It was also transmitted from him that he would break it. Thus, in the narration of Ibn Manṣūr, concerning a man who sees a tanbūr (lute), a covered drum, and a bottle, he said: “If it is suspected that it is a tanbūr or a drum, or that it contains an intoxicant, he should break it.”

Likewise, Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥarb transmitted that if a man encountered another carrying a ʿūd (lute), a tanbūr, or a covered drum, he should break it. If he heard objectionable sounds from musical instruments coming from a house whose inhabitants were openly broadcasting them, he should denounce them from outside the house. He should not storm in and enter upon them, nor was he required to uncover anything else hidden inside.

Mihnā al-Anbārī transmitted from Aḥmad that he once heard the sound of a drum nearby. He rose from his seat, sent word to them, and forbade them. In the narration of Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥarb, concerning a man who hears wrongdoing in the house of one of his neighbors, he said: “He should order him to stop. If he does not comply, he should rally the neighbors against him and intimidate him.”

As for objectionable transactions—such as buying and invalid sales—and anything that Islamic law has prohibited even when the contracting parties mutually consent to it, if its prohibition is a matter of consensus, then the official in charge of ḥisbah must denounce it, prevent it, and reprimand those who engage in it. The disciplinary action he takes varies according to the circumstances and the severity of the prohibition.

As for matters over which the jurists disagree as to whether they are prohibited or permissible, he has no jurisdiction to denounce them—unless they are matters in which the dissenting view is weak and which serve as a means to something unanimously prohibited. An example is cash-based ribā: disagreement over its prohibition is weak, and it serves as a means to ribā al-nasīʾa (deferment-based ribā), whose prohibition is agreed upon.

The same applies to temporary marriage (nikāḥ al-mutʿah), which may become a means of treating fornication as permissible; thus, denouncing it falls within the remit of his office. Abū Isḥāq said in his book on temporary marriage: “If it is said, ‘Since you have distinguished it from marriage, why did you not give it the ruling of fornication?’ the answer is: ‘The well-regarded imams among the Companions and the Successors classified it under the ruling of fornication, not under that of marriage.’”

He also said in his annotations on Kitāb al-ʿIlal (The Book of Hadith Defects): “The children of the Rāfiḍah are children born of fornication for four reasons. One of them is that temporary marriage is lawful in their view, although it is fornication pure and simple.”

Ibn Baṭṭah mentioned in his Book of Marriage: “A marriage contract adjudicated by a judge is not annulled if he based his ruling on an interpretive judgment.”