RETURN TO THE PLATONIC ACADEMY

In the sense of platonic ideals such a circle is the geometrical representative of Unity. Numerically it corresponds to the qualities of the number one. It is the place of the reconciliation of all opposites. It is the alpha and the omega, the source and destination of all things. It describes itself, and yet remains indescribable. It is both subject and object, begining and end and all that lies in between.

Such a decription, and we could go on, is traditionaly regarded as the genesis point of all things, the begining of all beginings and the end of all ends. Both theology and modern materialist physics are united in describing such a paradoxical state as being the ultimate source of existence. The difference is that in modern materialist physics such a state of being is entirely without conciousness and in thology it is the actual embodyment of all self-reflective awareness. ie. God.

In the religion of Islam it is is a sin to characterise God in any way which imposes limits upon the Allmighty. This is the reason why images of the divine, which seek to bestow human characteristics on God, in picture for for example, are forbidden. The closest one can come to an actual description of God is summed up in one of the five tennets of Islam, namely in the affirmation "La Ilahah ill Allah"  - "There is no God but God". This double negative actually has three elements: firstly, it denies the existence of God in any form, then it affirms that only God  exists - thereby denying the existence of all forms -  and thirdly it restores all forms within God as being non other than God. God is thereby simultaneously confirmed as everything and no thing. So central is this affirmation to the islamic point of view that its very saying is one of the five conditions for becoming a muslim. However, one does not have to be a muslim to believe in the truth of these words, or even to say them, for the reality contained therein is entirely consistent with all mono-theistic world views including that of Plato. On its own affirming that there is God but God does not make one a muslim.

Geometrically the circle is regarded as the most perfect of all forms.