The Law of the Market

Abstract

The chapter examine the nature of the hisba institution and early hisba manuals. Although the hisba law belongs to the realm of customary law, the Islamic concept of ‘commanding right and forbidding wrong’ had been grafted onto the hisba law. This mechanism provided an Islamic aura for the market inspector’s actions. The chapter also examines the grain economy of Fustat-Cairo and how the famine of 1024-1025 was handled by the market inspector and the regime. They handled the crisis at the political level, irrespective of doctrines related to fixing of prices.