Journal of Researches in Islamic Architecture

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Façades are one of the architectural physical elements that play a significant role in the aesthetic preferences on their observer. The façade creates the first and perhaps the most important impact. Aesthetic is identifying and understanding factors that contribute to perception of an object or beautiful/pleasant process. In order to assess the beauty of a phenomenon, its factors and visual qualities should be studied, so finding a measure or a way to evaluate them are one of aesthetics’ priorities. Therefore, not only recognition of visual qualities, but also their quantitative evaluation is also important in aesthetics. Different visual qualities participate in the formation of façades, one of which is porosity. If these visual qualities studied, interpreted and measured, their factors, rules, and attributes can be extracted and using them as variables, the aesthetics of façades can be evaluated. This research is based on the question of how porosity can be measured and evaluated as one of the visual quality of façade and what is the relation between the quantitative measures of these buildings' façade's porosity?
The purpose of this research is to investigate the concept of porosity as a visual quality and to decode the art of designing and constructing façades in Iranian-Islamic architecture by quantitatively measuring the porosity. The study in theoretical part, using the analytical-descriptive method, has presented a theoretical framework. In the first stage a comparative method will be used. Collecting information in this research, in addition to documentary and library studies, will also include field studies that are used to compile the subject literature review to find the thematic framework. At this stage, by expressing the perceptual concept, the architectural porosity elements as well as the study of its theories, criteria, rules and components are explained. In the second stage, a quantitative method for measuring porosity will be presented using the criteria and components obtained in the previous stage, the classification of porosity elements, factors and effective variables of façade's porosity. Structured questionnaires will be used to find the relationship between these variables and their impact on each other and facade's porosity. In the third stage which is the case study section, the theoretical framework and the porosity quantitative measuring method are carried out in 30 main facades of historical houses of Tabriz city and gathered data are analyzed with descriptive statistics.
Based on the findings of the research, façades have a special feature called porosity number that is unique to them. The structure of the forming elements and the porosity changes of the façades also follow a particular pattern. The research also shows that the main trait of porosity is openness. Air circulation, light and the connection of internal and external spaces are major physical achievements of porosity and its spiritual achievement is space and raised meaning in architecture. Empty, despite the lack of material has an equal value, and sometimes more, than full, and how it is created and placed not only increases the physical and spatial quality but also can have an impact in facades’ evaluations. Porosity is one of the basic visual qualities, which over time has found a more significant role in façade. Porosity has a hidden and mysterious pattern that can be the result of aesthetic feedback from architects, observers/residents, and environmental conditions of the region. A certain evident percentage of porosity and a specific pattern and alignment of porous space arrangement found in this study indicate that, at least in Tabriz environmental conditions, a specific pattern of porosity is a part of the aesthetic preferences of the architects and the residential-historical architectural users of Tabriz city. This optimal and aesthetic level of porosity in the historical houses of Tabriz façades is close to 0.4 (40%).This pattern and alignment can be considered by contemporary architects in this cultural-climatic area as an aesthetic factor. Of course, the generalization of these features to other cities in Iran and beyond requires more and wider researches. This study showed that porosity as a visual quality and its quantitative measurement method can also be used as criteria of aesthetic evaluation of architectural façades.

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It is more than one century that the issue of Islamic city and then the Iranian-Islamic city has been noticed systematically and scientifically by the researchers and scholars. The study of the Iranian-Islamic city has been in the intersection of different kinds of scientific systems so that a large number of researchers including geographers, architects, historians, linguists, orientalists, urbanization experts, Islamists, urban planners and etc. have studied the issue of the Iranian-Islamic city and its characteristics. Due to the large number of these researchers, it is essential to categorize these studies to perceive the main trend in this field and also to recognize the concerned research vacuities. One of the main problems in this field is the large and basic discrepancy and disagreement in the studies. It is necessary to do the pathology of Islamic city studies in general and the Iranian-Islamic city studies specifically. These circumstances have caused ambiguity and confusion for the researchers and sometimes have made the conception and comprehension of the Iranian-Islamic city issue difficult. Most of the basic questions about the Iranian-Islamic city issue have been unanswered and subsequently there has been no substantial procedure in this issue. Therefore, it is of much significance to have a comprehensive approach toward the Iranian-Islamic city studies. Making a recent and original foundation in this field is not possible without the comprehensive analyses in the past studies and recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of them. Delavar believes that any researcher who intends to develop a specific science should first identify and study the previous studies carefully (Delavar, 2008, 97-99); Whereas the issue of the Iranian-Islamic city has been noticed by many professors and students in recent years, according to the large number of the articles, theses, and dissertations about this issue, this research has been assigned to study the scientific articles on the Iranian-Islamic city.
The main question of this research is the diagnostic study of doing the scientific researches about the Iranian-Islamic city, analytical conclusion, and suitable approaches. The main object of this research is the meta-analysis of the Iranian-Islamic city issue to conclude and categorize the latest findings of the scientific researches about this issue. The method of doing this research is meta-analysis. The systematic review and evaluation of practical researches in the field of the Iranian-Islamic city indicates that to achieve the scientific attention and concentration, such meta- analyses are essential. Therefore, in this study, ninety-two articles on the Iranian-Islamic city issue from 1974 to 2016 have been recognized through these scientific databases: Noor Specialized Magazines Website, Scientific Information Database, Magiran Information Database, Comprehensive Portal of Humanities and Cultural Studies. The information domain of this research is the articles that studied one or more factors of the Iranian-Islamic city issue specifically. Hence the specified factors were divided into two categories of nature and existence. In the nature dimension the fundamental and identifying attributes were surveyed and in the existence dimension the manifestation of existential factors and personal and public functions (SajadZadeh & Mosavi, 2014; Babich, 2003) of the Iranian-Islamic city were emphasized. The method of sampling in this research is to count the whole available samples. This matter is significant because the national identity of Iranian due to the cultural overlapping has been influenced by three kinds of civilizations including: Persian cultural identity, Islamic cultural identity and western cultural identity. Many questions have been propounded about the nature and existence of the Iranian identity and its attributes and different scientific systems have surveyed it from different points of view and have attempted to explain it so that it is the reflection of misinterpretations and disarrangements about this fact and different topics and goals relating to it. On the other hand, by the advent of obscure thoughts of modernism in Iranian culture and literature not only its conceptual demonstration but also the concrete demonstration of the modernism has been entered in the Iranian-Islamic architecture and urbanization so that the fundamental elements of the present Iranian-Islamic city are losing their identity. Moreover, the western culture and planning has affected these elements and has caused them to lose their identity and urban coherence and stability. This instability is called development and modernity and is increasing day by day. Therefore, the nature and identity of the Iranian -Islamic city has faded because of the economic, social, and cultural evolutions and the unthinking impressions of the western symbols and the modern urbanization patterns. To apply them correctly the necessary approaches for the contemporary issues of the cities and also making the foundation of the comprehensive theories of the Iranian-Islamic city, the critical and pathological point of view of these studies are needed. Accordingly, in this research the most important factors of the Iranian-Islamic city studies are the meaning and conception of the Iranian-Islamic city; the identity of the Iranian-Islamic city; the historical features of spatial organization of the Iranian-Islamic city; the principals and patterns of the Iranian-Islamic city; the identity of the Iranian-Islamic city; the urban space of the Iranian-Islamic city; the social-cultural revolutions in the spatial formation and structure of the Iranian-Islamic city; the impacts of modernism on the Iranian-Islamic city; devotion , and finally the fundamental elements of the Iranian-Islamic city such as neighborhood, mosque, square, and bazaar.
 

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Karbandi is one of the original and ancient arched elements in Persian architecture which is formed based on a network with harmonic geometry and in addition to architectural function, it also has structural behavior. However, there are ambiguities about the geometry of this architectural element that should be addressed with targeted research. One of these ambiguities is to determine how the geometry of different types of Karbandi is mapped; according to the available information, different types of Karbandi cannot be easily distinguished. The conventional and Stellar Karbandi are of the controversial issues in recognizing the geometry of Karbandi in Persian architecture. The present study aimed to identify and discover the geometric relationships in the conventional and Stellar Karbandi based on actual examples as well as study and analyze the geometric characteristics of different types of them. The necessity of the present study is to clarify how the geometry of different types of Karbandi is mapped to provide a comprehensive classification for it based on executed examples. The results of the present study showed that the difference between the two types of conventional and Stellar Karbandi is the connection distance between the points of division on the circle. It's easy to recognize this note in rectangular and squares bases; if the length of the rectangle or one of the sides of the square is in front of segments of the circle and the relation of equality is established between the number of segments of a circle in front of the length of the rectangle and the connection distance between the division points of the circle, the simple conventional Karbandi will be obtained. But, in non-rectangular base, firstly, the base must be divided into two or more identical intersecting rectangles, in this case, a length of one of these rectangles is considered as a criterion to recognize the type of Karbandi. If the relation of equality is established between the number of segments and the connection distance, extension conventional Karbandi will be obtained. If the relation of equality is not established, the obtained Karbandi is Stellar Karbandi. In this case, there are mathematically different scenarios that were examined. By examining the aforementioned cases, it has been proven that Tarkin vault is also of Stellar Karbandi. Therefore, another category called "Tarkin" was added to the other two categories of Stellar Karbandi, namely, "Discrete" and "Continuous".

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It is clear that each community should be have the specific urbanism science. Science localization is an obvious matter. This matter has motivated Iranian researchers, in urbanism field, to naturalize urbanism science having been imported to Iran. One method for producing or indigenizing urbanism texts in Iran, especially in recent years, is Utilization of Iranian-valuable texts. There are high valuable-native texts that could be reused for compilation new texts in urbanism field. So far, urbanism researchs have been done that inspired from Iranian-valuable text, such as "Nahj_al-Balagha", "Shahnameh of Ferdowsi", "Hafez's Divan", "Mosibatname of Attar", "Nasir Khusraw's Safarnama", "Haft-Peikar of Nezami" and "Ibn Kaldun's Moghadame", but none of these researchs were expressed a systematic method. However, this article suggests a specific method to use old texts for creating new urbanism texts. In other words, the main aim of this article is presented an efficient method for Using the Iranian's-Valuable Texts in order to compile new urbanism texts. In this article, "Islamic ethical texts" have been selected for better cognition of suggested method and as a case study too. Ethical texts don't directly mention about urban and urbanism, while explain the best ways of life and relationships in societies. Three questions are intended to be answered here, which are following bellow: 1. What is the proper method of using the Iranian's-Valuable Texts for writing the new urbanism texts? 2. How this method  would be applied in different ethical texts? and finally, 3. which kind of urbanism texts would be written by this method?  Therefore, it can be said that this paper is a methodology article.
The usage of primary text for creating new text is a theory that is called "Intertextuality". However, Intertextuality has not been used here. Because it is not coincident to Iranian culture. A native technique for doing this research is needed. Hence, after many researches among the Iranian techniques, the suitable technique has been found which had called the science of rhetoric (Balaghat) and the science of rhetorical embellishment (Badi). There were about sixteen literary techniques and figures of speech in Balaghat and Badi science. But only one of them, "Eghtebas" or "adaptation", has been selected as the chosen method in this article, as it has the most complete definition in compare to fifteen remained figures. furthermore, it has become quite operationally in other fields as literature and art. The first step in adaptation is selection of the original text. In this regard, it's necessary to consider somethings such as being valuable of the first text, similarity between the culture of the first text and  the new one, timeless and placeless contents of the original text and finally, convertible subject of the original text to the second text. Texts with content of "Islamic ethics" have been selected as a subject of old-valuable text which have the whole of mentioned considerations.
In the theoretical part, two subjects are defined: The ethical texts and different types of Eghtebas. The ethics have an old and strong precedence in Iran's history. The goal of ethical texts is personality prosperity and after that social and urban prosperity. Four different Islamic ethical texts are introduced. These four types are based on four-different definition about ethics. They are included: 1-Mystisim ethics, 2-philosophy ethics, 3-narative ethics and 4- literary ethics. "Mysticism ethics texts" are based on "Intuition". "Philosophy ethical text" are base on "wisdom", "Narrative ethical text" are based on revelation and "literary ethical texts" are based on "expediency". Then, different kinds of Eghtebas are explained. In major division, Eghtebas has three different types; "dramatic changes", "moderate changes" and "no changes". In minor division of Eghtebas, "dramatic changes" are included: "Re-created", "Revision", "Using title" and "Amiq". Also "moderate changes" are included: "Re-writing", "Selective writing" and "Abridgment".
 
The results answer to three questions that previously mentioned.
-Firstly, four kinds of Eghtebas are explained in relation with four ethical texts by using the inference and logical reasoning method. The new texts of urbanism would be adopted base on the ethical texts. It seems that almost all species of the Eghtebas species are usable for the four types of ethical texts. Althoug, their relation has been shown with "suitable", "unsuitable" and "allowable" position. For every type of the ethical texts, there is a more appropriate Eghtebas that is included: "Re-created" for usage from "Mysticism ethics, "Revision" for "literary ethics", "Re-writing" for "Philosophy ethics" and "Selective writing" for "Narrative ethics".
-Secondly, the writer of urbanism text can extract word, meaning, subject, writing form and type of language from the original text and reuse them with three positions of "no changes", "dramatic changes" ("Re-created", "Revision", "Using title" and "Amiq") and "moderate changes" ("Re-writing", "Selective writing" and "Abridgment") in urbanism text.
-Finally, the new urbanism texts can have different topics such as theoretical and philosophical foundations, normative theories, qualitative features, utopia and urbanism history.

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There are close relationships between hidden structures of mosques and unseen concepts embodied in Persian language and literature of Iran that show that construction of famous mosques in Iran, especially in Isfahan Style are immortal and timeless.  A question arises in this context as to what factors have led to the manifestation of unseen concepts in the architecture of Isfahan mosques objectively? In this regard, this research aims to answer the questions raised, especially in the mosque of Isfahan and tries to address the factors that led to the manifestation of the unseen in this building. The research method is the qualitative and describes the case study by introspection and grounded theory. The method refers to the unseen sources of Persian literature of Iran Hafez's and Mulavi's lyrics to extract unseen concepts then introspective descriptions of case study are presented as internal perceptions of the manifestation of concepts in the architecture of the mosque of Isfahan.The emergence of The Unseen Nature of existence is Divine Hidden Manifestation in the mirror of architecture of the place-time of worship can be a container of intuition of unseen realms of existence. The paradigmatic allegorical immortal language of unseen architecture in Jamé Mosque of Isfahan is full of glimpses of witnesses in different periods, in desire to intuit unseen realities. In this mosque, concepts derived from the Hafiz's and Mulavi's poems as persons who have indwelled in unseen realm and speak about the realities allegorically that can be employed as esoteric meanings of architecture with their manifestation in place and time. This research is done with hope to use the unseen meanings in mosque architecture to upgrade them as reminder of unseen realities and in a higher level as unseen places.