Conclusion

The Middle East was long ruled in an autocratic style disparaged as oriental despotism, divine kingship, or patriarchal monarchy. Autocracy in this region nevertheless contained a tradition of responsiveness to the people and their needs that has not been sufficiently appreciated either by foreign critics or its own heirs, both of whom have had reasons to see it in a negative light. The Circle of Justice is one of the oldest political ideas in the Middle East, appearing in some of the earliest written inscriptions in the region and retaining its currency until the modern era. It animated much of the governmental and judicial activity of Middle Eastern regimes, tempering their autocracy and giving people a channel for protesting abuses. Moreover, conquerors invading from outside repeatedly found it necessary to adopt the ideas of the Circle in order to govern their Middle Eastern conquests. The concept appeared and reappeared in political literature and art across the region for over four thousand years and was translated into practice through royal institutions of government and through the petitioning activity of Middle Eastern peoples. Only in the modern period has it been seen by some as superfluous, “traditional,” even “fictional.”¹ For most of those four millennia, it served as a legitimating idea for the people in power, as a guide to good political relations, and as a spur to the subjects of empires to bring their complaints to the ruler or his representative, even if those complaints lay against the ruler himself.