The Jigawa State Hisbah Corps have arrested 31 persons, including 25 women, in the Kazaure local government area of the state on Wednesday for engaging in prostitution and alcoholic beverages.
Hisbah regulates people’s behaviours and enforces moral codes that line up with the religion of Islam, like what they drink, eat and wear.
Hisbah commander, Ibrahim Dahiru, said the suspects were arrested at about 6:00 a.m. for “immoral acts”, after they were allegedly caught with booze and 55 bottles were recovered.
He told journalists in Dutse, the Jigawa State capital, that the suspects were arrested during a ‘reap what you sow’ raid in Kazaure.
The commander said 55 bottles of assorted alcoholic beverages and 50 litres of locally-brewed alcohol, burukutu, were seized during the raid.
He said the suspects and the seized items were handed over to the police in the area for further action.
Mr Dahiru commended residents of the state for their support and cooperation with the morality police in discharging their duties.
He assured that Hisbah would continue to fight against immoral acts in all parts of Jigawa.
What you need to know about Hisbah
Hisbah is an Islamic doctrine referring to upholding “community morals”,[2] based on the Quranic injunction to “enjoin good and forbid wrong”.
In pre-modern Islam, Hisbah was not just a doctrine but an office charged with “maintenance of public law and order and supervising market transactions”, covering salat prayers, “mosque maintenance, community matters, and market dealings”, whose functionary was called a muhtasib.
Later, the celebrated Islamic scholar, Al-Ghazali, used “Hisba” as a “general term for forbidding wrong”, and specifically for the “duty of individual Muslims” to forbid wrong and command right. He also used the term “muhtasib”, but for any Muslim who carried out the duty.
What is “good” and what is “wrong” are based on the norms of sharia (Islamic law), according to scholars. How right is commanding and wrong forbidden can be divided into “three modes” according to an oft quoted prophetic hadith—by “hand”, i.e. using force; “tongue” i.e. verbally; by the “heart” i.e. silently.
Scholars and Islamic schools of law (madhhab) differ regarding who precisely was (and is) responsible for carrying out the duty, to whom it was to be directed, and what its performance entailed—schools of law differ over whether Hisbah is an individual or collective duty.
Pre-modern Islamic literature describes Islamic revivalists (usually scholars) taking action to forbid wrong by destroying forbidden objects, especially containers of alcoholic beverages and musical instruments, and disrupting forbidden activities, such as chess games and the association of unmarried members of the opposite gender.
In the contemporary Muslim world, various state or parastatal bodies—often with phrases like the “Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice” (Saudi Arabia), or “Hisbah” (Nigeria) in their titles- have appeared in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Malaysia, etc., at various times and with various levels of power.
Wrongdoing targeted by these groups includes inadequate hijab covering, lack of gender segregation, failure to observe salat, consumption of alcohol and public displays of affection.
A slightly different spelling of the same triconsonantal root, ḥisāb (Arabic: حسابة, romanized: ḥisāb) refers to “the reckoning” of Judgement Day in Islam, where those resurrected from the dead are judged to be sent to heaven or hell.
