found: Encyc. of Islam(Ḥisba; the function of the person who is entrusted in a town with the application of this rule in the supervision of moral behavior and more particularly of the maillets; this person with the ḥisba was called, muḥtasib. The classical muḥtasib was characterized by the integration of his task as controller of the market within the wider duty, basically religious, of maintaining the order of social life. The muḥtasib continued to exist throughout the greater part of the Muslim world until the reforms of the modern period.)
