Journal of Researches in Islamic Architecture

"Art Style" means the way of expressing the ideas, conscious or unconscious thoughts and emotions of the artist in his/her work. Social, political, economic and cultural conditions in any society has an essential role in the emergence and promotion of art styles. The changes in these conditions, will cause changes in artistic styles. In the Persian literary history, Persian poetry styles have divided into the styles of Khorasani, Iraqi, Isfahani (Hindi) and literary return period style. The styles of Iranian architecture in the Islamic era that are embodied in the construction of mosques are Khorasani, Razi, Azari and Esfahani styles. In both areas, for each of the styles, according to its historical period, we can suppose some minor styles, which these minor styles will help to more accurate evaluation.

This research tries to answer this question that "whether the specific social and cultural conditions in a historical period have had similar effects on the styles of Persian poetry and the architecture of Iranian mosques or not"; if so, "what do these similarities signify?" Moreover, can any elements be found that they be repeatable in all styles and in all eras, and if so, how can these common elements be interpreted? The importance of this issue is that, inevitably, we have to review and evaluate all aspects of our culture fields, to know our cultural identity, correctly. It is a crucial requirement of our culture that, to know that "whether the various cultural manifestations are separate Islands and apart islands from each other, that have not any relationship with each other, or a unique same sun gives life and warmth to all of them", But as far as the writer is aware, any independent research has not been done on this issue, yet. This research, which is based on descriptive analysis, at first, has explored the architectural styles of mosques and then it has studied the styles of Persian poetry. And the next step is to compare the styles of architecture and poetry, respectively.

To explain the social and cultural transformations and its impact on the development of artistic styles, among various opinions, Pytryn Alexander Sorokin comments - Russian descent sociologist, residing in America- is more eloquent. The article, in the next step, has explored socio-cultural developments and its role in the genesis of artistic styles.

The current study with comparing the stylistic of Persian poetry characteristics and mosques architecture, concludes that, poetry and architecture styles, have had profound similarities in every historical period. So that Khorasani style in architecture can be taken into account corresponding to Khorasani style in poetry; Razi style can be associated with style Seljuk period-style, and also Azeri style with Iraqi style and  Esfahani architecture with poetry Esfahani style (Hindi) were associated. These cultural similarities are due to common spirit in the different aspects of society. These common spirit, has two dimensions: 1. the temporal dimension (Zeitgeist= spirit of the age): This dimension in each period according to the requirements of the same period (Special conditions of social, economic, political and cultural), causes the emergence of similarity between the artistic styles, But because it is temporal, it also Contains differences with the pre and post periods. 2. Atemporality dimension (spirit of the Nation): This dimension contains some repeating elements that at different periods and in various artistic styles, have a constant presence, without being under the effect of external factors, or without attributing to a particular style. These repeating elements, will Make a single configuration that is "spirit of the nation" of Iran. This unit spirit of culture, like an invisible string, will collect reproduced Works in the field of thought and culture under a unit flag. This flag, is our 'cultural identity'. Perception of the spirit of "Iranian culture"  which has deep spiritual richness in companionship with "Islamic culture", only is achieved when, with insight and enlightenment, we remove the curtain from the face of spiritual and cultural heritage, to percept the unique truth that lies on its backend.