Soumaya Mestiri’s essay, “Public Debate, Shûra, (Overlapping) Consensus, Ijma’: Toward a Global Concept of Democracy,” published in the UNESCO volume Asian-Arab Philosophical Dialogues on Globalization, Democracy and Human Rights (2010), offers a compelling critique of both Eurocentric and Islamist exceptionalisms regarding democracy. Situating her argument within a broader effort to pluralize democratic theory, Mestiri draws on classical Islamic concepts—particularly shûra (consultation) and ijma’ (consensus)—to demonstrate the latent democratic potential within Islamic intellectual traditions. Her central thesis challenges the notion that democracy is exclusively a Western inheritance and asserts that a global, culturally plural conception of democracy must be forged through cross-cultural philosophical dialogue.
Mestiri begins by deconstructing the “Islamic exception” thesis—the idea that Islam is inherently incompatible with democracy. She rightly critiques both Western orientalist narratives that essentialize Islamic governance as authoritarian and fundamentalist Muslim claims that Islam already possesses a complete, self-sufficient model of governance that renders external democratic norms irrelevant. Both positions, she argues, stem from a form of “theoretical provincialism” that either denies the dynamism of Islamic political thought or imposes a static, monolithic view of Western democracy.
A key contribution of the essay is Mestiri’s historical and hermeneutic recovery of Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) as a bridge between Roman republican ideals and Islamic governance. She highlights Ibn Khaldun’s nuanced comparison of the Roman Republic—with its elected Senate and short-term consuls—with the Quranic injunction that Muslims “conduct their affairs by mutual consultation” (Qur’an 42:38). Mestiri interprets this not as a literal equation but as a methodological opening: Ibn Khaldun implicitly aligns shûra with a republican model that prioritizes deliberation, rotation of power, and resistance to tyranny. This reading reframes shûra not as a ceremonial or advisory mechanism confined to elite circles—as it often functioned historically—but as a dynamic, contestatory practice akin to public debate.
Crucially, Mestiri distinguishes between the Greek and Roman legacies of democracy. While acknowledging that medieval Islamic scholars inherited a largely Greek corpus (via translations of Plato and Aristotle), she notes that Greek philosophers often disparaged democracy as chaotic or mob rule. In contrast, she positions the Roman republican tradition—as filtered through Ibn Khaldun—as more conducive to a participatory, institutionalized form of consultation. This distinction is pivotal: it allows her to argue that the failure of democracy to take root in many Muslim-majority societies is not due to an inherent incompatibility with Islamic principles but to a historical misalignment—namely, the absence of engagement with the Roman republican tradition that emphasizes public contestation and institutional checks.
Mestiri further enriches her argument by invoking John Rawls’s notion of “overlapping consensus” and Jürgen Habermas’s theory of post-secular public reason. She contends that Islamic societies can develop democratic norms not by importing liberal secularism wholesale, but by cultivating a form of consensus that emerges through inclusive, rational-critical debate—even when participants draw on religious or metaphysical worldviews. In this vision, shûra becomes the indigenous framework for such deliberation, and ijma’ is not a static endpoint but a processual achievement grounded in reasoned disagreement and mutual recognition.
The essay is philosophically sophisticated and historically informed, yet it remains accessible and politically engaged. Mestiri avoids both romanticizing pre-modern Islamic governance and succumbing to cultural relativism. Instead, she proposes a reconstructive hermeneutics—one that retrieves democratic kernels from within the Islamic tradition while remaining open to cross-cultural fertilization.
One potential limitation lies in the essay’s brevity (it spans only three pages in the original volume), which necessarily restricts the depth of textual exegesis and historical contextualization. A more sustained engagement with the juridical and political practices surrounding shûra in early Islamic history—particularly its gradual institutional narrowing—could further strengthen her argument. Additionally, while her focus on Ibn Khaldun is illuminating, a brief mention of other thinkers (e.g., al-Farabi, who envisioned a “virtuous city” with consultative elements) might have underscored the diversity of Islamic political thought.
Nevertheless, Mestiri’s essay makes a significant intervention in global democratic theory. By centering Islamic concepts not as alternatives to but as contributors to a pluralistic democratic imagination, she models a decolonial approach to political philosophy. Her call for a “global concept of democracy” rooted in mutual learning rather than cultural imposition remains profoundly relevant in an era marked by both resurgent nationalism and transnational democratic backsliding.
“Public Debate, Shûra, (Overlapping) Consensus, Ijma’: Toward a Global Concept of Democracy” by Soumaya Mestiri; from: UNESCO Bangkok's Asian-Arab Philosophical Dialogues on Globalization, Democracy and Human Rights
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