As for appointing partitioners and cultivators, the judges have a stronger claim to select them than do the officials of the ḥisbah, because such people may be appointed as deputies to manage the property of orphans and absent persons. As for appointing guards among the tribes and in the markets, that falls to the protectors and the police officials.

If a dispute arises over short measure or weight, the muḥtasib may examine the matter so long as the dispute does not involve mutual denial and repudiation. If it develops into mutual denial and counter-denial, the judges have a stronger claim to examine it than do the officials of the ḥisbah, because they have greater authority in matters requiring legal judgment. Disciplinary action in such a case belongs to the muḥtasib; if the judge undertakes it, that is permissible because it is connected with his adjudication.

Among the matters that the muḥtasib should prohibit as a general practice, though not in private and individual transactions, is trading with measures and weights unfamiliar to the people of the town and not recognized there, even if they are known elsewhere. If two people mutually agree to use them, he should not object to or prohibit their transaction. However, he should prevent people from adopting them for general use, since someone unfamiliar with them might transact with them and thereby be deceived.

As for matters that he may prohibit when they concern purely private rights—such as a man encroaching upon his neighbor’s boundary, upon the protected area around his house, or by placing a structure on his wall—the muḥtasib has no authority to intervene unless the neighbor calls upon him to take action against the offender. This is because it is a private right that he may either waive or pursue. If the neighbor brings the matter before the muḥtasib, the latter may examine it so long as there is no mutual dispute and denial between them. He may compel the transgressor to remove his encroachment, and the disciplinary measure imposed on him should be determined according to the circumstances and their indications. If the two parties dispute the matter, the judge has a stronger claim to examine it.

If a neighbor initially accepted the other neighbor’s encroachment and waived his demand that what had been built upon the encroached area be demolished, then later renewed his demand, he would still be entitled to do so; and the transgressor could be compelled, despite the earlier pardon, to demolish what he had built. If, however, he had begun the construction and laid the beams with the neighbor’s permission, then the neighbor later revoked that permission, the builder could not be compelled to demolish it.

If the branches of a tree spread into a neighbor’s house, the neighbor may bring a complaint to the muḥtasib, who can summon the tree’s owner and compel him to remove the branches that have spread into the neighbor’s house. The owner is not to be disciplined for this, because the spreading of the branches was not his act. If the tree’s roots spread underground until they entered the subsoil of the neighbor’s land, the owner could not be compelled to uproot the tree, nor could the neighbor be prevented from using the subsoil of his land, even if he cut the roots.

Aḥmad said, according to the narration of Ibn Manṣūr: “If a man has a tree in his neighbor’s wall, and its branches extend into his own wall, he may stop him and order him to cut them.” Isḥāq ibn Hāniʾ likewise transmitted: “If a tree is rooted in its owner’s property while its branches overhang his neighbor’s orchard, the neighbor may ward that off from himself.” Al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥārith likewise transmitted: “Regarding a palm tree whose roots are in his house while its crown extends into my house, it should be cut so that it does not harm him.” He was asked, “Should it be cut for him?” He replied, “He should order its owner to cut it.”