Journal of Researches in Islamic Architecture

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Iranian Islamic gardens like almost every cultures, represent beauty and happiness and improve the public perception. It has also special geometry with philosophical concept related to Islam’s doctrine that is the focus of this research. Following Quran’s contents, paradise is a beautiful sophisticated garden that something flows under its trees. So the comparison between the somatic geometry of Iranian Islamic gardens and the sophisticated conceptual heavenly descriptions of paradise in Quran is the matter of this research. Thus the configurations of the geometry, based on the paths of rivulets and airflow patterns in the gardens are considered here. The research method is interdisciplinary: in the first step, after initial considerations and exploring, the principals of Iranian Islamic garden’s geometry were extracted by a comparative - descriptive method in some selected case studies. The construction of paradise in Quran frames the trajectory of analysis so the next step is analyzing the paths and geometries with a consequential analytical method. Some simulations of the inner wind are presented also. The simulations include a validated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model to illustrate the airflow current in this geometry. The results demonstrate the physical imagination of Quran’s perception of paradise in Iranian Islamic gardens and the flows under the trees that is framed in a heavenly geometry.

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In Islamic architecture, especially in mosque, the main consideration is to the prayer spirit. For this reason, Quran inscriptions cover the most parts of the decorations of architecture. Altars are always one of the elements with full of motifs decoration because of dignity and its position. The decorations are including Quranic verses and themes. Mosque decorations inscriptions are a main source to investigation the views and religious thoughts. Identifying the Quranic Inscriptions of stucco Ilkhanid alters and understanding their contents are the aims of this paper. Totally, decorative inscriptions of Altars are divided to four groups date, signature (name of the architect and artist. Etc.), supplements and endowments, religious phrases (names of God, the Quran verses, Hadith, name of the prophet and Imams). The present study focuses on the themes of Quranic verses and the contents of them that used in Ilkhanid stucco altars. Altar Stucco decorations consist mainly of arabesque motifs, geometric and inscriptions. One of the visual characteristics of Ilkhanid stucco altars is “decorative inscriptions” that widely have been performed in different styles and forms at the altars, so far the inscriptions become the basic elements of altar decorations in the Ilkhanid Altars, the Oljayto altar and the Jame-bastam altar are perfect examples that their design have been formed on inscription style. Perhaps the importance of calligraphy in the seventh and eighth centuries AH, or a plurality of skillful calligraphers- such as Yaghout Mosta`sami- caused further manifestation of calligraphy and extension of Quranic inscriptions in decoration of buildings. Earlier Kufic script has been used in decorating architecture at fourth century, Moreover Kufi script, other inscription styles such as “Sols”, “Reqa`e” and “Solse-mos`als`al” as well as ‘B`anaiee’ and ‘M`agheli’ in content of religious phrases become popular in stucco decoration at Ilkhanid era.

 In this study, some investigations were done with using descriptive-analytical method, to achieve content of Quranic verses and their relations to the place application. The results of twenty-one altars indicate that one to four suras of Quran used in an altar, for example the Jame-Save mosque and the Jame-Bastam Mosque contain four different suras, meanwhile, just the Oljayto altar have no “Quranic” inscriptions! Ilkhanid altars consist of twenty-one different verse from suras that the first verses of “Mo`menoun”, 1 to 4 verses of “D`ahr”, 1 to 4 verses of “Fat`h”, 255 vers of “Baghare”, 18 to 19 verses of “Tobeh”, and sura “Fateha” completely, were the most used. Content of the altar inscriptions are grouped in few categories “Tohidi verses”, “prays”, “characteristic of the believers”, “describe the characteristics of mosque authors”, “Muslim victory over enemies”. Sometimes the inscriptions are used beside each other and referring to essence of Allah, worshiping, and Allah praying. The contents of some verses are the oneness of God and the worship of God, as well as the other verses reveal “characterization of believers” that specify the qualities of ways and the path of believers. Praying is also one of the first characteristics of the Muslims in Tohidi verses and also is specified rules of the pray conduct, in order to guide believers on a direction and builds up a unity of Muslims with the aim of achieving victory and pride.

In addition to the above, some features are stated to those build the mosques because the mosque is the sacred in Islam and everyone does not deserve to enter in this way. Generally, verses of the “Tohidi”, “prays”, and “authors of mosques” had the most usage. Hence, the content of altar Quranic inscriptions is related to the application place and their dignity in the mosque, to lead up the prayer spirit and richness up the people.

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Introduction

Privacy is known as one of the most basic features of Islamic architecture. Home is the most private places for the person so it is essential to provide confidentiality and privacy in it. Islam, Quran Verses and Hadiths of Prophet Mohammad and imams have focused on creating privacy in the houses. In this way, the privacy has been the basic principle on traditional architectures of Iran especially in housing.

Literature Review

Creating privacy is necessary point for people and providing this principle in the home is more important than the other places. Privacy In traditional architecture of Iran has created in both audio and visual kind. This principle has been used in traditional architecture of Iran before Islam but in Islamic architecture has been emphasized it more than before. Quran verses and Hadiths of imams and Prophet Mohammad are the most important references of Islam. So this article has reviewed these references to find the ways of creating privacy in the house.

Methodology

This article is tried to define and understand these objects: the meaning of privacy, reviewing the factors that create privacy in Zinatol Mulk historical house as a distinguished building in Shiraz city, recognizing the confidentiality principle in organizing spaces of this house and introduce the special strategies that used in making privacy. So the privacy principle, Quran verse and Islamic hadiths are reviewed at the first part of the article. This part is used by library resources, articles and internet sites. After that, checking the case study is done with using interview and direct observation from the Zinatol Mulk building. So at first part of article a brief introduction of Zinatol Mulk house has been said then the elements that create privacy in Zinatol Mulk house are reviewed in both audio and visual type.

Discussion

By studying the Quran verses and hadiths can be said that Islam insists on creating privacy especially at home into both audio and visual kind. So providing the privacy is necessary in Islamic architecture. Although this principle was used in Iranian buildings about 6000 years ago in the courtyard houses but the most use is in Islamic architecture. Therefore the successful case study in traditional architecture of Iran has been reviewed to understand the privacy principle. Zinatol Mulk house in Shiraz city was selected for evaluation. Zinatol Mulk house was chosen because of two reasons, first because Shiraz residential architecture is unique and it has productive and rich houses in its traditional architecture and second because this house is one of the most distinguished historical houses in Shiraz. The results also show the special features of confidentiality in this house. The factors that make visual and audio privacy in this house are divided into 4 main methods. These methods are location, proportions, introversion and the hierarchy. Each of these methods have special role in creating privacy in this house.

Results

Audio and visual privacy will be appeared as the introversion, hierarchy, location and proportions principles in the framework of the building. Each of this principles use special ways to provide the confidentiality. The privacy has important role in in Zinatol Mulk house design. So the architecture has emphasized on making privacy in this house. Therefore the hierarchy is much stronger and has more steps than the other houses.

Conclusion

By Checking the Quran Verses and Islamic hadiths that related to privacy and Compliance them with the architectural of Zinatol Mulk house (a distinguished case study in Shiraz city), it obtain that creating confidentiality in the main spaces of this building are as below:

Entry spaces in this House:

The privacy in the entry space has been created by these factors: existence of high walls around the buildings, losing the height of the corridor than the vestibule, the lack of windows in the exterior elevation, retreat the entrance to the alley, increasing the thickness of the around walls and entrance space.

Yard of house:

Privacy in the yard has been provided by these elements: using high walls around the building and in second floor to block the neighbor’s view on the yard, separation of two inside and outside yards and communicate them through an underground connection between Narangestan Qavam and Zinatol Mulk buildings, creating a separate yard for the toilet.

The rooms of house:

The factors that make privacy in the rooms are: locating the entrance perpendicular to the main axis of the yard, using larger and more windows in the gusts room (Shah Neshin) and smaller windows in living room (3 doors room and 5 doors room), recessing the windows of 3 doors room and 5 doors room, locating the 3 doors rooms apart from the public spaces of Home, providing the entrance spaces and patio in front of the rooms, communication between the rooms by the doors, increasing the thickness of walls in more private rooms, lack of openness in the closet room, creating the space hierarchy in the entrance of all the rooms.

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Quranic inscriptions are the inseparable elements of mosque ornaments, promoting the Islamic culture and reflecting the socio-political conditions of the given era. Due to its importance and vastness together with several structural periods and the volume of decorations, Jameh Mosque of Isfahan is one of the structures containing most of the historical religious inscriptions related to Iranian Islamic architecture. These inscriptions date back to Saljughi, Ilkhanid, Mozafari, Teymouri, Safavid, Ghajar and most recent eras and are embedded on the entrances, court-yard facades, verandas, minarets, bedchambers, domes, sanctuaries, stone troughs, candlestick, tribunes, etc. of the mosque. Most of these inscriptions are exposed through the entrances, internal facades of verandas in (southern, western, east and northern Omar Iwan), the main yard facade, minarets, sanctuaries and domes. These inscriptions may be assessed according to criteria of technique, construction date, content, position, benefactors, restoration manner, their contribution to the architectural space, etc. There exist few studies where the content analysis of these inscriptions embedded in these structures are addressed and assessed; consequently, attempt is made in this article to recognize, analyze and compare the content of Quranic inscriptions on entrances (mosque emblem) and sanctuaries (symbol of Qiblah) of Jameh Mosque of Isfahan. To extract the content of the inscribed verses and assess the thematic correlations as to their political and social terms together with the assigned locations in these structures, this article follows a descriptive-analytical method where documented sources are applied and insitu observations are made. The findings here reveal that the entrances and sanctuaries of Jameh Mosque of Isfahan contain many inscriptions with various contents. The content of these inscriptions consists of: digits (date of construction), personal names (benefactors, rulers, art masters and calligraphers) and hadiths (holy names and Quranic verses). Among 10 entrances and 17 sanctuaries of this mosque, 7 entrances and 8 sanctuaries contain Quranic inscribed Surah: Al-Baqara with three repetitions, Al-Fatiha, twice, Nesa, Al-Ikhlas, Al-Insan, Tobah, Anbia, Ahzab, Jen, Maedeh, Jamah, Al-Emran, Kahf, Noor and Sad Surah with one repetitions. Most of these Quranic inscriptions in this mosque are embedded in Safavid era followed by Ghajar, Al Mozafar, Ilkhanid and Saljoughi eras: Safavid with 9 Surah and 15 Verses is ranked the first, while Saljoughi with one Verse and one Surah is ranked the last. Since the beginning of Iran becoming an Islamic nation, during time, the city of Isfahan has been exposed to severe religious quarrels until Safavid era when Shiism religion sector gained official announcement in Iran. Back then, the city of Isfahan was the major center of Sunni sector.  It seems that the selection of verses for inscriptions was influenced by the socio-political conditions of the given era. This fact indicates that during political and social turmoil and unrests between religion sectors the selected Quranic verses are indicative of the specific events, while during relatively political and social proportional calm, the content of the selected verses reflect unity of God, faith and belief in resurrection, prophecy and conveyance of the Prophet and verses about the importance of the mosque. The content of the verses in sanctuaries indicates the events related to the Muslim community like changing Ghiblah, conveyance of the Prophet and leadership. In Saljoughi era, the disputes between Saljoughi dynasty and scholars in Isfahan lead to setting Jameh mosque to arson and it seems that inscribing the 114^th verse of Al-Baqarah Surah reveals this phenomenon. In Ilkhanid era, considering the religious disputes, it can be deduced that the benefactors of Aljayto sanctuary by inscribing Quranic and hadith texts with a content specific to Shiism had no other objective than promoting Shiism in Isfahan. The existing military conflicts in Al Mozafar era were influential on the sanctuary inscriptions of Mozafari School and stimulating believers to commit Jihad. By establishment of relative calm in Safavid and Ghajar eras and the orientations towards Shiism thereof, the benefactors selected verses indicating the praise of the prophet of Islam, the status of Amir Al Muminin (the leader of the faithful in Shiism) and manner of meeting God.

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This research is a Qur'anic review that examines the effects of ethics on architecture from the Holy Qur'an’s point of view with the goal of introducing logical theoretical principals of ethical architecture. In order to reach the research goal, this research conducts the Induction, deduction and reverse extraction of research’s resulted theoretical concepts based on Aristotle's formal logic. The main question of this article is how theoretical principles of ethical architecture can be extracted from the Holy Qur'an on the grounds of Aristotelian logic? Given the priority of avoiding unethical issues over the acquisition of ethical virtues in the religion of Islam and the architectural position as an arbitrary act of human being that influences the inner attributes of the individual and the surrounding society, unethical issues can be considered as the most important factors in the formation of ethical principles for architecture. The unethical issues mentioned in the Holy Quran determine these principles from the point of view of the Muslim scripture and provides backbone of understanding the principles of ethical architecture. This research studies documents and resources based on a logical reasoning and Interpretative analytical approach. Research findings are validated using semi-structured interview techniques and indicate that experts validate the completeness and adequacy of the resulted theoretical principles and the logical process of this research. Research results include seven theoretical principles for ethical architecture; 1) Architecture should be a remembrance of God. 2) Architecture should be a tool of respect for its consumers and lack self- glorification over them. 3) Architecture should be goal-oriented towards the needs of future generation. 4) Architecture should eliminate social gaps and be a symbol of equality and modesty. 5) Architecture should create balance between human needs, pleasures and desires. 6) Architecture should answer human demands on the grounds of an economical and naturalistic approach. 7) Architecture should include structural strength with the acknowledgment of human lifetime limitations. The result of this research presents a coherent logical extraction of ethical architecture from the Holy Quran, which can be considered in the fields of theory and practice by academics and architects.