A manual for the good government of an Andalusi city, addressed to the judge and the market inspector (muhtasib): how markets, trades, streets, mosques, baths and the river port of Seville ought to be run and policed.
Hisba manuals set out the duties of the muhtasib, the official who enforced public morality and fair dealing in the market. Ibn ‘Abdun’s, written in Almoravid Seville, is unusually concrete about the city itself. He wants each trade kept in its proper place and the craftsmen who make noise, smoke or filth kept away from where they cause harm; he forbids shopkeepers to build benches or awnings out into the street and householders to narrow it; he asks for the drains to be covered and the streets cleaned; and he regulates the dimensions of bricks, tiles and timber so that buyers are not cheated.
Together with the similar manual of al-Saqati of Málaga, it shows how the market streets of al-Andalus were kept in order day by day: the other half, beside the law of neighbours, of the rules that made the medina.
The book, part by part
I The market and the trades
The muhtasib’s duties; trades in their rows; weights, measures and building materials; encroachment on the street.