Cycle, revolution, period. Together with kawr — a great age or aeon. It is a division of the cyclical religious history developed by some early Ismaili authors such as Ibn Ḥawshab (d. 914) and his son Jaʿfar (d. 10th century) as well as by Fatimid thinkers such as Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī (d. after 971), al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. 974) and al-Shīrāzī (d. 1048). These terms are also part of the Tayyibi mythical cosmology introduced by Ibrāhīm alḤāmidī (d. 1162). They held that history developed in seven cycles, each inaugurated by a speaking prophet (nāṭiq). See also dawr al-satr.
