The Spatial System in the Islamic City of Iran

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Abstract

City as the supreme symbol of the human civilization has developed in two different directions in Iran over time:  before the advent of Islam when aristocracy ruled in Iran and religious figures acted as the mediators between men and God, the city had an appearance dictated by certain individuals. After the Arab conquest of Iran, the ideology that Islam introduced, i.e. regarding all as equals, shook the foundations of the aristocratic society of the time.  As a result, people realized that they could directly connect to God without any mediator and this led to the removal of the positions of certain religious figures in the country.  As a result, the city in the Islamic era became a modern outcome of the Islamic civilization due to the changes in the thoughts and beliefs of the Iranians.  The spatial organization of the city thus became different from the pre-Islamic era.  The new city was based on the needs of the society and its strengths were the public functions of which the most important was the mosque acting as a place for social gatherings and multiple functions.

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