Journal of Researches in Islamic Architecture

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This article, in order to improve the quality of urban spaces, wants to explain how ritual ceremonies, particularly Moharam and Safar mourning as an identity and cultural factor, interact with physical structure of urban space. The discussed problem, in this article, is to describe the nature of this Interaction in the past times and comprise it with the urban development plans. In this regard, the research questions include the items such as relationship between ritual ceremonies and urban structure and urban space, influenced factors on selection of an urban space for doing this ceremony and importance of this factors and considering them in new development plans. The aim of the research is the retraining from the interaction between ritual ceremonies and urban structure for using in the new urban development plans. In this article, research framework is based on the descriptive method and used from case study and spatial analysis. The significant part of historic urban of Mashhad has been studied, in connection with research subject and during Moharam and Safar mourning, by using of documents, observations, interview and completion of questionnaire. The conclusion is based on data analysis and descriptive statistics. Studies shows that passing path of mourning groups, over the different years, was constantly conformed to the paths which are part of the main structure of this area and position of elements including structural, culture – religion and historical ones are important as factors which are making direction and being effective on passing path of mourning groups. The accordance of these factors with the approved urban plans of this area shows to give low attention to them. According to the comparison of the most crowded passing path of mourners with suggested items of new detailed plan of the area can understand that these old cultural – ritual paths is ignored in new plan and sometimes, their traces is completely eliminated, and if not ignored, their use is changed in the way that cannot be defined as a ritual path. Concepts which were considered as part of social geometry of religious context and placed within the physical geometry for years, because of traffic and physical attitudes lose their important. For providing of city development plans of historic urban quarters, giving attention to the research conclusion can cause to form more suitable urban spaces for development and improvement of ritual ceremonies.

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Performing diverse activities in urban spaces were assumed a part of the past culture. Moreover, now urban spaces do not have a specific definition in terms of quality. It seems that today’s materialist world is more seeking to increase return in investment and economic quantities and this quantity-oriented state have kept it behind the qualitative issues. For this, faded presence of people in spaces, makes performing this research essential. The effort of this study is to evaluate and have an adjustment comparison between components making urban spaces from the view of western theoreticians and Iranian-Islamic scientists. It seems that remarkable presence of social relations is among the most effective components in increase of urban space’s quality. The data of this study were evaluated in two qualitative and quantitative sections. In qualitative section by help of content analysis method the viewpoints were compared. The quantitative section was conducted by use of analytical description method and a questionnaire was prepared and it was studied in three neighborhoods of Tehran. The data extracted from this questionnaire was inferentially analyzed via SPSS software and they were analyzed beside the other findings gained from literature of the subject. The three neighborhoods of Hafthoz Square, 2nd Sqaure of Niroohavaee and 15 Khordad Street were selected in terms of morphology. The findings of this research indicate that highlighted presence of activities for communication and recreation is highly effective in improving the urban space’s quality. The need for comfort, removal of the need for food and eating is among other components which were effective in the view of people that all of these components in Quran are mentioned as specifications of the space around human being. As a result, the main components of urban space’s quality questioned in this study were convergent to the components introduced by Islamic resources which are neglected in contemporary urban planning despite the emphasis of western resources and scientists.

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Since the energy consumption has become one of the crisis of modern buildings, modeling the Iranian past architecture patterns could be helpful. The shopping streets as one of the main sectors consuming energy locate near the open spaces it seems, therefore, they need more thermal comfort. However, using passive techniques, the Iranian traditional bazaars architecture solved the problems regarding thermal comfort. The present inquiry aimed at investigating thermal comfort of traditional and modern commercial buildings from the perspective of solar radiation to compare traditional structures (with traditional design and materials) with modern ones (with modern design and materials). Therefore, Vakil (traditional) and Mollasadra (modern) Bazaars (with the same orientation), located in Shiraz with a semi-arid climate,  have been chosen. Vakil bazaar situated in historical context of city and Mollasadra situated in the first modern part built in 1980. A naturalistic approach was applied to investigate the relation between shadow on surfaces, shopping load and cooling needed in summer and the relation between the solar radiation on surfaces, shopping load and heating load in winter first, a number of questionnaires were used to survey 120 samples including both customers and shopkeepers to show the relation between shopping load and cooling or heating need second, Ecotect Analysis 2011 was employed to simulate surfaces with shadow and solar direct radiation in winter and summer to evaluate the relation between the surfaces received shadow and heating or cooling need. The results showed that along with a full shade in summer, the customers of Vakil Bazaar are interested to do shopping almost in all hours since there is no obtrusive solar radiation in contrast, customers of Mollasadra Street experienced a shadow from sunrise to 11:00 in summer morning thus 73.3% of customers in Mollasadra made complaints about the existing shadow since there is no shade in crowded shopping hours and points especially in summer afternoon furthermore, 93.3% of shopkeepers in Mollasadra used cooling and heating equipment which demonstrate congruently of orientation and quality in sunshades with climate. At the end, some suggestions regarding the mentioned problem in Mollasadra have been proposed.

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If one looks with the eye of discernment upon the extremely varied manifestations of Islamic art over vast expanses of space and time, the question arises as to the source of the unifying principles of this art. What is the origin of this art and the nature of this unifying principle whose dazzling effect can hardly be denied? The question of the origin of Islamic art and the nature of the forces and principles which brought this art into being must therefore be related to the world view of Islam itself, to the Islamic revelation, one of whose radiations is directly the sacred art of Islam and indirectly the whole of Islamic art.
there is an inner nexus between Islamic architecture and Islamic cosmology and angelology. The Islamic cosmos is based on the emphasis upon God as the Unique Origin of all beings, on the hierarchy of existence which relies upon the One and is ordered by His Command, on the levels of existence which relate matter to the subtle world, the subtle world to the angelic, the angelic to the archangelic, the archangelic to the Spirit or al-ruh and the Spirit to God's primordial creative act. This cosmos is based on order and harmony which is more than the result of the direct manifestation of the One in the many.
By examining the past works of architecture and urbanization, we can see the traces of the manifestation of the imaginary universe in the artwork. One of the examples for these works are Safavid dynasty monuments, such as Imam's mosque in Isfahan, which is an example of the application and expression of the other world in architecture.
Iranian-Islamic culture and knowledge are a rich treasure of the principles and Criterions in all social, economic, cultural and other fields of life. By Looking at Islamic history and civilization, we can always find the reflection of religious and cultural ideas in all aspects of life, including architecture and urbanization. However, one of the issues that is less contemplated in contemporary urbanism, which has led to an identity crisis in the present era, is to provide an opportunity to combine the art of designing urban spaces with Islamic spirituality and art. this kind of art can illustrate the example of the other world by revealing the signs of world of imagination on earth and always point out the beliefs of the people. Hence, the present study aims to derive the applied principles from among these theories. at first we have discussed and categorized theories related to the subject of perception, the imaginary world and the imagination. these theories have been brought up from the point of view of the Islamic Philosophers and Theorists. then it has been examined how these principles are applied in the Iranian-Islamic urban design. The present paper has a qualitative approach and the research is based on "interpretiveism" paradigm. The research method is "analytical-comparative" and it tries to transform fundamental ideas into applied theories. In this regard, in order to clarify the subject, the Qibla Square of Mashhad has also been selected as a case study and finally, a design framework has been developed. The research results show that the universe of imagination and its manifestations have always been considered in the views of great Philosophers; and its appearance in urban spaces can be expressed as different kind of elements, which most notably are light and geometry. For this purpose, one of the most important principles in the world of imagination is "duality", which is based on the four principles of "light and darkness", "inside and outside", "motion and motionless" and "symmetry and asymmetry". These principles are presented in a comparative manner with urban qualities in the form of "hierarchy, unity while plurality, emphasis, contrast, parity, balance, proportions, integrity, and inclusiveness, etc", as well as the solutions below each.

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Fair use of urban space is one of the new and emerging issues in the field of architectural law and urban planning, and one of the structures to address it is to assess the rights of architectural works. An architectural work, in addition to the specific audience or the people living in it, also has a general audience (the people of the city) who are influenced by the social aspects of that work. The existence of an element of influence in this regard (between architectural works and people) suggests that the creation of architectural works is a kind of influential social behavior; Behaviors that are inherently necessary to create all kinds of intersections and legal conflicts for individuals in society. The focus of the present study is to explain the theoretical framework for people's rights to artificial urban spaces (architectural works). An examination of the relevant literature suggests that the explanation of this framework goes beyond describing the three main pillars, including why and what, how to deduce, and so on. After addressing them, the following results were obtained: The space rights of the people, are the privileges and the red lines that obligatory have the support and guarantee that the people have. They have them compared to artificial urban spaces. The inference of these rights was based on three pillars of religious sources, legal documents and the nature of urban space, and five fundamental rights including "right to spatial spirituality", "right to spatial identity", "right to spatial quality", "right to spatial health" and " "Space Justice" was extracted. Of course, this separation does not mean the separation or supremacy of one right over another; rather, it looks at how these rights are enforced and how they are realized. In the current legal documents, some of these rights have been neglected. It is hoped that these lines will pave the way for theoretical discussions and, consequently, the reform of the legislative system in the field of architecture and urban planning.

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Identifying ideal user is a basic function of theoretical debates of urban design.  Here, the situation of the concept of” Ideal user” is enquired in three main categories of social theories used in urban design discourses (i.e. socialistic theories, ecologistic ones and performance-based theories) and it is shown that none of them is of enough relevance to Islamic model of socio-spatial relations and there is critical conflicts for their simbiosis. The negation of middle-scaled groups of cultural society (i.e. the family and neighbourhood) in socialistic theories as well as the anti-idealistic and individualistic assumptions in the ecologistic theories make them unreliable for Islamic aims. The performance based theory in its turn bases its debate on non-honest relation from ethical pont of view and has not proper basics for Islamic view. So a new theory based on Quran and Ahadith is proposed for socio-urban interactions that can be summarized as: In Islamic view the out-of-home environment is a place for relations of the kind of the limited home-like ones that emerges from duties and rights that Islam puts on members of Islamic society. So it can be said that urban space is an expansion of the home inner space. And in this model the society is not seen as a unit composed of individualized persons whose individuality emerges by exiting home; but the community emerges from expansion of family nodes and sharing of borders of fields arranged around such centers and so the urban space is formed - in its turn-  upon nucleous made in developing homes. It is not made from summing up personal spaces and not by connection of them by in-between spaces. Here the definition of urban space as none-residential space or third place in which people look for none-residential relations is cicked out. In other words, in searching for Ideal User for Islamic theory of town design we do not look for “Islamic Fleneur” but we search for a human for whom Islam has made duties to become an ideal person and the responsibility of the urban space is aiding him to depart from existing condition to ideal one.

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How to distribute the urban space fairly, in a way that, in addition to protecting the rights of private owners, also respects the rights of the people of the city, is one of the most fundamental issues in the field of architecture and urban planning. Addressing this issue is delayed by accurately understanding the nature of the city space, and calculating the rights involved; In the present article, an attempt was made to address it based on the teachings of legal jurisprudence. According to the results of this research, contrary to Article 38 of the Civil Code of Iran and the opinion of some early jurists, the city space is divided into three main parts based on the ownership of its lower land: "a. The public space of the city, which consists of two parts: space on public thoroughfares and space on private property, beyond the usual height limit. B. Private space, space adjacent to private property, below the standard height, which is located behind the common space. J. "Shared space, space bordering private property, below the usual height, which is adjacent to public spaces in the city. The first type of these spaces is among the public property and is an example of public commonalities and, of course, in public ownership. The second type is private property and privately owned land under it, and people have a easementright to it. And the third type of this space is among the peripheral property that people have the right to share. This perception of the nature of urban space can be effective in re-reading urban laws and, consequently, the realization of citizens' rights.

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