In this presentation, we will explore the content and contemporary social life of a manuscript, titled “The Book of Points and Circles,” Kitab al-Noqat wal-’Dawair, which was authored by Abd al-Gaffar Taqi al-Din, a medieval Druze theologian (1497–1557). This manuscript introduced initiated readers with key concepts in Druze cosmology, mainly the operation of cycles (adw?r) in the formation of the universe and the manifestations of reincarnation (taqammu?). In this cosmology, the universe is conceived of as a septenary series that repeats itself over cycles. The end of any one cycle always and necessarily coincides with the beginning of another, be it in the worldly or divine spheres of the world. Practitioners who possess the skills and status necessary to read this text today explain the role of cycles in the formation of the universe by making analogies with reincarnation. When people die, their soul migrates to another body while still retaining some of the experience of their past lives. Each new life is thus not only considered a beginning of something new, but also a continuity of something of the past. At the end of each cyclic period, the human order actualizes some level of spiritual consciousness only to gradually be brought back to its recognizable starting point, albeit at a higher level. The contemporary social life of Kitab al-Noqat wal-’Dawair traces critical links in Druze cosmology between the formation of the universe and worldly reincarnation of individual lives. In this presentation, we will outline the significance of these links in contemporary forms of Druze political belonging in and across various modernities. Although they navigate the historicist narratives of nation-states within which they live, the Druze draw on the temporal form of reincarnation to both accommodate and transcend such narratives. Relying on the concept of adw?r and the practice of taqammu?, Druze communities produce cyclical collective memories and logics that challenge the historicist temporalities of the political present(s) they inhabit.

The symbol of a circle holds a variety of meanings throughout the world, including ideas of wholeness, inclusivity, and life itself—moving between sacred ritual and “mundane” everyday applications (Mazumdar and Mazumdar 2004; Simpson 2011). In this paper, I examine the halqa, a circular performance configuration used throughout North Africa and the Middle East for a variety of different performance genres, both in the past and present (Amine 2010; Goodman 2018). The most famous halqa is that of the storyteller, both that of the men storytellers in public venues and the household grandmother storytellers. While conducting fieldwork in Morocco, a research collaborator claimed that the original halqa of the public sphere storyteller was the site for the creation of all we see in the famous Jemaa el Fna Square in Marrakech, noting: “the circle gave birth to other baby circles, including the characters from the stories that the storytellers told: the snake charmer, the musician, the dancer, the wizard or the witch, or the henna lady, or the food stall, the tea maker, or the coffee maker…” (interview; 6/2/2018). However, when I asked my collaborators about their first experiences with storytelling, all of them recounted memories of their grandmothers sharing tales with them and other neighborhood children as they circled around her, just outside their homes. Cattell and Climo claim “from the simplest everyday tasks to the most complicated, we all rely on memories to give meaning to our lives” (2002: 1). The previously mentioned narratives, speaking to the multiplicity of memories surrounding the practice of storytelling, demonstrate the significance of the halqa for the construction of supportive, participatory space. Not only is the halqa a space of emergence and creation, as described by my collaborator above, but it represents the circling of a life narrative through the grandmother. Built upon discussions and fieldwork from 2016-2018 in Marrakech, Morocco, this paper examines how the circular configuration of the halqa in contemporary storytelling contributes to the historical memory of public and household storytelling. I will explore the halqa and the meaning and resonance of this circular configuration for spectators, as well as considerations in the importance of the circling back in history. Not only are listeners forming a halqa around storytellers, but the spectators themselves are brought full circle, from the present to the past and back to the present, as narratives and historical memories attach to the Moroccan halqa.

In this presentation, I examine the circular interpretations of governance, by taking the case of Caliphate and national sovereignty debates in the 1922-1924 periods in Turkey, in relation to the future of Caliphate. Within that period, the Caliphate and Sultanate were first separated, and then the latter was abolished in November 1922 while the former was retained. Eventually Turkey became a republic in October 1923 while keeping the office of Caliphate for the next five months. However, in March 1924, the Caliphate too was abolished; underlining that the nation’s representation is embodied and embedded in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. During that period, interpretations of the Caliphate’s history varied. It referred to the lapses of diverse types such as the fusion of the Caliphate with dynastic rules (Umayyad, Ottoman examples), the separation of sovereign rule from the Caliphate (Seljuk and Mamluk examples and the Abbasid Caliphs), and the proto-democratic ones (Rashidun Caliphs). In the post-war period, these historical examples were employed during the parliamentary debates and through publications. My paper contextualizes these interpretations within the post-war Wilsonian order, nation-states framework and solidarist worldview of the new leadership in Turkey, highlighting the Ibn Khaldun’s historical cyclicism on some of them.

Süleymaniye Yazma Bagislar Ms 5569 is an 1824 Ottoman manuscript written by one Yusuf bin Ziya on the use of an astrolabic quadrant. Shaped as a quarter circle, this astronomical instrument was used by Ottoman astral experts to designate the five times of prayer according to the movement of the sun. The main text of the manuscript concerns how to use the instrument to determine the times of prayer, calculating on the basis of one’s latitude and the position of the sun visa-a-vis the horizon. What seems to be a fairly technical and dry manuscript of sixteen pages is transformed, however, through its marginal notes which give detailed advice on inauspicious times of copulation. The writer of the marginalia cautions his readers on what days not to have intercourse with one’s wife in line with astrological wisdom on how the character and attributes of a child conceived on a particular day or time would turn out. Tracing the marginalia, this paper explores the intimate role Ottoman astral science played in the temporal governance of everyday life in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century Ottoman Empire by tracing the development of astronomical time-telling technologies alongside a history of advice literature pertaining to procreation.I argue that astral expertise played an intimate role in shaping everyday life beyond prayer and offered responses to emerging anxieties over rising materialism in the early nineteenth century. Little is known about the state of the sciences in the eighteenth century Ottoman Empire, and the recent monographs about science in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire mostly tackle the topic through the lens of the Tanzimat modernization project. The late-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century is on the cusp of two conventional historical periods of Ottoman history, that is, the modern and early modern periods. This offers an unusual chance at studying a topic unencumbered by assumptions of how either a modern or early modern Ottoman society should look like, or for that matter, what modern or premodern “science” was. Transformation of the instrumentation and technologies being used by Ottoman muvakkits (timekeepers) and müneccims (timekeepers/astrologers) in this period can lead us toward an understanding of the scope of social roles and functions these astral experts and show the significance lunar and solar cycles held for the Ottoman public.

The Vitruvian Man—originally known as “The proportions of the human body according to Vitruvius,” the celebrated Roman architect and writer known for the only treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity—presents the divinely based geometric proportions of the human body as the underlying structure that binds architecture to the divine order of the world. The Vitruvian Man, a drawing by the famous Renaissance painter and thinker Leonardo da Vinci that demonstrates a male figure in two superimposed positions with arms and legs apart and simultaneously inscribed in a circle and a square, can be compared to the premodern Sufi master Ibn ‘Arabi’s Universal/Perfect Man (al-Insan al-Kamil) as represented in his Insha’ al-Dawa’r (Creating/Constructing Circles) and al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya (The Meccan Openings/Revelation). In circular and square diagrams in these treatises, Ibn ‘Arabi presents his mystical view of the divine geocentric cosmos, the domains of being, and the place and role of the human being. In a multilayered spherical world, the Universal Man exists at the middle of the sphere of fixed stars, the innermost circle, like a pillar (‘amd) holding up the ceiling of the sky. Using cross-disciplinary methodologies of art history and mystical studies, this paper articulates this comparison as a means to grasp the profound difference between Eastern and Western cultures. Why was the circle in connection with the square an ideal diagrammatic representation of the world? How were these representations manifested in architecture thinking and practice in premodern times and now? This paper attempts to answer these key questions drawing on both primary and secondary sources. Although Ibn ‘Arabi’s diagrammatic non-figurative circles have been discussed extensively, a comparison with the figurative Vitruvian Man has been overlooked despite its significance. This comparison provides insight into the artistic and religious anthropomorphic representation in the Western and the Islamic civilizations throughout classical antiquity, premodern Islam, and the Renaissance, with reflections on the modern representation and manifestation of the circle beyond architecture.