Culture of Islamic Architecture and Urbanism Journal
Year:2018 | Volume:3 | Issue:2|Papers Count:6

Moral values and taking into account their extension via the external and internal capacities of art and architecture can serve as a starting point for the development of ethics in human. Modern man’ s need for a spiritual basis is particularly pressing due to the current spiritual crisis his existence faces. Ethics can serve as a spiritual element in the genesis of a spiritual space provided that it strengthens the practical ethics in the users of that space. The incarnation of this requires a framework, and geometry as the body and physical structure in architecture can take in this conceptual content and establish a link between ethics and architectural space so as to furnish the fundamentals of an ethical behavior. The key question of this research is that how geometry and ethics are linked to generate an ethical behavior in human? The research method is qualitative. The main purpose was to determine the ways in which ethics is generated in man’ s behavioral acts. First, man’ s was examined via attempts to identify and describe his behavior before analyzing the origins of human traits to determine the “ susceptible areas. ” Then these areas were analyzed in the “ different stages of the development of moral behavior. ” Finally, the potential role of Islamic art and architecture in affecting the “ receptive areas” was investigated. The ethic-generating geometry pattern, shaped through ordering the “ geometry of areas” in terms of the pattern of ethical behavior formation stages, and the ethic-oriented spatial-geometrical organization ordered as heart geometry, wisdom geometry, and geometry of the five senses, and the repetition of the geometry units and the repetition of the pattern comprise the findings of the research. This organization reflects the order of the formation of architectural spaces, which will set the scene through leaving permanent impact on his soul (nafs) and its dimensions for the disposition of the users of the space to ethics as they pass through the latter. A spatiogeometrical instance of the process is found in the architecture of zoorkhaneh (a traditional Iranian gymnasium). The process is incarnated in the form and geometry of the architecture of zoorkhaneh, the space function (the social-human organization within the zoorkhaneh) and the neighborhood architecture (culture). Finally, geometry and ethics in the generation of an ethical behavior meet at the common point of the building ethical behavior are linked at the common effectiveness point of the susceptibility of the three functions of the soul and the impact of geometry on them. In other words, man’ s souls has three aspects, and the geometry’ s effect of each of these provides a common point for the conjunction of the ethics with the architectural structure. Affected by the order of the stages of practical ethics (the genesis of ethical behavior), this conjunction give rise to ethical dispositions in the course of formation of the space. And, the ethic-generating geometry, influenced by the sequence of the ethical behavior pattern in the organization of the “ geometry of the areas, ” furnishing an architectural model for spatial-geometric organization.

This paper is to search for the cause of vagueness in distinguishing Islamic from non-Islamic among architectural artifacts of the time in Islamic countries. It is not restricted to non-religious buildings but the main problem emerges when designers or theorists make Islamic claims on a work of architecture. Here, to pursue the causes of this fact, two main subjects are explored: theoretical positions as well as practical approaches. For the first subject, two main directions in current theories, i. e. theosophical attitude and Islamic juridical approach, are put in critical debate. However, a third approach is also discussed, which concerns the “ principle-oriented” trend. The theosophical approach is based on the hypothesis of essentiality of spiritual wisdom and its superiority over objective world of things. This leads to a hermeneutics of form of historic precedents of architectural artifacts which has also been applied for contemporary works of architecture. This approach bears a body of criticisms from Islamic point of view. The main question is: is it approvable by Islamic principles to claim spiritual values for special forms or is it acceptable that any form could be Islamic as claimed by theosophical interpretation? Here some negative witnesses from original Islamic contexts are shown. For the juridical approach there is far less literature as it is attached to deep religious behavior and is globally viewed as fundamentalist. However in this route Islam is put in the place of regulatory both in terms of urban code (or architectural one) and a kind of resource to produce vast tacit knowledge about built environment. The main criticism in this field has been introduced by its actionist as they see this field of not enough content to be developed for current issues. Here their claim of weakness of Islamic content from their point of view is to some extent measured. The third area of debate— “ principle oriented” trend— belongs to those studies of Islam and built environment which see the role of Islam as founder of concept that has nothing to do with detailed and objective matters of built environment. In their view the timeless value of Islam is not included in its objective content such as behaviors or regulation but is put in its basic concept that should be interpreted differently from time to time. Here this approach especially in architecture is seen as a reductive one. It ignores internal structure of Islam and resists towards Islamic main claim of its global and fatal value. For the architecture this view is very weak to interpretation of artifacts as well as making sense of what should be done in future. For the second one the mosque designs of pre-Modern era to present days are briefly reviewed from an Islamic critical point of view. After a challenging discussion the main problem is formulated in the form of one essential question: “ What does Islam want from architecture? ” This makes the framework of conclusion of the paper.

The Islamic Architecture is a course that educates the architects in such a way that through encountering the Islamic architecture they develop an internal association with the intellectual (theoretical)-operational (practical) system and gain a special ability in producing works of arts in accordance with the Islamic ideas, culture, and identity. The aim and ideal of the Islamic Architecture Engineering course is to satisfy the needs and requirements of the Islamic nations to create a kind of architecture that is appropriate to the Iranian-Islamic culture. If architecture is the sign and manifestation of Islamic Identity, then the Islamic architecture can pave the way for reaching the excellence in the society. The necessity of this field in upstream documents such as the Twenty Year Vision Document and the Five Year Plan, and its newness, becomes more important encouraging students to continue in this field. Providing the necessary facilities to achieve this goal by investigating the current status and designing the optimum situation provides the possibility of planning for the future in the university. Regarding the role of awareness raising in Islamic architecture education, the student's inner interest plays an important role in accepting and admission of the field. This helps to improve the status of the field and the acceptance of the discipline in the community. Creating motivation for the education of Islamic architecture has three factors which influence either directly or indirectly the success of the education. The aim of the present study is to determine the strategies for motivating the students of Islamic architecture. Considering the nature and method of data collection in the study and considering the present tools, i. e. questionnaire, the present study adopts the survey method. In order to correlate the ideas to reach a common idea after getting the views of the interested parties (professors, students, and graduates) using questionnaires, the Delphi method was applied. Finally, to investigate the affecting factors on the motivation, matrices were developed to evaluate the internal and external factors. To normalize the coefficients of the matrices, SPSS solution was used. The SWOT Model was used to present the strategies. With the faculty assumed as having the pivotal role in creating motivation, the influencing factors on the motivation are classified as internal factors including the professors, the faculty’ s programs and the place of education, and external factors consisting of socio-cultural setting, scientific setting, and economic conditions. The results suggested sentence of 13 strength and 12 weak points in the present trend and method of Islamic architecture education, and 10 opportunities and 23 threats were identified. In the end, the strategies of Opportunities (SO), Weakness Opportunities (WO), Threat of Weaknesses (WT), and Opportunity of Threat (ST) were offered to improve the motivation of the students.

The dominance of the capitalist system on the structures and processes of the urban planning system has led urban development patterns toward generating income. The prevalence of such this pattern has created a conflict between private and public interests. Attempt to resolve this conflict has led urban planning to the concept of spatial justice; so that spatial justice in urban planning has been defined as thinking about how to resolve conflicts between the public and private interests in the city. However, due to the dependence of the concept of spatial justice on worldview, it would be impossible to provide a universal framework, newly. The concept of spatial justice in view of leftist urban planners towards claiming of right and the rightist urban planners towards civil liberties has moved. Therefore, it seems that the presentation of a conceptual and practical framework based on Islamic worldview is necessary. This research is a developmental and fundamental research. It, on the one hand, seeks to explain a theoreticaloperational framework of spatial justice in the Islamic city and, on the other hand, it seeks to assess spatial justice position in the structure and process of the urban planning system of Iran in general and the comprehensive plan document of Tabriz city in particular. In this research to the assessment of spatial justice position in the content of the comprehensive plan document of Tabriz city (Approved 1395) has been addressed. The methodology of research has been at explaining stage of the theoretical-operational framework, the rational reasoning method; in the stage of documents content analysis, the discourse analysis method with emphasis on De Saussure semiotics and an assessment stage, balanced scorecard method. The most important finding of this research is the development of an analytical framework for assessing the spatial justice in urban development plans; framework that its intellectual foundation is based on Islamic worldview. This study shows that spatial justice in the Islamic city can be defined and evaluated through four criteria: "self-regulation", "the right to the city", "empowerment" and "spatial equilibrium". The self-regulation means active control of residents on urban development; the right of the people to the city means the equal right of all from right to urban life as a rich culture and diverse cultural environment without any discrimination (gender, age, health status, Income, nationality, race, immigration status or political and religious orientations); the empowerment means development of human-environmental capabilities and, finally, The spatial equilibrium has been defined in terms of the elimination of the disappearance of the layers of spatial poverty on human poverty. The evaluation of the content of the comprehensive plan of Tabriz city showed that the plan has been seek spatial justice through efficient and optimal use of land. Such view of the realization of spatial justice in the city, more than political, legal and social is a physical and economic view; and it can pave way for abuses of the private sector.

Walls of a building as the boundaries between the interior and exterior are in concurrent encounter with the nature and human welfare. Climate of Tabriz is cold and dry, and thus outer walls must more particularly withstand very cold and dry climate. Therefore, it is necessary to review outer walls of a building as boundaries between nature and human welfare. A mosque is a space which is related to transcendental dimensions of human being; it is expected to provide welfare of human being as effective as possible and it must develop self-sufficient behavior against pertaining climate features. In this regard, the outer walls of a building have a significant role in maintaining the conditions created inside and preventing inflow of external climatic conditions. The investigation is based on the fact that traditional mosques develop more desirable behaviors against thermal behaviors due to the thick walls. Accordingly, the question is that, how should the researcher demonstrate the magnitude of the most appropriate thermal behavior of walls of a traditional mosque compared to that of their modern counterparts? Thus, the Seqat-ol-Islam and Karim Khan mosques and the Shakelli and Amiral-Momenin mosques were selected to represent the traditional and modern groups, respectively, so as to measure their temperature loss. The whole sample was selected from a same district of the city for indifferent or minimum climate differences of external environment. Although the temperature variations of external and internal walls are measured but almost similar conditions are more desirable for rational deduction. Accurate calculations were implemented for field studies. Several points of external walls were measured to calculate temperature loss to contrast the obtained results through deduction. This paper is to define some figures for desirable quality of traditional buildings; greater temperature loss by about two times is an indication of quantitative measurement difference. Physical dimension of the aforementioned case of thermal study and the temperature loss is proven. Therefore the investigation is merely to measure architectural quality of the buildings as a definite qualitative aspect of thermo-physics. To put is simply, it is concluded that heat losses of all walls are calculated to demonstrate general thermal behavior of both traditional and contemporary mosques. Also, it is possible to demonstrate or confirm positive effects of the walls to maintain thermal comfort in a mosque. Behavior of bodies of such structures shows that cold and dry climate of Tabriz city compels maintenance of desirable comfort conditions within the mosques by preventing influx of cold air into them. Traditional architecture has satisfied the users’ needs as a result of unconscious awareness of material behaviors and utilization of convenient materials and building walls two times thicker than those in other climatic conditions. The user is more comfortable in traditional mosques than the modern ones, a fact that also demonstrates more desirable thermal behavior of traditional mosques from numeric and quantitative perspectives.

The history of Iranian architecture has changed in line with changes in religion, and rulers’ ethnic affiliations and lifestyles. After the arrival of Islam to Iran, two different faiths namely the Shiite and Sunni began to grow, each one periodically ruling over parts of the country. The many differences between the Shiite and Sunni intellectual and theoretical foundations are reflected in art and architecture of the two sects as well. The discrepancies are mainly rooted in the fundamental difference existing in their respective religious jurisprudence. Needless to say, religious sources do not make explicit mention of architectural orders. However, the differences can be recognized by examining buildings and their correspondence to the general principles of the given religion. Many researches have focused on such structures as mosques and others, but in this article, a comparison has been made between the positions of these two sects on death and related laws. In this article, the term “ Iran” denotes the geographical area of the historical Greater Iran, which includes parts of modern-day Turkey, central Asia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Caspian littorals. It should also be noted that where Sufism is mentioned, its affiliation with Shiite and Sunni is also mentioned. The introduced buildings were also selected based on the availability of evidence and documents. One of the most important points in the design of religious buildings is the adherence to the religious principles and edicts insinuated in the structure of the religion, and construction of tombs and mausoleums is no exception. Islamic tombs must abide by the religious tenets at the same time that they venerate the buried deceased who deserves respect for religion or other grounds. Incessant vagaries of the 7th-8th A. H. /13th-14 AD centuries in Iran were associated with changes in the state religion, and its impacts on architectural forms are obvious. The ideological differences between the Shiite and Sunni doctrines gave rise to two types of tomb architecture. Tombs, as it were, represented the eternal resting place of the deceased and a medium to communicate his and the society’ s thoughts and beliefs. The structures can thus be studies as some benchmarks to measure to what extent the architecture was inspired by the socio-political, ideology and religion that dominated the society in a certain period. Individual affiliated with both Shiite and Sunni sects alternatively sized political power and always tried to use the opportunity to the best advantage to propagate their respective ideologies. The Ilkhanid period is particularly important both because the two sects possessed the required authority to express and promote their doctrines and we today have standing instances of mausoleums attributed to both sects. Therefore, here we study a representative sample of these religious constructions in an attempt to investigate the Shiite and Sunni positions on and the reflection of these positions in these structures. The major research questions are as follows:  What is the position of the theoretical and ideological foundations of the Shiite and Sunni doctrines on tomb architecture?  What are the similarities and dissimilarities between the tomb architecture in the two sects?  How were the status of tomb construction and observance of Islamic tenets reflected in tomb architectures of the two sects?