Shura: Between text and historical experience

The relationship between Shura and similar Western concepts in the last century was amongst the most controversial issues in the contemporary Islamic thought. Some of the questions that were put forward in the contemporary political thought include: Is the constitutional political system the same as Islamic Shura? Is it possible to make these two concepts so close to each other that constitutionalism be considered as the modern conception of Shura? Wouldn’t the assimilation of Shura and democracy amount to the reduction of democracy to some of its dimensions? The writer of the present paper studies the development of the concept of Shura at three stages: the second half of the first century (H), third century (H), and the contemporary stage.