Enjoining good and forbidding wrong () are two important duties imposed by God in Islam according to the Quran and Hadith.
This expression is the base of the classical Islamic institution of ḥisba, the individual or collective duty (depending on the Islamic school of law) to intervene and enforce Islamic law. It forms a central part of the Islamic doctrine for Muslims. The injunctions also constitute two of the ten Ancillaries of the Faith of Twelver Shi'ism.Momen (1987), p.180.Momem (1987), p.178.Momem (1987), p.176.
Pre-modern Islamic literature describes pious Muslims (usually scholars) taking action to forbid wrong by destroying forbidden objects, particularly liquor and musical instruments are haram.Cook, Forbidding Wrong, p.31 In the contemporary Muslim world, various state or parastatal bodies (often with phrases like the "Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice" in their titles) have appeared in Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia,"Cats and dogs banned by Saudi religious police", NBC News, 18 December 2006. Nigeria, Malaysia, the Gaza Strip, etc., at various times and with various levels of power, to combat sinful activities and compel virtuous ones. (The power of the Saudi religious police was sharply curtailed in 2016)
Terminology Ma'ruf, usually translated as "good", "right" or "just", appears 38 times in slightly varying forms in the Qurʾān. Traditional commentators oppose the association of maʿrūf with its cognate urf, "custom."
Although most common translations of maʿrūf is "good" and munkar "evil", the words used for good and evil in Islamic philosophy are ḥusn and qubh. In its most common usage, maʿrūf is "in accordance with the custom", while munkar (singular nukr), which has no place in the custom, is the opposite. In today's religious expression, maʿrūf is best translated as sunnah and munkar as bid’a. (a related topic: Istihsan)
Depending on the translation from the Quran, the phrase may also be translated as commanding what is just and forbidding what is evil, commanding right and forbidding wrong, and other combinations of "enjoin" or "command", "right" or "just", "wrong", "unjust", or "evil".
Scriptural basis Answering the question of why there is a duty among Muslims to forbid wrong are statements in the Quran and hadith.Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 2003, p.11
Quran Let there arise out of you a band of people inviting to all that is good, enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong: They are the ones to attain felicity. -- Quran 3:104 translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali Ye are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah. If only the People of the Book had faith, it were best for them: among them are some who have faith, but most of them are transgressors. -- Quran 3:110 translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali The believers, both men and women, are guardians of one another. They encourage good and forbid evil, establish prayer and pay alms-tax, and obey Allah and His Messenger... (Q.9:71) ˹It is the believers˺ who repent, who are devoted to worship, who praise ˹their Lord˺, who fast, who bow down and prostrate themselves, who encourage good and forbid evil, and who observe the limits set by Allah... (Q.9:112) “O people! Establish prayer, encourage what is good and forbid what is evil, and endure patiently whatever befalls you. (Q.31:17) O you who have believed, upon you is [responsibility for] yourselves. Those who have gone astray will not harm you when you have been guided. To Allāh is your return all together; then He will inform you of what you used to do. (Q.5:105)Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 2003, p.85-6 Scholars have provided a number of reasons why the obvious reading of this verse is incorrect, such as that it refers not to the present but "to some future time when forbidding wrong will cease to be effective."
Hadith Appearing in Sahih Muslim, the second most prestigious collection of Sunni hadith is a famous report:Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 2003, p.12
Abu Sa‘id al-Khudri reported that the prophet Muhammad said, "Whoever amongst you sees an evil, he must change it with his hand. If he is not able to do so, then with his tongue. And if he is not able to do so, then with his heart, and that is the weakest form of faith". Mutazilite and Shia Imamis quote different traditions than this Sunni Hadith, but all agree on the Quran and on "the existence of the duty" to command and forbid.
According to historian Michael Cook (whose book Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought is the major English language source on the issue), a slightly different phrase is used in a similar hadith -- 'righting wrong' (taghyir al-munkar) instead of 'forbidding wrong' (an-nahy ʿani-l-munkar) -- but "scholars take it for granted" that 'the two "are the same thing, ..."Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 2003, p.4
Sunnis, Ibadis and Twelver (also called Imami) Shia schools of Islam "made extensive use of" the "schema" set out by this hadith.
History Pre-Islamic Phrases similar to forbidding evil and commanding good can be found examining texts of ancient Greek philosophers -- Stoic Chrysippus (d.207 BC) and Aristotle (d.322) -- and the founder the Buddha.Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 2003, p.147-8 A particularly similar formulation is found in the book of Psalms: "Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it". (Psalm 34:14)
However, Michael Cook finds no "serious precedent" for use of the phrases "forbidding wrong" and "commanding right" in the literature of the immediate predecessors of Muhammad his companions, pre-Islamic Arabian traditions and poetry.Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 2003, p.149-152
Muhtasib
Traditionally, in classical Islamic administrations, there was an office of al-hisbah, an inspector of "markets and morals", the holder of which was called a muhtasib. He was appointed by the caliph to oversee the order in market places, in businesses, in medical occupations, etc.Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 2003, p.5 He "had no jurisdiction to hear cases—only to settle disputes and breaches of the law where the facts were admitted or there was a confession of guilt."
General term Hisbah as a "general term for 'forbidding wrong'" has a later origin, and the difference in the terms has caused some confusion. According to Michael Cook, the second use is "mainly an invention" of Al-Ghazali" (d.1111), who followed a precedent set by "a somewhat earlier scholar", Mawardi (d.1058) and "adopted the word hisba" as it is currently used.
A slightly different definition than Al-Ghazali's comes from ʿAbd al-Ghani al-Nābulusī (d.1731), who distinguished between forbidding wrong and ḥisbah. The first being a duty to call on the wrongdoer to stop, but carrying "no power or duty of enforcement"; and ḥisbah or censorship, (according to ʿAbd al-Ghani), being the duty to enforce right conduct (ḥaml al-nās ʿalā ʾl-ṭāʿa) and reserved to authorities—unless the offense was being committed while the "ordinary believer" could intervene.Cook, Forbidding wrong, 2003, p.91-2
Islamic scholarship Scholars opinions and ideas on forbidding wrong are found in legal literature such as collections of fatawas, in theological handbooks, monographs devoted to the subject, and in commentaries on the Qur'an and Hadith.Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 2003, p.7-9 Sunni Scholar Ibn Taymiyya's work discusses Enjoining Right and Forbidding Wrong. It could be said that some Sunni works of jurisprudence do not specifically cover the topic of Forbidding Wrong, but Twelver (Ja'fari school of thought) scholars along with others among Zaydis and Ibadi branches of Islam do.Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 2003, p.7
Al-Ghazali Al-Ghazali (1058-1111 CE) was "perhaps the first major Islamic thinker to devote substantial amount of space" to these two duties, and his account of forbidding wrong in (Book 19 of his) The Revival of the Religious Sciences, is "innovative, insightful, and rich in detail" and "achieved a wide currency in the Islamic world."Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 2003, p.8 He wrote: Every Muslim has the duty of first setting himself to rights, and then, successively, his household, his neighbours, his quarter, his town, the surrounding countryside, the wilderness with its Bedouins, Kurds, or whatever, and so on to the uttermost ends of earth.Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought, 445
Modern era What Ghazali wrote about was the "personal duty to right wrongs committed by fellow believers as and when one encountered them."Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 2003, p.122 This theme also formed the "core" of the "scholastic heritage" on the subject created by other medieval scholars. But in the modern era "the conception" of forbidding wrong has changed and become more systematic. Now opposing wrongdoing involves "the organised propagation of Islamic values," according to Cook, which requires missionary work and organisation.Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 2003, p.123 And several contemporary Muslim majority states or provinces have some kind of Islamic "religious police".
Issues: By whom, to whom, about what
While scripture is clear that a community is enjoined to command right and forbid wrong, it does not indicate whether this included all Muslims or only some.
Three "basic questions arising "about the duty of forbidding wrong" are who has to do it, to whom, and about what?"
Differences in scholarly debates over the duty of "commanding right and forbidding wrong" stemmed from the positions taken by jurists (Faqīh) on questions regarding who precisely was responsible for carrying out the duty, to whom it was to be directed, and what performance of the duty entailed. Often, these debates were framed according to what Michael Cook calls the "three modes" tradition, a tradition based on a prophetic hadith which identifies the "heart" (qalb), "tongue" (lisān), and "hand" (yad) as the three proper "modes" by which one should fulfill the obligation. Depending on a number of factors both intrinsic and extrinsic to their legal schools, scholars apportioned this labor in differing ways, some reserving the execution of the duty by "tongue" for the scholars and by "hand" for the political authorities such as the muḥtasib, or those invested with the authority to carry out the duty on their behalf, and others arguing that these modes extended to all qualified believers.Sami Zubaida (2005), Law and Power in the Islamic World, , pages 58-60Michael Cook: Commanding right and forbidding wrong in Islamic thought. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge 2000, pp. 32-47
Who should do the enforcing Scholars argue that free (non-slave) adult male Muslims are obliged to forbid wrongdoing, and that non-Muslims are excluded from the duty. Michael Cook paraphrases al-Ghazali in asking, "After all, since the duty consists in coming to the aid of the faith, how could one of its enemies [an unbeliever] perform it?" and points out that if a nonbeliever upbraided a Muslim for wrongdoing he would "presuming to exercise an illegitimate authority over the Muslim", who should never be humiliated by an unbeliever.Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 2003, p.13 Those who lack legal competency (mukallaf), such as children and the mentally ill, are also excluded. However, scholars are generally "reluctant to restrict the range of those for whom forbidding wrong is a duty",Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 2003, p.18-19 and so usually include two other groups not possessing the rights of free adult male Muslims—namely slavesCook, Forbidding Wrong, 2003, p.14 and women.Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 2003, p.15Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 2003, p.13-15 "Sinners" are also not exempt according to the "standard" view of Islamic scholars.Cook, Forbidding Wrong, 2003, p.18