Journal of Researches in Islamic Architecture

One of the symbols and symptoms that identify Islamic civilization is the Islamic Urbanization as a place for dwelling and activity. Urban areas and structures by manifestation of custom values should identify society’s civilization. And help them to achieve their purposes and ambitions. an Iranian Muslim architect ‘s belief has always been a priority for all of his works And to create his works all functional rules are under consideration of his belief principles. One of these belief principles is subjectivism and privacy life. As from the long past we see tendency to covering in Iranian civilization and tradition and one of the beliefs of Iranian is importance of privacy and indoor life. Subjectivism meaning is related to man placement in Islamic thought. Islam has always wanted mankind to recognize its essence and its identity as a god created. Because in this case man can recognize it’s high values and it’s prominent place in this world. That’s why the Quran introduces human mind as a special cognition resource and express that who has known its god, has known itself. So Islam wants people to pay attention to their indoor and behave without any trace of Self-glorification also prevent people including man and woman of showing themselves by a pretense. As we mentioned, most of the time Iranian’s believes and cultures influence on their architecture. So we see manifestation of subjectivism in Iran traditional architecture elegantly that it has impressed significantly on space organization and also on planning different functions on sites. Subjectivism as a feature that presents in buildings such as houses, mosques, schools and public bathrooms, generates from philosophy - social principles of this country. For example in these houses we have indoor and outdoor yards. Indoor yards separate private life from the public one. This organization has been possible by arraying rooms around the yard and also separating men living space from women living space. With respect to these principles we can see private, semiprivate, public and semipublic realms. We can infer that in Iranian architectural culture essence and man indoor has the actual value and the outer shell is protecting this reality.

In this article our research method is Qualitative. And By studying Islamic texts and documents related to the study conducted by the Iranian market and urban spaces, we are going to express individual and social points of subjectivism. And it’s manifestation in Iranian bazaars. So in the first step we study Islamic texts and investigate documents related to this topic and specify the research principles and processes. Then we try to analysis the factors that lead Iran traditional bazaars to subjectivism and study how these factors effect on bazaar’s functions. The Hypothesis proposed is that, the influence of subjectivism is not merely on our architecture, but also it influences on people behavior patterns in urban spaces.

Bazaar is one of these urban spaces that means place to buy and sell goods. In fact bazaar is a place to exchange and it has been organized by a human activity. So bazar has a both economic and cultural and social aspect that has formed cultural interactions between citizens from the past. These interactions and behaviors are different in every culture. Finally we will approach to factors, effecting the Iranian bazaar’s introversion in both the humanity and social aspects. Factors such as privacy and the need for solitude and privacy for those in the bazaar so that unlike the function of western street as a place for staying together and looking at people and being looked at by people, our urban streets in Iran often have been places for seeing people and not having desire to be looked at by others. This is a kind of privacy that is a personal right for everyone. Prohibition of causeless attendance in public areas in Islamic texts view is one of the reason that our sidewalks have become a place to move currently and cause to minimize the time spent in these spaces. People do not spend in this space for a long time and that’s why they feel that they don’t have any ownership in this place and they are not belonged to urban spaces. On the other, they feel comfortable at their homes and do their necessary activity related to outdoor and hope to come back at home, where they have it as a private realm. As we said, our sidewalks have become a place to move currently and not a place to stop, to eat or speak for a long time. The low width of the bazaars and lack of space to sit in them confirm this. As in the days of holding, that there were crowds in sidewalks, people moved difficultly. Years ago especially at night’s people rarely were passing in urban streets, it shows those nights and days passes effects urban designs. In Islam spending time with family members at nights is more desirable than spending nights out with others. That’s why Iranian bazaars have been  more active in days in compare with nights and also were  a place for exchanging activities more than leisure and exhibitive. Stability and strength of the family has an important place in the Islamic value. and also the value which Islam serves for family and its people and introduce it as a place for relaxation and comfort, make our home a holy place that should have a private realm for its members.. This caused many religious orders in Islam texts. So we see that the kindness and leisure activities would be with family members more than people who we know out in the society. These activities done by family members, Strengthens the foundation of the family comes. Overall, Beyond the effect of introversion and it’s manifestation in architecture and structure, it effects on people presence in urban spaces such as bazaars. We infer that introversion or in a more accurate concept, human indoor or essence has deep sense in compare with its architectural meaning. Islam special respect and emphasis on internal states, is one of the reason to paying attention to humility and preventing from Self-glorification, Behaviors that influence on our urban streets. That we study about them in this article.

Mosques in traditional urbanism, were always a turning point of environment and in the constellation of diverse and familiar function, also were considered as necessary part of current life of the city. Mosque as the community space of believers in every morning, noon and evening, always was at the heart of a residential areas and neighborhoods. Mosque has historically been the place of many activities and performances, sometimes was as center of state and sometimes political and economic participation took place there. Proximity to the physical and spiritual life, provided community involvement and attachment to the space of mosque. In fact, the quality of the mosques was not only determined by physical factors, but also by the product of communication and interaction between the mosque and its users. Unfortunately, contemporary mosque is reduced to a mere place of worship area that is very partial and limited considering the concept and the reality of the mosque as a social space. Contemporary mosques, even with fine architecture, have no sociability. Specializing activities and development of sodium-oriented thinking, especially in the land sector, promoting the spread of the separation of religion from public life, the role of mosques in the city has changed and social role of the mosque has been taken away. Contemporary mosques separately from other municipal functions are located on the side of the causeway and do not induce centrality and dominance to other activities. Most of the mosques especially designed ones, over the past decades, are not designed for social activities and are rarely able to comprehensively meet the needs of their community. If once a mosque determined the location and type of city function and relationships, today other issues, including the main street, cars, entertainment center and market place determine location of mosque and other functions. So today mosque’s quality is decreased and its social role is abated .Mosque’s connection to the social life layers leads to increase the quality of mosque’s space. The research methods in this study is descriptive and field studies (questionnaire), and the library research. In this study, through a questionnaire three sample of Hamadan mosques (ChamanChopanan mosque, Shalbafan mosque and Kolanaj mosque) as successful mosques were studied. According to the direct connection between sociability and people, the residents of the neighborhood surrounding the mosque and its worshipers were considered as statistical society in this research. For statistical analysis and for data interpretationSPSS16 software and Office 2007 (WORD & EXCEL) were used consequently.,. The research question is, what component of mosque’s sociability causes to improve the mosques’ quality? Three hypotheses have been proposed in the study. according to the results of the study, the first two hypotheses were approved and the third hypothesis was rejected.

Hypothesis 1: It seems that, there is a significant difference between three mosques location. Hypothesis 2: It looks like there is a significant difference between functional diversity of three mosque .Hypothesis 3: It looks like the continuation of the use of the mosque there is a significant difference. Statistical software used for statistical analysis was SPSS16. The results show that three factors: locating, integrating with mosque performance and other public Performance, continuing use of the mosque are as effective components of mosques sociability that are effective

Regarding the quality of mosques, Locating is the most important factor of mosques’ sociability. Mosques’ locating should be in the main communication axes of city. Mosque’s association with residential fabric and main city function is one of the most important factors in locating. Associating with residential fabric provide walking access in a short time for people. Associating with main function increase socialization. The locating of the mosque should be such that the physical and spiritual needs of people simultaneously accountability. Have a variety of activities and proper character of the mosque is to attract different social groups, would be socialization mosques. Index duration, stresses on the use of mosques as a social space, 24 hours a day.

Considering that today most of the mosques are open only during the prayering times-five times a day-this is incompatible with the socialization mosques.