From the "Pillar of the Universe" to the Pillar of Democracy: The Multiple Temporalities of the Persian Concept of Shura

The Islamic principle of consultation (shura, mashvara) has been at the center of Iranian political discourse since the mid-nineteenth century. Despite the apparent secularization which the concept underwent during the constitutional period (1905-1911), the classical Islamic discourse on shura continued to shape the Iranian debate on political agency, especially after the 1979 Revolution. While some authors saw shura as a path to democracy, others presented it as a fundamental Islamic principle of the religious scholars’ political prerogative. The existing literature on the Iranian concept of shura has highlighted either its incompatibility with the project of modernity or its instrumentalization by the agents of modernity who sought to adapt their ideas to their audience. Yet, little attention has been paid to the complex model of historical time implicit in the concept of shura. This paper attempts to historicize the Persian discourse on shura by applying the methodology of the history of concepts as it was formulated by German historian and theorist Reinhart Koselleck (1923-2006). It posits that, since the mid-Qajar period (roughly corresponding to 1860s), shura emerged as an increasingly entangled concept which was embedded simultaneously in linear and cyclical temporalities. Accommodating both religious and secular visions of political power, the concept of shura was systematically used to curb the sovereign’s power and increase the agency of Iranians. However, the gradual association of shura with the western model of representative democracy and revolutionary change turned it into an extremely contested concept, impeding a dialogue between different political groups. Relying on the Iranian political literature, press and parliamentary debates from the mid-nineteenth century to the early 1980s, this paper demonstrates how the evolution of shura’s multiple temporalities contributed to the transformation of this concept into a symbol of historical rupture marked by a rejection of the past.