"SHŪRĀ" AS AN ELECTIVE INSTITUTION Author(s): PATRICIA CRONE Reviewed work(s): Source: Quaderni di Studi Arabi, Vol. 19 (2001), pp. 3-39 Published by: Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. Nallino Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25802929 . Accessed: 11/05/2012 07:46 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. Nallino is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Quaderni di Studi Arabi. http://www.jstor.org PATRICIACRONE SHURA AS AN ELECTIVE INSTITUTION* Shurd means consultation, usually between a person in authority and his subordinates, as inQ. 3:159 (shdwirhum fi 'l-amr)y and occasionally between peers sharing power, as perhaps in Q. 42:38 on those "whose affairs are decided by consultation" (amruhum shurd baynahum)} Either way, it is a procedure leading to a decision by people in charge of government. Shurd also has a second and more specialized meaning, however. In sources relating to the Rashidun and the Umayyads it is normally a procedure for deciding who should be in charge of government. The participants here deliberate in order to elect a ruler, not to convey their advice to one or to act as joint rulers themselves; and al-amr shurd is a call for the ruler to be elected by this procedure, not for affairs to be decided by consultation in general.