modern era are the divisions among Muslims. Whereas before the twentieth century differences among the Hanafi, and Shafi legal schools, and between the Sunnis, Zaydis, and Ibadi "sectarian scholars" were important; in modern times the significant cleavage in many Islamic legal and political issues (including the forbidding of wrong and commanding of right), is: *Between Sunni and Twelver Muslims (the Sunni scholastic heritage becoming revered heritage (''turāth''), while scholars of the Twelver Shia give their scholastic tradition "continuity and adaptation");<ref name=Cook-112>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.112</ref> the Sunni world being "enormously diverse and confusing" having no one country or event defining the evolution of doctrine, while Twelver Shia thought is dominated by the Iranian Islamic revolution, its supporters and "mild" (clerical) dissidents.<ref name=Cook-132>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.132</ref> *Between the Islamic modernists and Islamists/fundamentalists/revivalists Muslims;{{#tag:ref|Cook describes fundamentalism as a "convenient term" without comparing it to similar terms -- Islamism, puritanism, revivalism, etc.|group=Note}} both seeking to revive Islam by restoring it to its "original purity", but modernists thinking this will lead to "living comfortably in the modern world", while fundamentalists work to move Islam "away from, not towards" Western culture.<ref name=Cook-111-113>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.111-113</ref>
Some post-medieval Muslims (Rashīd Rīda, d.1935, Khayr al-Din Pasha, d.1878) see the forbidding of wrong in western institutions such as the representative assemblies and free press of republics and constitutional monarchies, whose check on arbitrary power is a way of preventing wrong by rulers.<ref name=Cook-113>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.113</ref> But fundamentalists/Islamist scholars and/or preachers (Sayyid Qutb d.1966, Saʽid Ḥawwa d.1989) see the influence of western concepts mentioned above as a direct challenge to Islam.<ref name=Cook-115-6/> European countries, for example, being "nothing but wrongs" according to one conservative (Faysal Mawlawi speaking to an audience of Muslims in France).<ref name=Cook-115-6/> Among the new wrongs fundamentalists have identified in the modern world are cafes, playing cards, cinema, music on radio and television, and the shaving of beards.<ref name=Cook-115-6/>
Dealing with the power and reach of the modern state there has been a tendency of scholars to choose between two directions: either "giving ground" to the state and limiting the performance of forbidding; or confronting the state "in the name of Islam".<ref name=Cook-118/> Among Shia scholars doctrine has moved "sharply" from quietism to activism in keeping with the Islamic Republic.<ref name=Cook-134>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.134</ref>
On the issue of women's rights, the forbidding of wrong is reconciled with the traditional position of "subordination and seclusion" of women by calling for women to practice the duty at home.<ref name=Cook-115-6/>
;Using the hand in forbidding Hence some scholars (such as former Mufti of Egypt from 1986 to 1996, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy) either insist use of "the hand" is reserved for the state—a quietist position that is a "flagrant divergence from the mainstream of traditional Islamic doctrine"<ref name=Cook-120>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.120</ref>—or should only be applied to things and not people.<ref name=Cook-119>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.119</ref> Taking the standard view that the permission of the ruler not is required to use physical force against wrong doers, was Abd al-Qadir Awda and Jalal ad-Din Amri.<ref name=Cook-120/> Both Rashid Rida and Ali ibn Hajj quote approvingly Al-Ghazali's view that Muslims do not need a ruler's approval to form armed bands to combat wrongdoing, Rashid maintaining Al-Ghazali's doctrine "should be written in letters of gold" and memorized by da‘wāt preachers.<ref name=Cook-123/>
Among many contemporary Twelver Shia clerics, "wounding and killing" require the permission of a qualified jurist or specifically the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic.<ref name=Cook-137>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.137</ref> ;Other issues One of the original thinkers of Islamism, Sayyid Qutb, argued that forbidding wrong is hopeless/pointless when society has become corrupt, and instead efforts should be directed towards reconstructing Islam and social/political revolution, but this notion has not become "standard fundamentalist doctrine".<ref name=Cook-121-2>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.121-2</ref> What has become standard is that forbidding wrong requires "the organized propagation of Islamic values" in today's world.<ref name=Cook-122/>
===Islamic religious police=== {{further|Islamic religious police}}
If the "modern conception" of forbidding wrong is "the organized propagation of Islamic values",<ref name=Cook-122/> then in the late 20th century and/or early twenty first, one important way is by enforcing these values using the state's power of policing. The institution of hisbah has been used in some countries as a rationale for establishing Islamic religious police to stop wrongdoing.<ref name="hrw.org">{{Cite web|last= Tertsakian|first=Carina|date=September 2004|title="Political Shari'a"? Human Rights and Islamic Law in Northern Nigeria {{!}} The enforcement of Shari'a and the role of the hisbah|url=https://www.hrw.org/report/2004/09/21/political-sharia/human-rights-and-islamic-law-northern-nigeria#1485|access-date=2025-06-03|publisher=Human Rights Watch}}</ref> Islamic religious police have arisen in some Muslim majority states and regions (Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Aceh province of Indonesia, Afghanistan, Egypt, and Iran).
Between 1996 and 2001 the Taliban in Afghanistan <ref name=Cook-124>Cook, ''Forbidding Wrong'', 2003, p.124</ref> had a Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (at different times called a Committee or a department for the propagation ...).<ref name=Rfe2006-07-18>{{cite news |url = https://www.rferl.org/a/1069937.html |title = Afghanistan: Proposed Morality Department Recalls Taliban Times |publisher = Radio Free Europe |author = Golnaz Esfandiari |author-link = Golnaz Esfandiari |date = 2006-07-18 |access-date = 2008-10-28 |url-status = live |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20081214162526/http://www.rferl.org/content/Article/1069937.html |archive-date = 2008-12-14 }}</ref> [[File:Taliban beating woman in public RAWA.jpg|thumb|right|A religious policeman beating a woman for removing her burqa headpiece in public, Kabul, 2001 (image obtained by the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan)]]
In Saudi Arabia, the state authority responsible for ''hisbah'' is the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, or ''hay'a''.<ref>{{cite book|first=Sherifa |last=Zuhur |year=2012 |title=Saudi Arabia|isbn=978-1598845716| pages=431–432|publisher=ABC-CLIO |location=Santa Barbara |oclc=712115040}}</ref> Established in 1976, (or 1940)<ref name="BBC who are 2016">{{cite news |title=Who are Islamic 'morality police'? |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36101150 |access-date=19 July 2021 |agency=BBC News |date=22 April 2016}}</ref> the committee was known for banning the sale of ''Pokémon'', Barbie dolls, and forcibly prevented school girls from escaping a burning school in 2002 by beating rescuing firemen and locking the school's doors (15 girls died).<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1874471.stm "Saudi police 'stopped' fire rescue"], ''BBC News Online'', London, 15 March 2002.</ref> The once feared Committee lost most of its power by 2016<ref name=aljazeera-2016/> when it was reduced to submitting reports about infractions to civil authorities.<ref name=aljazeera-2016>{{Cite web|url=http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/saudi-arabia-strips-religious-police-arresting-power-160413141418824.html|title=Saudi Arabia strips religious police of arresting power|publisher=Al Jazeera|access-date=2016-04-14}}</ref>
Iran has had different institutions<ref name="a0">{{cite news |first=Thomas |last=Erdbrink |date=7 May 2014 |title=When Freedom Is the Right to Stay Under Wraps |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/world/middleeast/when-freedom-is-the-right-to-stay-under-wraps.html |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=12 August 2016}}</ref> enforcing proper covering (hijab) for women, preventing the mingling of unrelated men and women without a male guardian (mahram), and other infractions<ref name="a2">{{cite news |last=Sharafedin |first=Bozorgmehr |date=20 April 2016 |title=Rouhani clashes with Iranian police over undercover hijab agents |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-rights-rouhani-idUSKCN0XH0WH |website=Reuters |access-date=12 August 2016}}</ref> since shortly after the Iranian Revolution. Article 8 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran makes enjoining good and forbidding wrong mandatory in accordance with Chapter 9, verse 71 of the Quran.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Islamic_Republic_of_Iran#Article_8 | title=Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran }}</ref>
Hisbah doctrine has been invoked by Islamic prosecutors in cases of apostasy and acts of blasphemy. In Egypt, the Human Rights group Freedom House complains, "hundreds of hisba cases have been registered against writers and activists, often using blasphemy or apostasy as a pretext".<ref>Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, “Hesba Cases Cast Away the Civil State Principles and Citizenship Rights. Cited in {{cite web |title=Policing Belief. THE IMPACT OF Blasphemy Laws on Human Rights |url=https://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/PolicingBelief_Egypt.pdf |website=Freedom House |access-date=30 December 2020 |date=c. 2010}}</ref> In one high-profile case, Nasr Abu Zayd, a Muslim scholar "critical of old and modern Islamic thought" was prosecuted under the statute when his academic work was held to be evidence of apostasy.<ref>M. Berger, Apostasy and Public Policy in Contemporary Egypt: An Evaluation of Recent Cases from Egypt's Highest Courts, Human Rights Quarterly, Volume 25, Number 3, August 2003, pages 720-740</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Olsson |first=S. |year=2008|title=Apostasy in Egypt: Contemporary Cases of Ḥisbah |journal=The Muslim World|volume=98 |issue=1|pages= 95–115|doi=10.1111/j.1478-1913.2008.00212.x |issn=1478-1913}}</ref>
==See also== * Guidance Patrol, Iran's morality police * Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought
==References== === Explanatory notes === {{reflist|group=Note}}
===Citations=== {{Reflist}}
===Sources=== *{{Cite book|title=Guidance From Qur'an|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9v2qAgAAQBAJ|first1=Husein A.|last1=Rahim|first2=Ali Mohamedjaffer|last2=Sheriff|publisher=Khoja Shia Ithna-asheri Supreme Council|location=Mombasa|year=1993}} *{{Cite book|edition=|location=London|translator-last=Salim Abdallah ibn Morgan|isbn=978-1-291-04392-1|last=Ibn Taymiyyah|title=Enjoining Right & Forbidding Wrong|date=2000|publisher=Al-Firdous Ltd}} *{{Cite book|edition=First|isbn=978-0860371137|last=Ibn Taymiyyah|title=Public Duties in Islam: Institution of the Hisba by Ibn Taymiyyah (Author), Ibn Taymiyah (Author), M. Holland (Translator)|date=2007-12-07|publisher=Islamic Foundation }} * {{Cite book|author-link=Michael Cook (historian)|edition = Reissue| publisher = Cambridge University Press| isbn = 978-0-521-13093-6| last = Cook| first = Michael| title = Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought| date = 2010-02-11 |orig-year=2000}} * {{Cite book| publisher = Cambridge University Press| last = Cook| first = Michael| title = Forbidding Wrong in Islam, an Introduction| date = 2003}}
==External links== *[https://web.archive.org/web/20070206222925/http://www.islamic-world.net/economics/hisbah.htm Hisbah institution] Iqtisad al-Islami (Islamic economics) Islamic-world.net *[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927010501/http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=1&ID=161&CATE=14&redirect=yes Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller. Commanding the Right and Forbidding the Wrong], From the Reliance of the Traveller (Book Q) * [http://lasjan.page.tl/Amr_bil_Maroof.htm Amr-bil-Maroof] * {{Citation |last=Çakmak |first=Cenap |title=Hisbah |date=2023 |encyclopedia=The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Islamic Finance and Economics |pages=1–3 |editor-last=Ustaoğlu |editor-first=Murat |url=https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-93703-4_137-1 |access-date=2024-06-27 |place=Cham |publisher=Springer International Publishing |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-93703-4_137-1 |isbn=978-3-030-93703-4 |editor2-last=Çakmak |editor2-first=Cenap|url-access=subscription }}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Enjoin What Is Good And Forbid What Is Wrong}} Category:Constitutions of Iran Category:Islamic jurisprudence Category:Islamic ethics Category:Islamic terminology