METHODOLOGY OF MOSQUE-ORIENTED BUILT ENVIRONMENTS CASE STUDY OF CONTEMPORARY MOSQUES OF IRAN’S CITIES

Abstract

In the desirable society of Islam, the gathering place and pivot space is “the Grand Mosque”. This can be observed in establishing the al-Masjid an-Nabawi by the Prophet of Islam ( ). In a situation where many immigrants were deprived of a house and shelter, the Prophet of Islam ( ) established the al-Masjid an-Nabawi, which became a space for the faithful people to gather around the Prophet’s guardianship. This process was also adopted in establishing the subsequent cities, such as Baghdad where the congregational Friday mosque was the gathering space in the middle of “the round city”. During the Renaissance, by virtue of secular humanism, Divine principles were rejected to be a guideline for social life and replaced with the findings and creations of autonomous human intellect. Francis Bacon in New Atlantis (first published in 1627) chose a college as the center of the city instead of a temple or a church. A similar process is also observable in contemporary cities of Iran, especially the capital Tehran. Studying the theoretic bases and the prophetic traditions, this article has searched for the strategies to revive the social role of the mosques by suggesting that, in designing the contemporary cities of Iran, the emphasis should be on “the network of mosques” instead of the “transport network”. The center of the city would be the Grand Mosque, and the city would be divided into districts, which would be centered on their own neighbourhood mosques.