ABSTRACT
The Circle of Justice is an ancient Middle Eastern political concept, and this book tells its story. The Circle of Justice is actually a mnemonic, a summarized description, of the interrelationship between Middle Eastern states and their societies. It got its name in the sixteenth century Ottoman Empire, but it had been written in a circle as early as the eleventh century and its circularity had been recognized much earlier; in fact, the earliest written descriptions of this relationship come from the third millennium BCE. Experience has demonstrated vividly how little the West understands Middle Eastern political culture and how poorly adapted Western political science is to that task. In an effort to pay more attention to indigenous political concepts, this book examines a concept of social justice based on interdependence between rulers and ruled, one that underlies their differing degrees of power and obvious conflicts of interest and that holds society together when such conflicts would pull it apart. The book traces the Circle’s concept of justice from the earliest manifestation of its elements in ancient Near Eastern texts through the twentieth century, its transmission throughout society and from one regime to the next, the systems and institutions through which it was put into practice, and where we have evidence, the use of those institutions by ordinary people as well as rulers and elites.
