Journal of Researches in Islamic Architecture

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This article seeks to compare the standards of urban life quality and extracted concepts of Islamic city based on four causes of architecture. The main reason of this research is comparing what researchers mentioned as urban life quality criteria and standards and features of an Islamic city drawn by the Islamic sources. All the schools of architecture and urban designing agree that the most important goal of designing is to meet the physical and psychological needs of mankind with the highest quality. Although there is not an exact definition of quality of life that all researchers agree on, but it is possible to achieve the main standards and features by reviewing the studies that have been done about this subject. To achieve to this goal, the criteria of urban life quality from the western point of view have been studied and classified while extracting, to make it possible evaluating the features quantitatively. Besides features of Islamic utopia are studied and extracted from both religious references and ancient Islamic cases. The main issue for comparing the results is the effect of architects and urban designers' points of view and believes on urban spaces. In fact subjective cause between four causes of architecture is the main source of architectural inspiration. Therefore, the extracted criteria of life quality have been studied based on this scale and results show that, only 1% of urban life quality features are driven from this point of view. In other words just 1% of these features have been considered for meeting clients’ spiritual needs, while this ratio in Islamic city features is much bigger and it means that the role of architects and designers believes is too important in Islamic view. Believing in God's wisdom and the ::::union:::: behind the diversity that could be seen in Islamic architecture, make Islamic architects’ view more comprehensive and wiser than other designers. To sum up, Islamic utopia tries to achieve a better human being life by meeting their physical, psychological and especially spiritual needs. Shortly, it illustrates the intention of “Remembrance” in architecture and urban designing.

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Moving toward third millennium is characterized by capabilities in transforming human life. Specially, development of information technologies in everyday life lead to great changes in communication tools andour current understanding ofurban social life. Indeed, telecommunications because of independency from time—space constraints, provide a new unlimited space for social interactions in global scale. Now, this development in Islamic societies is remarkable, because Islam has many detailed rules in social relations. So, in this situation studying and exploring social and cultural dynamics in cyber environments and its implications for physical cities is a key task of urban planners in Islamic communities to sustain and develop these cities.

In this research, first of all we reviewed some of the basic concepts of social life from Islamic view. We explored the reflection of these rules in Islamic cities and spatial aspect. After that, for each concept, we explored the potential implications of Information technology for Islamic society in the information age. The results showed that Islamic cities are reconstructed as complex amalgam of electronic spaces and urban places,in which, Information Technology has dual impacts on the city: in one hand, a potential for more social interactions, sharing ideas and promoting social integration and in the other hand, encourage the polarization of society, dispersed social relations etc. This indicates only a few parts of complexities in this area and the necessitiesin rethinking Islamic city in the age of digital communications.

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The traditional Iranian bazaar is considered as a great example of Iranian art and architecture with a rich cultural heritage. This phenomenon of outstanding architecture, self-sustaining and coherent with the surrounding urban landscape, like other urban texture, has not been immune from the consequences of the transformation of modern life in its internal and peripheral arena. On the other hand, the transformation and creation of new structures for the survival of life of historical textures is essential. The concept of contextualism and its purpose in the historical context, based on the qualitative concepts of the creation of a living, coherent and dynamic, is based on the need to recognize and emphasize the extraction of the texture pattern language for structural and functional cohesion in peripheral development. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the degree of coherence of new structures on the continuation of the traditional texture life of the traditional bazaar in order to analyze the heterogeneity of infill buildings in the historical context of the Iranian-Islamic city and criticize the existing context, first, with a descriptive-analytical method, on traditional Ardabil bazaar as a case study. Then, in order to answer the question of the extent of the infill coherence effect as a context-oriented parameter on the continuity of the pattern language as a characteristic of context survival, field survey, as well as the questionnaire as a tool for collecting information and SPSS software as an analysis tool, and data evaluation were used. By developing the hypothesis that there is a significant relationship between the amount of context-oriented contemporary infills and the survival of the traditional bazaar context, the research begins qualitatively and to test, the continuation of the traditional bazaar is dependent variable and the degree of contextualism between the infills is the independent variable. First, qualitative studies are conducted based on deductive reasoning and field studies, and then the results are quantified by presenting a questionnaire and examining the views of the resident business people who have at least two generations of bazaar presence, as well as those of contemporary merchants and experts.
The findings in the first section show that the powerful functional-physical centersare of scale that create the pattern of the life of different structures. In the case of the traditional Ardebil bazaar,it is in accordance with the three macro, middle and macro scales, indicate the highest quality of life and it brings forth the semantic coherence of the unified and dynamic Islamic worldview in the structure of the traditional bazaar. The findings in the second part indicate a general lack of coherence between contemporary infills in the 2 nd grade zone of the traditional Ardebil bazaar. Also,it shows that   structural integrity, visual coherence and spatial integrity variables have a direct and significant effect on the dependent variable of the physical life of the traditional bazaar ,and  the activity coherence variable and the cognitive integration of the new building as a predictor variable on the functional life of the traditional bazaart. Therefore, dealing with concepts such as scaling and scale distribution, necessity to go beyond the strictly limited use of the brick and the limited height of the building and the window frame in the traditional bazaar becomes vital to consider, so that deep concepts of the language of the texture pattern can be continued and the new recommendations for design identity in the historical context can be created for designers to emphasize "modeling" rather than "formalism".

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Urban planning seeks to improve the quality of life of the city's residents. The way to achieve this is through recognizing the dimensions of life to the neighborhoods and the factors that influence it. On the other hand, the vitality of the environment is one of the missing circles in urban life. From the perspective of the West, sustainability has three dimensions: social, economic, and environmental. This research identifies the important dimension of semantic as the fourth factor of religious look. Because the perfection of life in the religious view is to reach the life of Tayyibah, and for this purpose, spiritual and spiritual dimensions of life should considered in order to establish human perfection and growth. This is possible if you live in a lively environment and neighborhood. In addition, no attempt has made to present a comprehensive approach to sustainable architecture based on Islamic teachings, which has the depth and comprehensiveness necessary for the functional dimensions of the environment and desirable neighborhoods. Therefore, this study aims to add the semantic dimension to the three dimensions of sustainability, to provide comprehensive model of sustainable architecture compatible with Islamic teachings to live and vitality of the neighborhoods.
The method of this research is the combination method (quantitative and qualitative). Library studies have used to extract dimensions of sustainable living. In the next step, with a survey of experts and architects and urban planners, the significance of the model criteria has been determined, leading to a researcher-made questionnaire. Finally, the collected data analyzed through descriptive statistics. In this research, to identify the dimensions and characteristics of the Islamic area, the original Islamic texts (Quran and the traditions of the Imams (AS)) have investigated. The findings show that among the four dimensions of sustainability, social dimension in neighborhoods has the most importance in the vitality and living of the neighborhood. After that, the semantic dimension is most important in the religious space and the Neighborhood. In the third place, the environmental dimension in the neighborhood and the educational environment and at the last turn of the economic dimension in the neighborhood and the commercial space is contributing to the vitality of the neighborhood. At the end, Sustainable life strategies are given the priorities in the neighborhood design to create a neighborhood consistent with the Islamic worldview is developed.

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Islamic texts have significant capacities in various fields of human knowledge. Among the issues raised in these religious texts is architecture and its features that on this basis, till now, some researches have been done on the Islamic architecture.
One of the main problems which have been considered during recent decades (especially in the field of urban development) is development pattern which can be classified into two main patterns: horizontal development pattern and vertical development pattern. But due to various problems, in recent decades, in most cities especially in metropolises, vertical development pattern has spread increasingly. According to the above descriptions, in this research this problem is studied from the perspective of Islamic teachings (especially Shiite jurisprudence) and so, the main problem that is investigated in this article is desirability or non-desirability of residential buildings vertical development in Islamic city.
          The research method which is used in this article is a compound method. In this way, according to the features of the various stages of this research, for gathering data, archival research method is used meanwhile logical-argumentative research and qualitative content analysis in analysis step and judgment of data has been used. In this way, propositions (especially the jurisprudential hadiths) that directly or indirectly are related to the problem of this research have been extensively investigated using qualitative content analysis method and then, using the resultant of propositions analysis by logical-argumentative method, the research findings are concluded.
According to these findings, because of various Islamic reasons (such as visual dominance and some of Imams traditions like star sightings and etc.) apartment and vertical development pattern is not desirable in Islamic cities especially for residential buildings.

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The realization of the concept of 24-hour city and urban nightlife has been controversial from the very beginning, even in the original source, the western cities. Adherents of the 24-hour city believe that the nightlife increases economic prosperity, presence of urban spaces, security enhancement, space branding, and etc. In contrast, opponents do not recommend the nightlife in cities for reasons such as energy wastage, occurrence of crime and offensive behaviors, environmental damage, increasing individuality and reducing social cohesion, and etc.
Survey on existing examples of the nightlife in different cities suggests that a single pattern for nightlife cannot be imagined. In each society, according to requirements and facilities, general culture and social relations, and even the policies of the governments and the urban managers, different examples of the urban nightlife have been obtained.
The introduction of this concept into the Islamic societies - including Iran - has also posed challenges to the urban management and citizens, including whether the same western concept of the 24-hour city and the nightlife can be realized in Iran? To what extent do those concepts and goals conform to Iranian-Islamic culture and lifestyle? And basically, what is the relationship between the concept of the 24-hour city and the nightlife with the Islamic instructions? And so the urban nightlife has had serious proponents and opponents in Iran.
A review of theoretical literature of the 24-hour city, based on the Islamic instructions and the local and the cultural capacities, can probably provide inference of the 24-hour city and the urban nightlife in accordance with the Islamic lifestyle and cities of the Islamic countries, including Iran. The present study seeks to answer the above questions with qualitative method and to provide a pattern of the 24-hour cities and the nightlife based on the Islamic culture and the local capacities.

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