Editing Sharia (section)

=== Role of ''hisba'' ===
{{Main|Hisbah}}
{{Further|Islamic religious police}}

The classical doctrine of ''[[Hisbah|hisba]]'', associated with the Quranic injunction of ''[[enjoining good and forbidding wrong]]'', refers to the duty of Muslims to promote moral rectitude and intervene when another Muslim is acting wrongly.{{sfn|Thielmann|2017}}{{sfn|Mack|2018}} Historically, its legal implementation was entrusted to a public official called ''[[muhtasib]]'' (market inspector), who was charged with preventing fraud, disturbance of public order and infractions against public morality. This office disappeared in the modern era everywhere in the Muslim world, but it was revived in Arabia by the first Saudi state, and later instituted as a [[Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (Saudi Arabia)|government committee]] responsible for supervising markets and public order. It has been aided by volunteers enforcing attendance of daily prayers, gender segregation in public places, and a conservative notion of [[hijab]].{{sfn|Thielmann|2017}} Committee officers were authorized to detain violators before a 2016 reform.{{sfn|Chan|2016}} With the rising international influence of [[Wahhabism]], the conception of ''hisba'' as an individual obligation to police religious observance has become more widespread, which led to the appearance of activists around the world who urge fellow Muslims to observe Islamic rituals, dress code, and other aspects of Sharia.{{sfn|Thielmann|2017}}

[[File:Taliban beating woman in public RAWA.jpg|right|thumb|Taliban [[Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (Saudi Arabia)|religious police]] beating a woman in [[Kabul]] on 26 August 2001, as reported by [[Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan|RAWA]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Movies |url=http://www.rawa.us/movies/beating.mpg |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090325014821/http://www.rawa.us/movies/beating.mpg |archive-date=25 March 2009 |publisher=Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) |format=MPG}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Nitya Ramakrishnan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iRdBDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT437 |title=In Custody: Law, Impunity and Prisoner Abuse in South Asia |publisher=Sage Publishing India |year=2013 |isbn=978-8132117513 |page=437 |access-date=16 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201227213726/https://books.google.com/books?id=iRdBDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT437 |archive-date=27 December 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref> for opening her [[burqa]] (face)]]

In Iran, ''hisba'' was enshrined in the constitution after the [[Iranian Revolution|1979 Revolution]] as a "universal and reciprocal duty", incumbent upon both the government and the people. Its implementation has been carried out by official committees as well as volunteer forces (''[[basij]]'').{{sfn|Thielmann|2017}}<ref name="rferl">{{cite web |date=15 January 2009 |title=Iran's Basij Force&nbsp;– The Mainstay Of Domestic Security |url=http://www.rferl.org/content/Irans_Basij_Force_Mainstay_Of_Domestic_Security/1357081.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120110190716/http://www.rferl.org/content/Irans_Basij_Force_Mainstay_Of_Domestic_Security/1357081.html |archive-date=10 January 2012 |access-date=24 May 2014 |work=RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty}}</ref> Elsewhere, policing of various interpretations of Sharia-based public morality has been carried out by the [[Kano State Hisbah Corps]] in the Nigerian state of [[Kano State|Kano]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Olaniyi |first1=Rasheed Oyewole |year=2011 |title=Hisbah and Sharia Law Enforcement in Metropolitan Kano |journal=Africa Today |volume=57 |issue=4 |pages=71–96 |doi=10.2979/africatoday.57.4.71 |s2cid=154801688}}</ref> by ''Wilayatul Hisbah'' in the Aceh province of [[Indonesia]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Uddin |first1=Asma |year=2010 |title=Religious Freedom Implications of Sharia Implementation in Aceh, Indonesia |url=http://ir.stthomas.edu/ustlj/vol7/iss3/8/ |url-status=live |journal=University of St. Thomas Law Journal |volume=7 |issue=3 |pages=603–48 |ssrn=1885776 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160528220701/http://ir.stthomas.edu/ustlj/vol7/iss3/8/ |archive-date=28 May 2016 |access-date=10 June 2016}}</ref> by the [[Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (Gaza Strip)|Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice]] in the Gaza Strip, and by the [[Taliban]] during their 1996–2001 and 2021–present rule of Afghanistan.{{sfn|Thielmann|2017}} Religious police organizations tend to have support from conservative currents of public opinion, but their activities are often disliked by other segments of the population, especially liberals, urban women, and younger people.<ref>{{cite web |date=22 April 2016 |title=Who are Islamic 'morality police'? |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36101150 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190413170252/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36101150 |archive-date=13 April 2019 |access-date=18 April 2019 |website=[[BBC News Online]]}}</ref>

In Egypt, a law based on the doctrine of hisba had for a time allowed a Muslim to sue another Muslim over beliefs that may harm society, though because of abuses it has been amended so that only the state prosecutor may bring suit based on private requests.<ref name="Gallagher">Nancy Gallagher (2005), Apostasy, Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures: Family, Law and Politics, Editors: Suad Joseph and Afsāna Naǧmābād, {{ISBN|978-9004128187}}, p. 9</ref> Before the amendment was passed, a hisba suit brought by a group of Islamists against the liberal theologian [[Nasr Abu Zayd]] on charges of [[Apostasy in Islam|apostasy]] led to the annulment of his marriage.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Berger |first1=Maurits |year=2003 |title=Apostasy and Public Policy in Contemporary Egypt: An Evaluation of Recent Cases from Egypt's Highest Courts |url=https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/13673/MS%20Berger%20-%20Apostasy%20and%20public%20policy%20in%20contemporary%20Egypt.pdf?sequence=1 |url-status=live |journal=Human Rights Quarterly |volume=25 |issue=3 |pages=720–40 |doi=10.1353/hrq.2003.0026 |jstor=20069684 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190418033611/https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/13673/MS%20Berger%20-%20Apostasy%20and%20public%20policy%20in%20contemporary%20Egypt.pdf?sequence=1 |archive-date=18 April 2019 |access-date=11 April 2019 |hdl-access=free |hdl=1887/13673 |s2cid=144601396}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Olsson |first1=Susanne |year=2008 |title=Apostasy in Egypt: Contemporary Cases of Ḥisbah |journal=The Muslim World |volume=98 |issue=1 |pages=95–115 |doi=10.1111/j.1478-1913.2008.00212.x}}</ref> The law was also invoked in an unsuccessful blasphemy suit against the feminist author [[Nawal El Saadawi]].<ref name="Gallagher" /> Hisba has also been invoked in several Muslim-majority countries as rationale for blocking pornographic content on the internet and for other forms of faith-based censorship.<ref>Helmi Noman (2013), "In the name of God – Faith based internet censorship in majority Muslim countries", in ''Routledge Handbook of Media Law'' (Editors: Monroe E. Price, et al.), Routledge, {{ISBN|978-0415683166}}, Chapter 14, p. 257</ref>