As for the third category—those matters pertaining specifically to officials in terms of appointment and dismissal—it comprises six chapters.
The first concerns who may validly appoint officials. This is determined by the effectiveness of his authority and his jurisdiction to exercise oversight: whoever is authorized to oversee an office has effective authority within it, and may validly appoint officials to it. This may be done by one of three persons: the sultan who has authority over all affairs; the vizier of delegation; or a governor with general authority over a broad jurisdiction, such as a provincial governor or the governor of a major city, who appoints an official to a specific office. As for the executive vizier, he may not appoint an official except after referring the matter for review and obtaining authorization.
Chapter Two: Who may assume a governorship. He must possess the requisite competence in his own right and be trusted for his integrity. If it is a delegated governorship requiring independent legal reasoning, the appointee must be free and Muslim. If it is an executive governorship in which the official has no role in independent legal reasoning, neither freedom nor Islam is required.
Chapter Three: Specifying the office to which he is appointed. Three conditions must be met in this regard. First, the jurisdiction must be defined by distinguishing features that set it apart from other jurisdictions. Second, the duties falling under his authority must be specified, such as tax collection, kharaj, or the tithe. Third, he must know the established regulations of the office and the rights and obligations associated with it in sufficient detail to eliminate any ambiguity. Once these three conditions have been fulfilled for an office, and both the appointing authority and the appointee know them, the appointment is valid and effective.
Chapter Four: The exercise of authority. This has three possible forms. The first is that the appointment is set for a specified period of months or years. Setting it for such a period authorizes the exercise of authority during that time and prevents its exercise after the period has elapsed. The exercise of authority during the specified period is not binding upon the appointing authority, who may dismiss the official and replace him whenever he considers that to be in the public interest.
As for whether it is binding upon the appointed official, that depends on the nature of the remuneration attached to the office. If the remuneration is known and specified in a manner that makes the payment of wages legally valid, he is bound to continue working throughout the period until it expires, because the governorship in that case becomes a pure contract of hire, and the official may be compelled to perform the work until the period ends.