The urge for the institution of Al-Hisbah to suit the current financial institutions.

Central Bank of Malaysia

The Hisbah is a religious institution under the authority of the state that appoints people to carry out the responsibility of enjoining what is right, whenever people start to neglect it, and forbidding what is wrong, whenever people start to engage in it. The purpose of this is to safeguard society from deviance, protect the faith, and ensure the welfare of the people in both religious and worldly manners according to the Law of Allah. Allah has made it obligatory upon all Muslims to enjoin good and forbid wrongdoing to the extent of their knowledge and abilities. Allah says: "Let there arise from you a group calling to all that is good, enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong. It is these who are successful."(Q.3:104)

According to al-Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali (in his book Ihya' Ulum Eddin (Vol. II) there are four major elements of Hisbah:

1. Al-Muhtasib; Al-Muhtasib is literally a judge (Qadi) who takes decisions on the spot, in any place at any time, as long as he protects the interests of the public. His responsibilities are almost open-ended in order to implement the foregoing principle: commanding the good and forbidding the evil of wrongdoing.
2. Conditions of the process: Conditions of the process of Al-Hisbah are imperative to define exactly what is and what is not strictly forbidden. Sometimes, sinful is less damaging to society than the forbidden as such.
3. Who is subjected (accountable) to al-Muhtasib?: The nature of Al-Muhtasib's tasks is comprehensive. It comprises practically all aspects of society as well as everything in day-to-day life. This is not restricted to fellow human beings, but also extended to interpose in damages caused by animals and environmental issues.
4. Degrees of Al-Hisbah Actions: Al-Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali had outlined 10 degrees of al-muhtasib's actions. These should be applied gradually with great care and consideration.

Hisbah was a state institution in all Muslim societies up to the colonial period. It had 3 functions:                   

1. Enforcing proper ethical behavior and restrained people from improper and unethical behavior;
2. Responsible for providing some municipal services such as street lighting and street cleaning preventing encroachments and protecting the environment; and
3. Regulating markets by checking weights and measures, enforced contracts, forced payment of debts by defaulters and prohibited unlawful trade practices.

With the advent of Western colonialism, hisbah, like most Muslims institutions underwent drastic modifications and decline by either disintegrated into a number of departments or remained an ineffective appendage of the state. Some of the countries have transformed the hisbah function into a number of secular departments, discarding its religious content as irrelevant. The comfort living in the secular system has also become one of the challenges of applying the Islamic economics system and the reestablishment of the hisbah institution.

Nowadays, the role of government and its interface with the market has increased and become more complex. Instead of the hisbah, the democratic state has several regulatory agencies. The Islamic hisbah, which generally only regulated the markets, has been replaced by institutions that regulate the government as well, therefore in this age any implementation of the hisbah department through imitation is decidedly misguided. In addition, the old institution of hisbah indicates that the Islamic state should not be oblivious to the moral conduct of its citizens, after all, market places and government offices also require ethical behavior in the absence of which civilized living is not possible.

In the context of Malaysia, the function of hisbah has been implemented by different departments and agencies of the government, however, all the agencies have not been called hisbah. This is due to the complexity and a long process of Malaysia history. All of the agencies have very clear responsibilities and functions as the traditional hisbah, and have been designed based on current needs and situation. Some of the agencies are:

1. Ministry of Finance – regulate all matters regarding economics and finance
2. Central Bank – regulate the financial institutions
3. Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE) – regulate capital market and behavior
4. Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission – avoid corruption, abuse of power and malpractice
5. Many other ministries

Since many agencies are running the function of hisbah, there is no need to revive such agencies or creating another hisbah institution which will lead to overlapping and redundancy, however certain improvements should be made in order to achieve the objective of hisbah such as:

1. Creating a mechanism of monitoring and coordination between all of the agencies by the government to ensure all of the functions of hisbah have been conducted properly to ensure the protection of public interest, as well as avoiding harm.
2. Revising the function of current agencies to also monitor the behavior of Muslims towards the prohibited act.
3. The function of Al-muhtasib as the knowledgeable and wisdom judge in many disciplines especially in the fiqh muamalat should be strengthen and implemented in all agencies involved especially in form of syariah advisory team.
4. Promote and educate the Muslims towards the prevention of conventional system and harmful act with collaboration with other parties such as mass media.