Muslim cities as a pattern of relationships : house-mosque relationship

• Main Author: Khalil, Ahmed Abdulwahab
• Published: University of Edinburgh 1994
• Subjects: 290
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.653350

An argument can be put forward that human belief is one of the major motivations behind the creation and shaping of the human built environment. When a society, authority, or individuals adopt a specific belief or ideology or even change their original belief, this will be reflected in their social pattern and then in their built environment. These have been replaced by other materialistic values and beliefs. Social values and human beliefs in the contemporary built environment have been misinterpreted, misunderstood, and mostly ignored by decision makers, planners, and urban designers. This thesis tries to relates this argument to Muslim society, believing that Islam is the main motivation behind their built environment. As long as Muslims perceive Islam as a way of life, their built environment will reflect this belief. So, the main hypothesis of the thesis is that the traditional Muslim city mainly reflected Islamic belief. When Muslim societies and authorities started to adopt or combine other beliefs and ideologies into their Islamic belief, the society started to reflect these new ideologies in their way of life. This, in turn, influenced their built environment. Alien ideologies started to take place within the Muslim society which were based on totally different ways of life and cultural values. The consequences of these ideologies started to appear during the process of growth and transformation of Muslim cities from the nineteenth century, with affects likely to continue for several generations. In order to examine this hypothesis, the thesis studies the relationship between the house and the mosque within Muslim city.