19. Taking Consumer Protection to Lunatic Extremes
Mad Caliph Al Hakim’s lunatic conduct went beyond religious persecutions. It included one of history’s most bizarre consumer protection practices, ever. He reportedly used to walk through the markets of Cairo, looking for deceptive merchants, while accompanied by a giant African slave named Masoud.
Whenever he came across a merchant cheating buyers, the Mad Caliph would order Masoud to publicly sodomize the crook, right then and there. To this day, when people in Cairo encounter a merchant whom they suspect is trying to cheat them, they threaten to “bring Masoud”.