Journal of Researches in Islamic Architecture

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The recognition of main urban elements, specially the holy monuments, have had changed a lot in the image of the Islamic city since past to present. Façade, height and position of building are some of the ways of making recognition. In each period, some of the buildings with specific activities are recognized. Buildings which was mosque, bazaar, monastery, tomb, bath, reservoir, mounth, school or citadel, now is transformed to political, administrative, commercial or sometimes residential and religious one. It has root in the mind of the governors or the builder of the buildings that which one is more recognized. Among all of urban activities, the recognition of religious buildings is the most disputed one. The aim of this research is the typology of recognition of the main buildings of the city centre, specially the religious ones, in order to be beneficial for the contemporary urban design.
This research initially tries to distinguish different types of recognition of special elements in the image of city, with the phenomenological approach from theory to practice. Then it attempts to assess them with theoretical and cultural criteria.
According to the consequences, tWo types of encounter with the recognition of urban image can be distinguished. The first type is need – oriented and functionalist which follow emergence and recognition of buildings in plan, much more than image and dosent pay much attention to aesthetic preferences. This type of recognition was more common in the earlier periods of Islamic civilization (Khorasani Style) such as Naeen city centre. In the second type, the emphasis is on the aesthetic recognition of buildings, specially the religious ones. Cities which belong to this type, last two periods of conflicting identities. This evolution reached a balance between these orientations in the safavid period. This research tries to introduce the safavid period as a balanced tendency in consideration of proper recognition of each building and suggest the continuation of its patterns.
 

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Islam spread quickly less than half a century on a large scale - from Spain to the borders of China. While, Christianity spread slowly during several centuries. After the spread of Islam in the West of Asia and the evolution of intellectual foundation of the community, the need for creating cities in accordance with Islamic lifestyle through making the least changes to the existing structure, resulted in adopting a new approach like converting churches into mosques in many Muslim cities. This research studies the various aspects of Islamic and Christianity beliefs on the process of converting churches into the mosques. The questions are: How have the formation of spaces in churches and mosques influenced by Islamic and Christian ideological flows? How have the Islamic thoughts embodied in the Christian architecture, during the process of converting churches into the mosques?
The hypothesis of this research is: “the formation of historical process of converting churches into the mosques is because of either existence of parallel aspects in Islamic and Christian theology or flexibility of Islamic thoughts in influencing by aesthetic patterns”. Based on the research questions and to examine the hypothesis, we analyze the process of converting churches into the mosques through using library source and adaptive approach of historical-interpretive method. Findings indicates that the origins of these monumental buildings is the simple form of a house that later developed to magnificent architectural forms in response to historical events. Due to the idea of collective worship in Islam, more diverse range of religious buildings were created in Islamic era than Christian era. The introduction of Islam to the new cities and its political power influenced the architectural aspects of the cities. In spite of the parallel aspects and common roots of the early churches and mosques, it was probable that churches were used for different purpose, but the process of converting churches into the mosque in the newly Muslim regions shows the compatibility of Islam with the culture, ideology and the main purpose (worship of God) of Christianity.
 

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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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One of the main reasons for the deviations of human schools in the East and West of the world, especially the modernist and postmodernist currents that were created in Western culture after the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, has spread around the world to the present day. These are the deviations that have occurred in the divine religions, especially Judaism and Christianity, by the believers of these religions. Authoritative Islamic sources (Divine Word and Tradition of the Infallibles) have explained and analyzed these deviations. An example of such distortions is the Christian's belief in concepts (God, the Prophet, man's relationship with God, the Prophet, the ulema, society, and nature). In this paper, the effect of these deviations on one of the most important elements of human civilization, namely (human places of worship) and as a special example (cruciform churches) from the Islamic point of view, based on theory (Salam) has been interpreted and analyzed. The theory (Salam) divides human processes such as the construction of a place of worship into five general stages (ideas, motivations, and methods of the architect-artist, to create the body of the work and the effects of the work on the audience) and the effect of the deviations of each stage to the stages. Next, he interprets and analyzes the creation of the architectural work and its effects. In this theory, it is stated that the prophets and divine schools have provided innocent resources and bases for the first three stages of human processes with titles (beliefs, rules and ethics) and the fourth stage requires specialized ijtihad and creation of works by human beings in The world has nature. Thus, the existing problems in the form of civilizational works, including (the crucifixion churches), are the result of deviations in (beliefs, rules, and ethics) created in Christian culture. The present study is fundamental and the research method of this research is documentary and based on reliable primary and secondary sources and well-founded Islamic principles (analytical and interpretive) as well as the four Gospels and early Christian texts. In conclusion, the effects of Christian deviations (doctrinal, behavioral, and methodological) on the body of cruciform churches in terms of dimensions (geometric-spatial ideas, arrays, and symbols) have been evaluated and analyzed.