CAIRO - The office of ombudsman, recently reintroduced by Egypt's new president, has a long history, going back to the very early days of Islam. The major concern of the Prophet Mohamed (peace be upon him) was the Muslims. He was personally in charge of solving people's complaints, although the ombudsman as an official body had yet to come into existence. There were few disputes in the era of the Prophet and the kind of complaints were very different from those of today. After the death of the Prophet, Abu Bakr el-Seddiq became the First Muslim Caliph. In his inaugural speech, he announced his intention to eliminate injustice and enforce justice. He said in his speech: "I'm coming to be your leader, but I'm not the best among you. I will do my best and you must support and help me; if I doing something wrong, you must set me right." Abu Bakr told them that a weak man is strong in his eyes until he gets his rights, while a strong man is weak in his eyes until getting the people's rights from him. The role of the ombudsman began to grow under the Second Caliph Omar Ibn el-Khattab, known in Islamic history as the first Caliph to introduce administrative structures into the then-expanding State. He gave some shape to the raw idea of ombudsman, as it was previously known. He also seized the opportunity of the Hajj (Major Pilgrimage to Mecca) season to listen to the complaints of Muslims coming from other parts of the Islamic State, while visiting Mecca. The Second Caliph was very sharp when it came to justice; he treated everyone equally, whether they were weak or strong, poor or rich, servant or king. Later, Abdel Malek Ibn Marwan, a famous Umayyad caliph, adopted the role of ombudsman, listening to the people's complaints and trying to solve them. In the Abbasid era, the Caliph el-Maamoun performed the duties of ombudsman every Sunday. The same tradition continued to be observed in the Ayoubid era that followed. In the Mamluk era, the caliphs started to appoint the best judges as ombudsmen. These judges had to have an excellent knowledge of the Sharia, according to which justice was meted out. The ombudsman would listen to people's complaints about their leaders, as well as complaints about low salaries and complaints from citizens who'd been robbed. He'd then try and find a solution. Throughout Islamic history, the caliphs looked into people's grievances, to ensure equality and justice. They also ensured that people obeyed the law, punishing them if they didn't. Because of the stress of life, the ombudsman eventually disappeared in 1848 at the end of the reign of Mohamed Ali Pasha, to be replaced by other, similar authorities, such as the administrative court. Under Mohamed Ali, the ombudsman's role was limited to solving people's tax problems. The re-creation of the ombudsman by President Morsi is quite natural, observers say, given the new leader's cultural background as a former Muslim Brotherhood member. Seeing the crowds at the presidential gate a few days after his election, Dr Morsi gave instructions for two ombudsman's offices to be opened in Abdeen and Qubba presidential places, to tackle the complaints of citizens. "The ombudsman's office is one of the ways for the ruler to communicate with the nation," says Saeed el-Lawendi, a political expert. "This communication was lacking in the old regime, and now the new president wants to assert that he is one of the people, for whom he feels sympathy and whose problems he can solve." In the space of just a few weeks, the two ombudsman's offices have received more than 27,000 complaints, according to unofficial statistics. Harsh living conditions and many other problems that accumulated under a regime that shrugged its shoulders when people suffered have created complaints of a diverse nature. They include complaints about substandard housing; unemployment; money owing to the families of the martyrs and those injured during the January 25 Revolution; sickness; and even personal problems. There are about 150 employees from the office of the presidency and the Ministry of Local Development, who answer citizens' inquiries and complaints within a week. In the meantime, Morsi has decided to turn the two offices into a fully-fledged institution. "It's a good idea to have an authority like this, but each governorate should have its own ombudsman's office to make things easier for citizens," says Bakynam el-Sharqawi, a professor of political science at Cairo University.
