Eighth: He may draw his livelihood from the public treasury in an amount commensurate with his office, but a volunteer may not draw a livelihood for carrying out this duty.

Ninth: He may exercise his independent legal judgment in matters governed by custom rather than by the Sharia, such as seating areas in markets and projecting awnings. He may therefore uphold or prohibit whatever his judgment leads him to uphold or prohibit. A volunteer has no such authority.

Thus, the distinction between the muḥtasib, whose office consists of enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong, and other volunteers—although they too may enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong—consists in these nine respects. One of the conditions for the muḥtasib is that he be experienced and upright, possessed of sound judgment, resolute and firm in matters of religion, and knowledgeable about apparent wrongs. Is it necessary for him to be a scholar qualified to exercise independent legal reasoning in the rulings of religion, so that he may exercise his own judgment? One position holds that he must be qualified to do so, while another holds that this is not a condition, provided that he is knowledgeable about wrongs whose prohibition is agreed upon.

Know that ḥisbah occupies an intermediate position between the rulings of the judiciary and the rulings of the Court of Grievances. As for its relationship to the judiciary, it agrees with judicial rulings in two respects, falls short of them in two respects, and exceeds them in two respects. As for the two respects in which it agrees with judicial rulings, the first is that a claimant may summon the defendant in cases involving private rights. This does not apply to claims generally; rather, it is limited to three types of claims.

The first concerns shortchanging or giving less than the due amount in measure or weight. The second concerns fraud or deceptive concealment in a commodity or its price. The third concerns a debtor’s refusal and delay in paying a debt that has become due, despite having the means to pay it. His consideration of these three types of claims, rather than other claims, is permitted because they involve an apparent wrong that he has been appointed to remove, and because they concern a clear good that he is recommended to uphold. The remit of ḥisbah is to compel the fulfillment of rights and assist in securing them; its officer may not go beyond this to render a final judgment.