Journal of Researches in Islamic Architecture

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Yazd has an outstanding history of principle and science of agriculture and farming. Water and safety along the ground as the mother of agriculture can be setting up the farmstead on the land. The farmsteads are subordinate or independent inhabitant complex, and they are part of a village or a borough. Inhabited farm as a section that has affected and influenced by social, political and cultural factors in different periods of time, is a living collection with different size and population. Information in multiple sources indicates that the inhabited farms existed in the borough and rural districts since pre-Islamic era to early Islamic period and to the Pahlavi’s dynasty, the farms are identified with titles such as Dastkart, Keshtkhāni castles and complex, farmstead. The government assigned the farms as gifts, fief, Iqta’ (tax farming) and Sivergual (tax farming)

During the research process, many farms in Yazd, Maybod, Mehriz, Taft, Dehshir, Abarqo, Dehnow, Deh Sheikh, Shams Abad, Taraz Abad, Shah Abad, Deh Youk, Khoshk Abad, Khormiz, Ezzat Abad, and Mazraeh Kalantar…were chosen for field studies. Many of these farms are unknown to the public and academic communities, and there are no resources and independent research which include historical backgrounds of inhabited farms. Written and verbal documents show that inhabited independent and subsidiary (minor and major) farms were in the villages of Yazd. The majority of the formation of the administration, economic and political of Yazd until the Pahlavi era with widespread of Waqf (devotion) system, depended on farms and their products to stabilize things and make the interests. And sometimes provided to farm and develop a set of endowments in a region.

 Some of these farms have none construction and only used for producing agricultural products, therefore these farmsteads are uninhabited farms or agricultural farms. No settlement and permanent residence are in these sorts of farms. Yazd's “Qalé Bāq (garden castle) and Keshtkhān (tillage)” are in “agricultural farm” category. Besides the farming, the farm has settlement and residence. These farms are “inhabitant” and contain facilities and places such as a summerhouse, manor, hovel, major and minor residential castles, battlement, water-mill and reservoir, the main avenue. “Yazd's hardship and rural Keshtkhāni (tillage) and castles” are in this category and are remembered as “instance/example of farm” in verbal and written kinds of literature. There are mentions in books such as “Jamé Mofidi, 1363”, “Jamé al-Kheirat 1962”, “Yadegar Haye Yazd (Yazd's memories) vol. 1-2, 1995”, “Tarikh Jadid Yazd (Yazd's new history) 1966” … that refer to these fields and discuss them as “farm”.

With the revocation of manorial in the Qajar era, land reform and owners departure to the other countries and major cities, many of these farms losing their nature and forms and will be destroyed.

Nowadays, there are no understanding and conservation of the historic farms; the international community is paying attention to these farms, conventions, recommendations and international charters (Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, 1972 and the Charter of Florence, 1981) emphasized the important of knowledge, understanding, introduction, registration and protection of the properties that based on the definitions are in the category of the cultural landscape. In addition, there are models of historical farms in other countries. These models can be helpful in understanding the inhabited farms.

The research is trying to examine the subject with the help of the history and historical geography in the artificial and architecture as a tangible heritage which should be protected. And to survey the affected and influenced fields in terms of subject, time and place of the study. So apart from the written documents mentioned in this article that is addressed the inhabited farms in Yazd from authors’ perspective, only oral and palpable documents in the farms can ease the research process. Understanding the historical farms are recognising a large part of the folk culture of ethnic groups. It has the trade systems, tribute and ransom, ownerships, leases and legal, judiciary and administrative system. In 2015 these farms being recognised and has been studying. Yazd, Maybod, Mehriz, Taft, Dehshir, Abarqo, Dehnow, Deh Sheikh, Shams Abad, Taraz Abad, Shah Abad, Deh Youk, Khoshk Abad, Khormiz, Ezzat Abad, Mazraeh Kalantar…. Many of these farms are vulnerable due to various causes.

Particular studies on written and verbal documents, evaluation, measuring, interpretation and explanation can lead us to the perception and explanation of the subject, and so to the approach of the conservation. This leading should be discussed and showed in universities and research institutions.

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Beauty is related to experiencing beauty events, which has different beauty experiences among people due to different circumstances, however, understanding beauty is incredibly difficult. On one hand, the public agree that beauty is considered a value as far as its particular manifestations are pleasing, on the other hand, as it is worth studying, it is considered an educational issue. Moreover, as it is a living object of social development, it is also regarded as a cultural topic. An artistic work, whether a result of one's work or a product of the artistic innovation of a group, appears due to inspirations or advices of a society and necessarily resembles the color of society. Undoubtedly, features of artist's life and even his/her physical features are reflected in his/her artwork, but reflection is not direct, and indeed it can be recognized and measured after passing through filtering of society. The beauty of urban environment as a living space, experienced by a wide range of people every day, is one of transcendental needs of human and functions as a stimulus for his flourishing. Therefore, in forming and designing the environment, category of art and its relation to aesthetics is of high significance and becomes a valuable and purposeful phenomenon in the society. Although aesthetic values differ between various cultures and communities, if these values are in conflict with cultural issues of society, they will create rational, accepted, and emotional norms of society. In addition, considering undeniable relation of any designing and shaping human life environment, like designing environment with art and also the relation of this reformulations with spiritual concepts of beauty, the concept of "aesthetics" which is in fact basis of philosophical and theoretical designs, becomes of great importance. On the other hand, urban buildings and spaces as an identifier of Iranian cities, have been shaped under the influence of Iranian-Islamic artistic and thought patterns over many years and have provided opportunity for public cooperation and interactions and in present era, with evolution of architecture and urbanism, process of designing and creating urban spaces has declined and a defective role of national identity and Iranian-Islamic culture is manifested, which indeed, ignoring these issues in designing has led to lack of originality and validity of the design. Therefore, this study attempts to consider the mentioned importance and answer vital questions of " what is the theoretical position of fundamental aesthetic values in two views of the West and Iranian-Islamic world?! What is practical application of an overview of the fundamental aesthetic values in Islamic-Iranian architecture and urbanism?", Thus, the current paper investigates theoretical concept of fundamental aesthetics values, to identify Iranian-Islamic fundamental aesthetics values and explain functional status of fundamental aesthetic values in creating Islamic-Iranian architecture and urbanism as well. As this paper attempts to deepen fundamental aesthetic values in creating Islamic-Iranian architecture and urbanism, it is considered basic research. Since urbanization is an interdisciplinary field, subject of aesthetics can be examined in the humanities and school sciences (theoretical and practical wisdom) and in science (physical dimensions).
This research is developmental and functional in terms of purpose and approach (characteristics and nature of data) and qualitative nature and methods; it is a description of type of content analysis and in the section of theoretical framework is interrogative. The information is collected by generalizing to field of Iranian-Islamic architecture and urban planning with method of deductive reasoning seeks to explain basic values of aesthetics and provide a new classification appropriate to principles of creating Iranian-Islamic architecture and urban planning. The collection of data and qualitative information in this research is also using written scientific documentary sources and libraries in order to explain conceptual model of research.
In a general conclusion, it can be said that today in Iran, beauty is either imitated by Western models or there are many shortcomings in applying the principles of Iranian-Islamic aesthetics.
This is due to the lack of a true understanding of fundamental values of Islamic Iranian aesthetics.
Therefore, a suitable framework should be created for architects and urban planners, who can extract desired criteria by considering basic values of aesthetics. For this purpose, studies have been done in previous studies and theoretical basis to assess direct relationship of aesthetics factors. These factors show relationship between fundamental values of Iranian-Islamic aesthetics and types, criteria and sub-criteria of aesthetics. Therefore, findings of research on fundamental values of aesthetics in Islam include four main categories:
1. Reasonable aesthetics 2. Sensible 3. Reasonable based on sensible, and 4. Sensible based on reasonable. Furthermore, in order to evolve the fundamental values of aesthetics, types of aesthetics are needed, these include: 1. Logical values, 2. Meaning and codification values, 3. Aspirations and logical ideas respectively and 4. Emotional and moral contexts values. These values which are directly related to fundamental values of Iranian-Islamic aesthetics and Iranian-Islamic aesthetic criteria, are related to practical application of an overview of fundamental values of aesthetics in Iranian-Islamic architecture and urban planning. Since aesthetic criteria are basis for assessment, to identify and select t fundamental values of aesthetics, these criteria include; Harmony (purposefulness, proportionality, balance, order, symmetry, correspondence), meaningfulness and perception (spiritual influence, equation, contrast, free will, disinterestedness), absolute self-existence of God (hierarchy, unity, ideal of embodiment, concentration, harmony, peace, vicinity, sophistication), emotional pleasure (relationships between shapes and forms and colors, pure manifestation of emotions and feelings) and stability and identity (piety, inclusion, freedom, connection with past and future, emergence of nature) and are directly related to types of aesthetic values. Thus, architecture and urban projects can offer new patterns in terms of Iranian-Islamic culture and employ creativity of designers. This was done by creating a logical relationship between aesthetic values and application of values in theoretical field of architecture and urban project.