212 Claudia Preckel
created, which should guarantee public order, justice in society and an
effective economy by controlling the markets. The market inspector
(muḥtasib) had to observe the traders and the correctness of weights
and scales. But this institution also included a strong moral instance.
The Wahhabiyya extended al-amr bil-maʿrūf wa-nahy ʿan al-munkar
to call for every Muslim’s commitment to observe his duties. The local
authorities also had to control the regularity of praying, the prohibi-
tion of smoking and gambling and other things.^159 The Ahl-i Ḥadīth,
however, were not equally successful in practicing al-amr bil-maʿrūf
wa-nahy ʿan al-munkar in Bhopal. According to some sources, Ṣiddīq
Ḥasan tried to prohibit drinking wine, but he was not successful in
this.^160 Additionally, he instituted the office of the muḥtasib to ensure
the control of weights and measures, especially for those practitioners
of the Unani Medicine (ṭibb-i yūnānī) and vendors of medicines and
herbs.^161 Another important issue was the control of the mosques. Dur-
ing Sikander Bēgum’s reign, rulings were issued concerning the behav-
iour of the believers in the local mosques: for example, it was prohib-
ited to sleep in the mosque, and beggars were forbidden to enter the
Shayzari, Abd al-Rahman b. Nasr: The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector.
Nihayat al-rutba fi talab al-hisba, transl. by R. Paul Buckley, Oxford 1999.
159 Steinberg, Religion und Staat, pp. 397–422; on Ibn Taymiyya’s advocacy of
intervention, see Cook, Michael A.: Commanding Right and Forbidding
Wrong in Islamic Thought, Cambridge 2000, pp. 151–158, on the Ḥanbalīs of
Najd, see pp. 165–195.
160 ʿAlī Ḥasan Khān, Maʾāthir-i Ṣiddīqī, part 3, p. 93; Luqmān, Akhtar J.: al-Say-
yid Ṣiddīq Ḥasan al-Qannawjī, Riyadh 1996, p. 68.
161 The Unani medicine, meaning “Greek medicine”, is a traditional medi-
cine which is based on the four humours (blood, yellow and black bile, and
phlegm). It is widely practiced in South Asia and in countries with a South
Asian diaspora. One of the most important sources of Unani Medicine is the
work al-Qānūn fī al-ṭibb (Canon of Medicine) by Ibn Sīnā (d. ca. 1037). Since
the times of the Mughals, Unani Medicine is associated with the Muslim cul-
ture in India, although it is also influenced by Ayurveda, traditional Indian
medical traditions and “Western” medicine. Since the colonial times, Unani
Medicine developed as a kind of “national medicine” in India. The Bēgums of
Bhopal have always been strong supporters of Unani Medicine. For this see
the author’s project “Medical Knowledge and Plural Culture. The Graeco-
Islamic Medicine (ṭibb-i yūnānī, Unani Medicine) and its representation in
South Asia” at the Ruhr-University Bochum (http://www.darstellung.rub.de/
preckel.html). See also Attewell, Guy: Refiguring Unani tibb. Plural Heal-
ing in Late Colonial India, New Delhi (Orient Longman) 2007; Alavi, Seema:
Islam and Healing. Loss and Recovery of an Indo-Muslim Medical Tradition;
1600–1900, New York 2008.
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