Journal of Researches in Islamic Architecture

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The Blue Mosque in Tabriz is one of the masterpieces of Iranian art during QaraQoyunlu era, construction of the mosque according to cornice in entrance terrace, goes back to era of Sultan JahanshahQaraQoyunlu and 1466. Written documents and available reasons represent that the single building of the Blue Mosque was a member of great architectural complex called Mozaffariyeh,which included other parts such as apron, monastery, symmetry, library, guest house etc. With all the glory that is mentioned in historical resources, only the Blue Mosque remains in the current era from the mentioned complex. Because of continuous earthquakes of Tabriz, specially the earthquake of 1779, most parts of the complex were destructed. In restoration of the city, the total area of Tabriz reduced and the mosque was placed out of city rampart.Therefore, the importance of attending religious ceremonies in this mosque also reduced because of the distance. In spite of such events, the Blue Mosque always remained an attractive sample of Iranian architecture and charmed the visitors.This mosque is described in most of the books by Iranian and foreign visitors. In texts which contain some information about the mosque, quotations of tourists during 1700th to 1900th centuries is important to review. Since these foreigners have superficial information about the reality of Iranian society, have stated wrong opinions about the quality of maintenance and resistance of the mosque. Without understanding correctly, most of them have stated that the destruction of the mosque is related to religious beliefs of people and that is a problem between Shiite and Sunni.It appears that the foreigner visitors thought that since the founder of the mosque was Sunni, it is deserted by Shiite population of Tabriz. The validity of such opinions is doubtable for two reasons firstly, there are many mosques in Tabriz which were built by Sunnis and they are built before the establishment of Shiite and Safavid dynasty. Great Jami Mosque, UstadveShagirdMosuqe etc. are examples of these mosques which are all built by Sunni rulers and wealthy persons and they are considered as holy places even in the current era. Secondly The intentions of mosque founders for Shiites, which will be presented and discussed in this paper. According to aforementioned issues, the aim of the present paper is to study the historicity of the claim which is based on the religion of the founder. This parameter which is accepted as reason for accepting the claim must be studied with a scientific approach and without any default. The necessity of doing present research is that in spite of unique place of the Blue Mosque in art heritage of Iran, no research is carried out concerning the mentioned issue and it has always been an ambiguous subject. Present paper attempts to respond following questions: A. Whatare the origins of such different opinions about the religion of QaraQoyunlus? B. What is the relation between the religion of QaraQoyunlus and structural resistance of the Blue Mosque? C. During the history, which groups could exploit the rumor between destruction of the Blue Mosque and the religion of its founder? It is understood in the present research which is carried out with historical-interpretive method, that the time bases of these rumors goes back to military competition between Ottoman and Safavid governments for occupying Tabriz. Thus, the foreigners who attempted to discover the reason of mosque's destruction through tracing religious backgrounds, have always tried to state the problem according to Sunni beliefs of QaraQoyunlus and the Shiite people of the city and it is proved, on the basis of presented evidence of this research, that they were wrong. In other words, recognizing Shiite religion during Safavid era, have led the foreigners to have wrong analysis about the social problems of Tabriz. On the other hand, the results of the research shows that not only there is not any good reason for proving the enmity of QaraQoyunlus with Shiites, but also historical resources emphasize their Shiite intentions and spirit. Moreover, most of the researchers who have done researches during the last decades about QaraQoyunlus, have introduced the religion of them as combination of Tarikat Shiite or a kind of mysticism that is naturally different with 12 imam Shiites. Therefore, one of the most important issues about QaraQoyunlus is that they were not able to throw attention of Shiite theologians like Safavids. Failure of QaraQoyunlus in making relation with Shiite and Sunni theologians, Charles their society to remain far from intellectual and philosophical world of both Islamic religions of Shiite and Sunni. Such reasons lead to a wage view in recognizing the religion of QaraQoyunlus and creates an opportunity for the presentation of different understandings. In such conditions, there was a two sided background for foreigner tourists to present either a superficial understanding from the realities of the society,or to give wrong analysis about structural and functional quality of the Blue Mosque. However, the claims of the tourists about the building has only got foreign roots and nothing could be found in written Iranian sources.

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Tabriz Blue Mosque is a valuable historical monument from the 9th century AH, which has been built during the Kara - Koyunlu of Turkomans rule on northwestern Iran and about 35 years before the beginning of the Safavid Iranian government. This building has some features that make it to be distinguished from other monuments of the Azerbaijan region and even Iran. These features have attracted the attention of many researchers in the field of ‘historic studies’ and ‘art studies’ and as well as have led to the publication of various sources about it; the approach of which are mainly to introduce the historical and artistic aspects of the mosque. But, little research has established about its architectural design and discovering its environmental relations. Therefore, there is a gap of knowledge in the understanding of architectural norms of this building that need to be addressed by some systematic and targeted researches. Understanding this fact, the present paper examines some of the ambiguities about this building; such as the way of its interaction with the natural environment. Accordingly, this paper aims at investigating the quality of interaction between the nature and architecture in the process of planning and architectural design of the Tabriz Blue Mosque. The mentioned aim is based on this hypothesis: the interaction of “natural environment” and “artificial environment” in the architecture of Tabriz Blue Mosque is based on a systematic approach that in its regulative foundations, the component of politics is dominated other components, especially the component of nature. The necessity underlying this research is to point out this fact that the architect of Tabriz Blue Mosque along with the exciting beauty that created in this building, did he/she also pay attention to natural and climatic aspects? Drawing on what has been said, this research has been done by descriptive - analytical method and data collection was via field study, direct observation, corpus analysis in order to answer the following questions: 1. What are the requirements and necessities of naturalistic architecture in Tabriz's environmental and climatic conditions? 2. To what extent did architect of the Tabriz Blue Mosque, in the architecture of this building, adhere the principles of convergence and harmony with the nature and climate of the region? 3. What is the reason for the existence of some incompatibility between the architectural design of the mosque and the system of nature and environment? The result of this paper shows that the architectural design of Tabriz Blue Mosque was based on the ambitious desires and motives of a social climber king. The desires required some specific necessities, some of whom was contradicted the natural and climatic requirements of region. These contradictions create some incompatibilities between the architectural design of the building and natural environment. Accordingly, in the architecture system of Tabriz Blue Mosque, political considerations and government accreditation were prior to other components of design, especially the component of nature.

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During the last few decades the western societies has accomplished successful projects by creative utilization of architectural technology in architectural conservation such as the Columbia Museum of Art, New Acropolis Museum, and dozens of other projects. This is while in Iran we have not been able to benefit from architectural technology in architectural conservation measures in a creative way yet. It is obvious that architectural technology in Iran has not been progressed step by step with western societies, and there is a ponderable gap in this field between Iran and the mentioned societies; but, the research problem is that we cannot even benefit from what we have from technological developments in architecture field in architectural conservation measures. This issue is important because nowadays the architectural conservation measures in Iran do not meet the current expectations from architectural heritage, and in this respect and considering the richness of this heritage in the country, we have lost and are losing many material and spiritual opportunities that we could have achieved from this potential. Accordingly, the purpose of the present research is to investigate the cause and root for Iran's backwardness in this field, and the question that is proposed based on this purpose is that "Why do the western countries have a more successful performance in comparison to Iran in utilizing architectural technology common in architectural conservation?" If the focus is on a wider timeframe, it is found that since the Renaissance period that is from the emergence period of modern technology and thought backgrounds in western societies, the relationship of the specialized fields with each other and with the society began to break down and consequently some challenges in the field of architecture and architectural conservation were also created for these societies. Accordingly, in the present research, firstly, the evolutions history of each of the architectural technology fields – including engineering and architecture form – and architectural conservation and evolution of the relationship of these two fields in western countries and Iran were investigated, and secondly, the type of the relationship of the specialties with the society and with each other have been focused in investigating these evolutions. The present research has a qualitative approach that has used comparative analysis research method in terms of studying the relationship between the two fields of architectural technology and architectural conservation in two different societies, and historical research method in terms of studying the relationship between these two fields in different historical sections. So, in order to answer this question, the relationship between the two fields of architectural technology and architectural conservation during the periods of tradition, passing from tradition to industry after passing from tradition to industry and the present time have been studied comparatively with a qualitative approach, historical research method, and comparative analysis from the subsets of this approach. The studies indicated that in the western societies from the early fourteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century subsequent to the evolution of architectural technology from traditional nature to industrial one as well as the evolution of architectural conservation from traditional to scientific, an undesirable relationship was gradually formed based on the compliance of scientific conservation only from the architectural aspect, and subsequently, from the technology engineering aspect. As an undeveloped product of the transition period from tradition to industry in the mentioned societies, this undesirable relationship eventually became a desirable one through the evolution of industrial architectural technology and scientific conservation by paying attention to the user and approaching the culture-oriented paradigm. This is while in Iran since the beginning of the present century and following the offhand introduction of industrial architectural technology and scientific conservation, as the transition period’s product in the West, the relationship between these two fields faced problems beyond the post-transition period in the West and resulted in breaking down of the relationship between industrial architectural technology and scientific conservation. Even after paying attention to the user and culture, no relationship was established between these two fields in the country. This problem originated from a scientific gap of several centuries between Iran and the western societies in this field and failure to fill this gap by ignoring the culture-oriented paradigm in both fields of architectural conservation and architectural technology. Failure to approach this paradigm in architectural conservation has led to the control of archeological mentality over the country’s scientific conservation and continuation of its problematic relationship with architectural technology–whether from engineering or architectural aspect – and society until now. In the field of architectural technology, failure to adopt the culture-oriented paradigm also resulted in the lack of balance and coordination between engineering and architectural aspects and between them and society. Therefore, unlike western societies, a desirable triple relationship has not yet been established among engineering, architecture and architectural conservation and between this triple and the society which, in turn, has resulted in backwardness of the country in utilizing architectural technology in architectural conservation.