Journal of Researches in Islamic Architecture

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Mankind is always interacting with an environment that contains various meanings and layers with each of which the environment behaves differently, and on the other hand, this behavior is effectively reflected back to the environment. In recent decades, experimental environmental psychology has sought to help solve the issues posed to human societies by pursuing two objectives of theoretical understanding of human interactions with the environment and applying this understanding in practice. In pursuit of these objectives, the area of knowledge has succeeded to build theories and achieve practical findings. Nevertheless, applying these achievements in an Islamic society faces theoretical and practical challenges in both "description" and "prescription", which in turn necessitates further investigations about "Islamic Environmental Psychology". The present study aims to present an applied paradigm of environmental psychology in interaction with Islamic thoughts, which can be used to organize "location-behaviors" of contemporary living in order to facilitate the realization of an Islamic lifestyle. In regards, the present study began with the three constituents of "location-behavior" that is, humans, the environment and the mechanisms needed for the human-environmental interaction, and posed three questions: what social, psychological and cultural characteristics of humans, from the Islamic perspective, affect the environment? What are layers of the environment that affect humans under certain circumstances? And finally, what mechanisms are required for a human-environment interaction in Islamic viewpoint? To answer these questions, two frameworks were proposed: The first relies on environmental psychology by accepting the assumption about different layers of the environment (from the objective to the subjective environment) and assesses the effect of sociocultural environment in a comparative study. The second framework relies on the Islamic doctrines and develops a reference framework consisting of both Islamic views and environmental psychology views. Following a survey of the two proposed frameworks, the second one was taken as the reference comprehensive framework in this article. To develop this comprehensive framework, the relation between religious epistemology and experimental science was first discussed. Unlike the modern perspective that sets the religion-science-art trinity against the emotion-intellect-sense one, in respective order, or at most assumes a unity between religion and art by mixing emotion with sense, the Islamic perspective holds that religion rules these three areas, and only one aspect of religion is strongly associated with emotions,which is "faith". In the second step, the Islamic version of environmental psychology debate was analyzed in three areas of the individual-entity system within the framework of the anthropology of religion, the collective-social system within the framework of religion’s attitude toward society, and the body-space system within the framework of religion’s attitude toward the body, not as separate distinctive areas, but as three spatial human-environment experiences. That is to say, the fundamental difference of environmental psychology from an Islamic viewpoint is so vast that it expands from the "bodily area" to the "spiritual aspect" in the individual-entity line, from the "corporeal world" to "incorporeal world (the invisible)" in the body-space line, and from "routine patterns of life" to the debate on the "united ummah as a timeless entity" in the collective-social line. In the final step, a three-layer system was devised to discuss the intended paradigm, which includes collective references to the current state of the society and Islamic texts. The first layer includes identifying "local phenomena" as clear points in Islamic jurisprudence and ethics, whose "position" in religious sources is identifiable in behaviors, rituals, sensory perceptions and spiritual perceptions. In fact, theidentified "local phenomena" have not yet really emerged in environmental psychology within an Islamic framework, and if this layer is the only one concerned, this phenomena can be more or less studied in experimental environmental psychology. For practical purposes, the phenomena can be classified in two areas –"general local behavioral-psychological phenomena", indicating phenomena with no direct relationships with the environment,and may only be affected by it, and "specific local behavioral-psychological phenomena", indicating phenomena with an established bodily-environmental aspect. The second layer, which is the first real step toward an "environmental psychology" within the framework of Islam, seeks to identify the (correlative or causal) "relationship mechanisms" between "general” and “specific” local phenomena in religion that have been identified in the previous layer. Finally, the third layer emerges from linking and creating connected loops of general and specific mechanisms of the second layer and through creating a sub-system, and may have certain concepts and components in common with experimental psychology. According to the results, two approaches are applicable in the development of an Islamic environmental psychology paradigm: a conscious approach and a meta-conscious one. The first approach is informed and based on the rules and regulations of jurisprudence and Islamic orders. In this approach, attempt is made to extract the basic concepts by reference to the original Islamic sources and to understand the Islamic position on man-made environment irrespective of the external determination of the past centuries. The second approach is meta-conscious and normative (relying on values and knowledge), is based on the recommended or prohibited behavioral patterns, provides a system for the regulation of behavior-body relationships, and takes priority over mentalities and even time and place values. Although an axiom of all religious doctrines, this approach has been less emphasized in theorizing, compared to symbolic concepts. Compared to the mainstream "behavioral sciences" as "subjective" perspective on the role of social behavior, this approach proposes a middle perspective in forming architecture and an "objective" perspective, based on the role of the subject and object and the third factor, culture, in relation to the role of architecture in society. The final outcome of the present study, that is the Islamic environmental psychology paradigm, aims at producing theoretical and practical knowledge and addresses four conditions: past conditions, i.e., the quality of life before modernism (the popular culture), present conditions, i.e., the current quality of life, desirable conditions, i.e., the quality of life deserved by humans from the viewpoint of Islam, and possible conditions, i.e., the quality of life that can be handled by humans, in order to create behavioral benchmarks in accordance with Islamic view point. The authors recommend that both conscious and meta-conscious approaches can be used, since the conscious approach is based on jurisprudence and orders and thus acts as a framing shell, prevents distortions to some extent, and is also the doorway to theoretical knowledge and implications. also, the second approach as the meta-conscious one, should ideally create environments that are affected by the recommended behavioral patterns of Islam.

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One of the symbols and symptoms that identify Islamic civilization is the Islamic Urbanization as a place for dwelling and activity. Urban areas and structures by manifestation of custom values should identify society’s civilization. And help them to achieve their purposes and ambitions. an Iranian Muslim architect ‘s belief has always been a priority for all of his works And to create his works all functional rules are under consideration of his belief principles. One of these belief principles is subjectivism and privacy life. As from the long past we see tendency to covering in Iranian civilization and tradition and one of the beliefs of Iranian is importance of privacy and indoor life. Subjectivism meaning is related to man placement in Islamic thought. Islam has always wanted mankind to recognize its essence and its identity as a god created. Because in this case man can recognize it’s high values and it’s prominent place in this world. That’s why the Quran introduces human mind as a special cognition resource and express that who has known its god, has known itself. So Islam wants people to pay attention to their indoor and behave without any trace of Self-glorification also prevent people including man and woman of showing themselves by a pretense. As we mentioned, most of the time Iranian’s believes and cultures influence on their architecture. So we see manifestation of subjectivism in Iran traditional architecture elegantly that it has impressed significantly on space organization and also on planning different functions on sites. Subjectivism as a feature that presents in buildings such as houses, mosques, schools and public bathrooms, generates from philosophy - social principles of this country. For example in these houses we have indoor and outdoor yards. Indoor yards separate private life from the public one. This organization has been possible by arraying rooms around the yard and also separating men living space from women living space. With respect to these principles we can see private, semiprivate, public and semipublic realms. We can infer that in Iranian architectural culture essence and man indoor has the actual value and the outer shell is protecting this reality.

In this article our research method is Qualitative. And By studying Islamic texts and documents related to the study conducted by the Iranian market and urban spaces, we are going to express individual and social points of subjectivism. And it’s manifestation in Iranian bazaars. So in the first step we study Islamic texts and investigate documents related to this topic and specify the research principles and processes. Then we try to analysis the factors that lead Iran traditional bazaars to subjectivism and study how these factors effect on bazaar’s functions. The Hypothesis proposed is that, the influence of subjectivism is not merely on our architecture, but also it influences on people behavior patterns in urban spaces.

Bazaar is one of these urban spaces that means place to buy and sell goods. In fact bazaar is a place to exchange and it has been organized by a human activity. So bazar has a both economic and cultural and social aspect that has formed cultural interactions between citizens from the past. These interactions and behaviors are different in every culture. Finally we will approach to factors, effecting the Iranian bazaar’s introversion in both the humanity and social aspects. Factors such as privacy and the need for solitude and privacy for those in the bazaar so that unlike the function of western street as a place for staying together and looking at people and being looked at by people, our urban streets in Iran often have been places for seeing people and not having desire to be looked at by others. This is a kind of privacy that is a personal right for everyone. Prohibition of causeless attendance in public areas in Islamic texts view is one of the reason that our sidewalks have become a place to move currently and cause to minimize the time spent in these spaces. People do not spend in this space for a long time and that’s why they feel that they don’t have any ownership in this place and they are not belonged to urban spaces. On the other, they feel comfortable at their homes and do their necessary activity related to outdoor and hope to come back at home, where they have it as a private realm. As we said, our sidewalks have become a place to move currently and not a place to stop, to eat or speak for a long time. The low width of the bazaars and lack of space to sit in them confirm this. As in the days of holding, that there were crowds in sidewalks, people moved difficultly. Years ago especially at night’s people rarely were passing in urban streets, it shows those nights and days passes effects urban designs. In Islam spending time with family members at nights is more desirable than spending nights out with others. That’s why Iranian bazaars have been  more active in days in compare with nights and also were  a place for exchanging activities more than leisure and exhibitive. Stability and strength of the family has an important place in the Islamic value. and also the value which Islam serves for family and its people and introduce it as a place for relaxation and comfort, make our home a holy place that should have a private realm for its members.. This caused many religious orders in Islam texts. So we see that the kindness and leisure activities would be with family members more than people who we know out in the society. These activities done by family members, Strengthens the foundation of the family comes. Overall, Beyond the effect of introversion and it’s manifestation in architecture and structure, it effects on people presence in urban spaces such as bazaars. We infer that introversion or in a more accurate concept, human indoor or essence has deep sense in compare with its architectural meaning. Islam special respect and emphasis on internal states, is one of the reason to paying attention to humility and preventing from Self-glorification, Behaviors that influence on our urban streets. That we study about them in this article.

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Islamic Architecture is a main course in undergraduate Architectural program of Iran which is essentially a historical as well as theoretical one that makes its applicability so rare in design studios while Islamization has been a main goal of recent architectural policies of Iran. It has been a main concern of scholars in the field of architectural education and in this article some proposed approaches to make theoretical and historical data about architecture applicable for design studio are reviewed.
Two main routes are taken for such an application: 1. Architectural institutional approaches are those plans that try to explore structuralistic components of historical building. For example defining their formal order, spatial arrangement and or analyzing its language of motifs in such a way that could not easily accused to copying from old building; these approaches do not widely enter into cultural debates or religion-based issues unless rare subjects as anti-illustrational view in Islam or bold symbols such as Ka’beh . 2. Ex- Architectural institutional approaches are those that concentrate on the human life of the historical buildings. Behavioral researches and vernacular researches are common studies of this kind. These approaches are somehow based on the hypothesis of continuity of at least a few human characteristics during the history. These approaches suffer from theoretical support as well as social acceptability even between scholars of architecture or humanities.
After a review of role of historical precedents in design studies, various approaches taken towards applicability of the course of Islamic architecture (along with some other historical courses in architectural education program of Iranian schools) for design activities in two recent decades are studied. They are formulized within three main branches: 1. Conceptual continuity: scholars of this vision try to find or construct a context for continuing traditional patterns in current time. For such an application their strategy is to emphasize on symbols instead of architectural pure forms so that they could bond it to social long-life norms. Another strategy of them is to identify timeless combinations of form and idea or architectural concept. Courtyard is one of these concepts which is seen as crystallization of spiritual presence at the heat of the building. Although this approach has not yet been successfully used for the course of Islamic architecture it is routinely used for the other course (theoretical basics of architecture). A main barrier for its applicability for design studio is the lack of aspects that could be continued.
2. principal-based approach refers to those ways that believe in existence of some “abstract” humane basics that are fixed throughout time and space. Although its continuity varies through scholar views. Some as Pirnia define five or seven parameters that are specified to Iran not all Islamic regions. But some others proposed global principals for Islamic architecture. Nader Ardalan or Khalil Pirani are two of such scholars. While these principals have not yet empirically approved at least from users point of view it is a main conflict for their educational apply in design studio. From instructor point of view, they have secondary problem of claims of students. Because an abstract principal could be widely interpreted in such a way that any architectural form would be claimed to be based on such principals. 3. Empiricism refers to comparing physical and practical aspects of buildings detached from their historical context. Climatic characters as well as spatial orders are usual themes of this approach. But it is questionable that if mapping or sketching from buildings are useful ways for understanding life of a building to apply its understandings into new designs. Some schools of architecture encourage their students to use formal patterns of historical buildings for free form inspiration. In this way cultural heritage is considered as a consuming source a low-rated thing. Moral problems of this approach for cultural basics of the society should be taken into account.
The main problem with these approaches as anti-historicism or anti-Islamisism. Here the problem of Islam is taken into account as the main subject of the debate. So a new proposal is offered that can be called as “Islamic Critical View” that criticizes works of architecture from the view of its compatibility with Islamic norms. Main feature of this proposed approach is that it takes stability of moral and values of Islamic Tradition of Holy Prophet and Imam’s as its criteria for evaluating historical changes in architectural form. These changes then are put in critical debate in class sessions without any pre-assumption to consider whether they can be supposed as Islamic solutions or not.  So any historical building is an object that has valuable aspects but not made sacred for its history. Since the measure of criticism is put within Islam itself it is less morally harmful for valued heritage. Here high cultural bases are saved and minor cultural themes are weighed against it.

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In the present study, in order to explain the desirability of the soundscapes of the Timchehs of Tabriz Bazaar, Sound Pressure Level (SPL) and Reverberation Time (RT) have been measured as objective variables of acoustic behavior. Using descriptive questionnaire, subjective assessments were used to determine the quality of soundscape. The research seeks to answer the question of how the spatial characteristics of Tabriz Bazaar Timchehs affect their acoustic behavior and what factors are involved in the desirability of their soundscapes. Findings show that small-scale domes act as cavities with the retention of sound waves and have a good effect in reducing RT. Glass surfaces with sound reflection increase the echo of the environment and reduce the acoustic quality of the space. The materials used in Timcheh wall, brick with gypsum bonding, by diffusing sound waves play a positive role in acoustic quality. The results show that although the values of SPL and RT, which indicate the acoustical behavior of space, are somehow involved in the perception of people from the soundscape, but alone cannot be the basis for assessing the quality of the soundscape. The environmental characteristics and qualities of the spaces such as geometric proportions, dynamics or statics and the amount of congestion have a direct effect on the pleasantness of the urban soundscape in three Timches of Amir-e Shomali, Amir and Mozaffarieh. These three timches are part of tranquil spaces, and for this reason, the sudden appearance of some sounds, due to the difference in SPL, directly has a negative effect on the quality of the soundscape. Therefore, it is suggested that a component called Urban Soundscape Clarity be added to the studies in this field and be considered in the evaluation of soundscapes of tranquil urban spaces

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