Concept of Shūra in Fazlur Rahman’s Political Ideas at Practical Level

The term Shra has become an important term in modern political history of Islam. Its importance and centrality can be gauged by the fact that Muslim modernists, traditionalists and fundamentalists use it equally to propound and promote their own political ideas. This term and concept were part of Fazlur Rahman"s political thought and central to his overall idea of an Islamic State. However, with the passage of time his arguments changed corresponding to the changes in the prevailing situation. The current article focuses mainly on his thought on shra in his early writings from 1950s and 1960s. Though in the first decade of his career he had no independent views of his own on shra and he based his arguments on the subject mainly on the arguments of classical thinkers such as