Nihāyat ar-rutba fī talab al-hisba

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Nihāyat ar-rutba fī talab al-hisba ( Arabic نهاية الرتبة في طلب الحسبة, DMG Nihāyat ar-rutba fī ṭalab al-ḥisba  'The highest level in the persecution of the Hisba') is the title of one of the most popular medieval Arabic Hisba handbooks, in which the tasks of Muhtasib are described. A certain ʿAbd ar-Rahmān ibn Nasr al-Shaizarī, who probably lived in Syria in the 12th century, is assumed to be the author today . Little is known about his other living conditions. The book, of which numerous manuscripts have survived, is of particularly high cultural and historical value because it describes in detail the frauds that were common in the various trades in the Middle East and that were intended to be fought by the Muhtasib. In an expanded version of the work created by an Egyptian Muhtasib named Ibn Bassam, the number of trades described is greatly expanded.

Structure and content

The work comprises 40 chapters, some of which are again divided into sections. The incipit reads: aḥmadu Llāha ʿalā mā anʿama wa-astaʿīnu-hū fī-mā alzama ("I praise God for what he has granted and ask him for help with what he has imposed"). The author, who is introduced at the beginning of the work with the words qāla ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān ibn Naṣr ibn ʿAbdallāh (or Mu esammad) ("it said Abd ar-Rahmān, etc.") declares that he was writing the work at the request of a man "who had taken over the Hisba office and was entrusted with overseeing the affairs of the people and checking the conditions of the market people and traders," and needed a compendium on the Sharia- law persecution of Hisba.

Of the forty chapters, the first four deal with the following subjects: 1. The requirements that the muhtasib must meet in order to perform the Hisba and the qualities that he should possess; 2. Supervision of markets and streets; 3. Knowledge of units of measure and coins; 4. Knowledge of weights and dimensions and calibration of weights. Then it comes to the Hisba supervision of the following groups: 5. Grain and flour sellers; 6. Baker; 7. Oven operator; 8. Manufacturers of zalābīya cakes; 9. butchers and butchers; 10. roasts; 11. Sheep's head seller; 12. Fish roaster; 13. Cooks ; 14. Harīsa cooks; 15. sausage maker; 16. confectioners ; 17. pharmacists; 18. Spice Merchant; 19. Sorbet seller; 20. fat sellers; 21. Cloth Merchant; 22. Negotiators and town criers; 23. Weber; 24. Tailors; 25. Cotton Sellers; 26. flax spinner; 27. silk maker; 28. Dyer; 29. Shoemaker; 30. money changers; 31. Goldsmiths; 32. Copper and iron smiths; 33. veterinarians; 34. slave and cattle traders; 35. bath house operator; 36. Bloodletters and Cups ; 37. Doctors, ophthalmologists, repairmen and surgeons ; 38. boy educator; and 39. Ahl adh-Dhimma . The 40th and final chapter deals with general and specific matters of Hisba.

The book has a clear Sunni orientation. It urges teachers not to let students memorize those poems written by the Rāfidites about the Ahl al-bait , but only poems in which the companions of the prophets are praised. The muhtasib is also asked to forbid beggars from reciting rāfidite poems in public.

A peculiarity compared to earlier books dealing with the Hisba is that the Nihāyat ar-rutba defines Hisba as a task that is not limited to the area of ​​the right and the prohibition of the reprehensible , but also the "reconciliation between the People "( iṣlāḥ baina n-nās ) according to Sura 4: 114.

Text witnesses

The great importance and popularity that the Nihāyat ar-rutba fī talab al-hisba had in premodern times is shown by the large number of manuscripts. The book is preserved in at least 14 manuscripts, eight of which are stored in Egypt. The oldest complete manuscript is dated to the 23rd Safar 711 dH (= July 11, 1311 AD), was created by a certain Abū Bakr ʿAlī al-Bahnasī from the Upper Egyptian city of Bahnasā and is today in the Egyptian National Library in Cairo. Several manuscripts of the Nihāyat ar-rutba are also stored in European libraries :

The text was first edited in 1946 by as-Saiyid al-Bāz al-ʿArīnī based on the oldest manuscript in Cairo, the manuscript in Leipzig and another manuscript from the Egyptian National Library. Another edition, prepared by Muhammad Hasan Muhammad Hasan Ismāʿīl and Ahmad Farīd al-Mazīdī, was published in 2003 by the Beirut publishing house Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmīya.

author

Although today a certain ʿAbd ar-Rahmān ibn Nasr ibn ʿAbdallāh asch-Shaizarī is generally accepted as the author of the work, this name is neither to be found in the classical Arabic biographical literature, nor is it fully established. This name only appears in full in the Kairin manuscript from 1311. With regard to the author's Nisba , however, there are also many other details. Hādji Chalīfa , for example, cites the work twice in his bibliographic lexicon: Kašf aẓ-ẓunūn ʿan asāmī al-kutub wa-l-funūn , one time as Nisba al-ʿAdawī, the second time at-Tabrīzī aš -Šāfiʿī. In the Viennese manuscript the Nisba an-Nabrāwī, and Hammer-Purgstall names Nisba al-Barawī asch-Schāfiʿī,

The statements about his laqab are similarly contradictory . In the Viennese manuscript it is Taqī ad-Dīn, in Hādji Chalīfa Jalāl ad-Dīn and in other manuscripts Zain ad-Dīn or Jamāl ad-Dīn. Carl Brockelmann tried to harmonize the names he knew with each other and built a new, extensive overall name from it: Dchalāl ad-Dīn Abū n-Nadschīb Abū l-Fadā'il ʿAbd ar-Rahmān ibn Nasr ibn ʿAbdallāh asch-Shaizarī at-Tibrīzī al-ʿAdawī an-Nabarawī. However, it is only certain that the author was called ʿAbd ar-Rahmān ibn Nasr ibn ʿAbdallāh, because this part of the name can be found in most manuscripts in the author's self-introduction at the beginning of the work. For the correctness of the Nisba al-Shaizarī speaks that the author begins his description of weights and measures with the standard valid in Shaizar .

The strong orientation towards the measurement and weight standards of Syria and the mention of Tughtigin , the Atabeg of Damascus in the first chapter, suggest that the author lived in Syria for at least a while. Karl Vollers already suggested that ʿAbd ar-Rahmān ibn Nasr ibn ʿAbdallāh, the author of the Nihāyat ar-rutba , is identical to the author of the same name who wrote the prince's mirror Kitāb al-Manha Für al-maslūk for Saladin (d. 1193) fī siyāsat al-mulūk . Brockelmann tacitly made other references. In his view, the author of the Nihāyat ar-rutba is also identical with ʿAbd ar-Rahmān ibn Nasr al-Shīrāzī, who wrote a number of other works, including a oneiromantic manual entitled Ḫulāṣat al-kalām fī ta'wīl al- aḥlām , a book on the secrets of marriage Al- Īḍāḥ fī asrār an-nikāḥ , and a book on love entitled Rauḍat al-qulūb wa-nuzhat al-muḥibb wa-'l-maḥbūb . The biographical details of this person differ widely. While he was, according to Hādji Chalīfas, working as a qādī in Tiberias , Ferdinand Wüstenfeld writes of this scholar that he was working as a doctor in Aleppo around 1169.

Translations

The Nihāyat ar-rutba aroused keen interest among orientalists from German-speaking countries as early as the early 19th century. Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall prepared a shorter and a more detailed German summary of the work, which was published in the Wiener Jahrbuch der Literatur in 1837 and 1838 . Walter Behrnauer, librarian at the Vienna Court Library, created a French translation of Nihāyat ar-rutba in 1860/61 under the title "Notice particulière sur la Charge de Mouhtasib par le Cheikh Annabrawi" . It was published as part of his article: "Mémoire sur les institutions de police chez les arabes, les persans, et les turcs" in the Journal Asiatique . An English translation of the work has also existed since 1999. It was created by RP Buckley and is part of his book: The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector , which also includes other texts on Hisba.

Edits

The Nihāyat ar-rutba later received several revisions. There is a manuscript of the work in the British Library (Ms. Or. 9221), which has many additions and on the first page of which a Muhtasib named Muhammad ibn ʿAbdallāh from Safed is indicated as the editor . In a manuscript that is kept in the Azhar library and is dated to the year 675 dH (1276 AD), chapters 36 to 39 are missing, while additions are made in other places.

The treatment created by Muhtasib Muhammad ibn Ahmad Ibn Bassām is much more extensive. It contains 118 chapters and is almost three times as extensive as the treatise by al-Shaizari. At the beginning of the text, the preface to the basic work is reproduced in full and its author ʿAbd ar-Rahmān ibn Nasr ibn ʿAbdallāh (asch-Shaizarī) is also named. Ibn Bassam's processing deals with numerous additional professional groups, such as glass manufacturers, contract writers and manufacturers of face veils, as well as manufacturers of clay jugs, hole punches and tar. In many chapters Ibn Bassām also provides information on the ingredients and manufacturing process of certain products. Even more than asch-Shaizarī, Ibn Bassām emphasizes the need for the Muhtasib to choose an expert ( ʿarīf ) from each handicraft to serve as a liaison to the respective group of craftsmen.

The oldest manuscript of the work, which is kept in Istanbul , was created by a certain ʿAlī al-Qarāfī and on the 12th Ramadan 844 d. H. (= 1441 AD) completed. On this basis, the work was edited in 1967 by Ḥusām ad-Dīn as-Sāmarāʾī. As-Sāmarāʾī used another, considerably younger manuscript from the Egyptian National Library for comparison. The work was obviously far less popular than the original, as there are only a few manuscripts.

Little is known about the author Muhammad Ibn Bassām, who is not identical with Ibn Bassām , the author of the Andalusian historical work aḏ-Ḏaḫīra fī maḥāsin ahl al-ǧazīra . In any case, he was active as a Muhtasib, because he refers to "the time of his Hisba" in several places. The modern editor concludes from the fact that the author begins his description of the units of weight, in contrast to ash-Shaizarī, with the units of weight of Egypt and also reports of units of weight with Arabic characters on one side and Coptic characters on the other of the work that it must have been written in Egypt.

The Hisba manual by Ibn al-Uchūwa (d. 1329) with the title Maʿālim al-qurba fī aḥkām al-ḥisba ("Sign of closeness to God through the rules of Hisba") also has numerous passages from the Nihāyat ar- rutba taken over.

literature

  • As-Saiyid al-Bāz al-ʿArīnī: Muqaddimat an-nāšir in his text edition of Nihāyat ar-rutba fī ṭalab al-ḥisba . Maṭbaʿat Laǧnat at-ta'līf wa-t-tarǧama wa-n-našr, Cairo, 1946.
  • RP Buckley: The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector. Kitāb Nihāyat ar-rutba fī ṭalab al-ḥisba (The Utmost Authority in the Pursuit of Ḥisba) by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Naṣr al-Shayzarī. Translated with an Introduction and Notes . Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999.
  • Louis Cheikhô : "Kitāb Nihāyat ar-rutba fī ṭalab al-ḥisba" in al-Mašriq 10 (1907) 961-968, 1079-1086. Digitized
  • Ahmad Ghabin: "Review of RP Buckley: The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector. " In Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 29 (2004) 441-448.
  • Gustav Flügel : The Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts of the Imperial and Royal Court Library in Vienna. Vienna, KK Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1865–67. Vol. I, pp. 263f. Digitized
  • Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall : "Nihāyat ar-Rutba fī ṭalab al-ḥisba" in (Viennese) year books of literature. 80 (1837) Advertisement sheet p. 50f. Digitized
  • Joseph von Hammer-Purgstell: "Article VII" in Wiener Jahrbücher der Literatur 84 (1838) 128–190. Here pp. 145–156. Digitized
  • Ḥusām ad-Dīn as-Sāmarrāʾī: "Muqaddimat al-muḥaqqiq" in Ibn Bassām: Nihāyat ar-rutba fī ṭalab al-ḥisba . Ed. Maṭbaʿat al-Maʿārif, Baghdad, 1967.
  • Kristen Stilt: Islamic law in action: authority, discretion, and everyday experiences in Mamluk Egypt. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 2011. pp. 56-62.
  • Karl Vollers: Catalog of the Islamic, Christian-Oriental, Jewish and Samaritan manuscripts in the Leipzig University Library . Vol. II. Harrassowitz, Leipzig, 1906. pp. 123f. Digitized

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. aš-Shaiẓarī: Nihāyat ar-rutba . 1946, p. 3.
  2. ↑ Cf. aš-Shaiẓarī: Nihāyat ar-rutba . 1946, p. 105.
  3. ↑ Cf. aš-Shaiẓarī: Nihāyat ar-rutba . 1946, p. 113.
  4. ↑ Cf. aš-Shaiẓarī: Nihāyat ar-rutba . 1946, p. 6.
  5. ↑ Cf. as-Saiyid al-Bāz al-ʿArīnī in the preface to his text edition from 1946, p. Ṭāʾ.
  6. ↑ Cf. as-Saiyid al-Bāz al-ʿArīnī in the introduction to his text edition, 1946, S. Lām.
  7. ↑ See Wilhelm Pertsch: The Arabic manuscripts of the ducal library in Gotha . Part 3, Vol. 3: Gotha, 1881. P. 439 Digitized
  8. ↑ See Vollers: catalog . 1906, p. 123f.
  9. ↑ Cf. Gustav Flügel: The Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts of the Imperial and Royal Court Library in Vienna. Vienna, KK Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1865-67. Vol. I, pp. 263f. Digitized
  10. ↑ Cf. W. Ahlwardt: The manuscript directories of the Royal Library in Berlin. Lists of Arabic Manuscripts . Volume IV. Berlin 1892. No. 4803. Digitized
  11. ↑ See R. Vassie: A Classified Handlist of Arabic Manuscripts acquired since 1912. Volume I: Islamic Law . The British Library, London, 1995. p. 66.
  12. ↑ Cf. as-Saiyid al-Bāz al-ʿArīnī in the introduction to his text edition, 1946, S. Lām bis Nūn. This text edition is available here as a PDF.
  13. ↑ Cf. as-Saiyid al-Bāz al-ʿArīnī in the preface to his text edition from 1946, S. Lām.
  14. ↑ Cf. Hādji Chalīfa : Kašf aẓ-ẓunūn ʿan asāmī al-kutub wa-l-funūn . Ed. Gustav Leberecht grand piano . Vol. VI. Leipzig 1852. pp. 400f. Digitized
  15. ↑ See wing: The Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts 1865-67. Vol. I, pp. 263f.
  16. ↑ See Hammer-Purgstall: Nihāyat ar-rutba . 1837, p. 50.
  17. ↑ See wing: The Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts 1865-67. Vol. I, pp. 263f.
  18. ↑ Cf. as-Saiyid al-Bāz al-ʿArīnī in the preface to his text edition from 1946, p. Ṭāʾ.
  19. ↑ Cf. Carl Brockelmann: History of Arabic Literature. Brill, Leiden 1937. Supplement I, page 832.
  20. ^ See Buckley: The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector. 1999, p. 12.
  21. ↑ Cf. as-Saiyid al-Bāz al-ʿArīnī in the preface to his text edition from 1946, S. Yāʾ.
  22. ^ See Buckley: The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector. 1999, pp. 12, 31, 41f.
  23. ↑ See Vollers: catalog . 1906, p. 123f.
  24. ↑ Cf. Hādji Chalīfa: Kašf aẓ-ẓunūn ʿan asāmī al-kutub wa-l-funūn . Ed. Gustav Leberecht grand piano . Vol. III. Leipzig 1852. p. 510. Digitized
  25. ↑ See Ferdinand Wüstenfeld: History of Arab Doctors and Natural Scientists . Göttingen 1840. p. 100. Digitized
  26. ↑ See Journal Asiatique 16 (1860) 347-392 digitized and 17 (1861) 5-76. Digitized
  27. ↑ Cf. as-Saiyid al-Bāz al-ʿArīnī in the preface to his text edition from 1946, S. Mīm.
  28. ↑ Cf. as-Saiyid al-Bāz al-ʿArīnī in the preface to his text edition from 1946, S. Nūn.
  29. ↑ Cf. as-Sāmarrāʾī: Muqaddimat al-muḥaqqiq . 1967, S. Zāy.
  30. ↑ Cf. Cheikho: "Kitāb Nihāyat ar-rutba". 1907, p. 966.
  31. ↑ Cf. Cheikho: "Kitāb Nihāyat ar-rutba". 1907, p. 966.
  32. ↑ See Ahmad Ghabin: Ḥisba, Arts and Craft in Islam. 2009. pp. 165f.
  33. ↑ See Stilt: Islamic law in action . 2011, p. 61.
  34. ↑ See Ibn Bassām: Nihāyat ar-rutba fī ṭalab al-ḥisba . Ed. Ḥusām ad-Dīn as-Sāmarrāʾī. Maṭbaʿat al-Maʿārif, Baghdad, 1967.
  35. ↑ Cf. Ḥusām ad-Dīn as-Sāmarrāʾī in his introduction to Ibn Bassām: Nihāyat ar-rutba fī ṭalab al-ḥisba . Ed. Maṭbaʿat al-Maʿārif, Baghdad, 1967. S. Ǧīm to Dāl.
  36. ↑ Cf. Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Ibn al-Uḫūwa: Maʿālim al-qurba fī aḥkām al-ḥisba . Ed. Reuben Levy. Cambridge University Press, London, 1938.