UNDERSTANDING THE IMAGE OF THE ISLAMIC URBAN LANDSCAPE

by

Abdulkader Abdulrhman Al-Gilani

B. S. King Abdulaziz University, 1994

M. L. A. University of Pennsylvania, 1999

A thesis submitted to the

University of Colorado at Denver

in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Design and Planning

2005

©2005 by Abdulkader A. Al-Gilani

All rights reserved.

iv

Al-Gilani, Abdulkader Abdulrhman (Ph. D., Design and Planning)

Understanding the Image of the Islamic Urban Landscape

Thesis directed by Professor Fahriye H. Sancar

ABSTRACT

Lack of public participation in historic preservation planning has resulted in

alienating inhabitants from their living environments. This has been the case

in Muslim societies where colonization and modernization have dramatically

altered living spaces. Preservation efforts in these contexts are driven by

experts, mostly, utilizing western scholars’, stereotypical images of the

“Islamic City.” New approaches that emphasize cultural preservation

recognize the need for local public participation to ensure continuity of social

and physical components of traditional urban fabric.

This thesis has three objectives. The first objective is to develop and apply a

participatory method for individuals to identify significant aspects of an

urban environment, in this case the Islamic City, that contribute to its unique

character. The second objective is to investigate whether native Muslims

from various regions share a common image and if so, to delineate its

elements. The third objective is to explore historic preservation policies in

the west and in Saudi Arabia and make recommendations for

improvements, specifically in terms of incorporating geographic information

technologies (GIS) and citizen participation.

DEDICATION

To my Mother,

To my Father,

and to all my brothers and sisters

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Utmost thanks and gratitude are due to the chair of my committee:

Professor Fahriye H. Sancar. I can’t thank you enough for your genuine

devotion and support, in, and out of academia.

Thanks are also due to all members of my committee which included:

Associate Professor Michael Holleran, Assistant Professor Brian Muller,

Professor Raymond Studer and Professor James Jr. Wescoat. Thanks are

also due to the late Professor Joan Draper for her academic support and

valuable guidance on teaching and research techniques and support. Her

contribution to this dissertation was of utmost value.

I have to acknowledge that this was supported by an accumulation of

knowledge and support from previous academic experiences. From the

University of Pennsylvania, Professor Bernard Lassus, for reshaping my

design sense and technique, Professor C. Dana Tomlin for introducing me

to GIS and for being a great mentor and communicator, Professor Tarek

Fadaak, for being a great mentor during my early years in college and later

for being a great friend.

Thanks are due also to my brothers and sisters for their support and help.

All appreciation and gratitude is extended to Wajdi Wazzan for being the

best friend some one may ever have, to Kim, Verle, Joey, and Nicel for their

support and friendship.

And finally, Ahmad; thank you for your help.

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CONTENTS

Figures………………………………………………………………………. xiii Tables……………………………………………………………………..… xiv Chapter 1. Introduction …………………………………………………………….. 1 2. Part One: Is There a Muslim City Image? …………………..………. 11 2.1 Historiography of Muslim City Morphology ……………………….. 11 2.1.1 Scholarly Debate on the Image of the Muslim City ……..…….. 11 2.1.2 Governance and Administration………………………………….. 25 2.2 The Image of an Urban Environment………………………………. 32 2.2.1 Image of Place………………………………………………………. 33 2.2.2 Meaning of Place…………………………..…………………….…. 35 2.2.3 Theoretical Construct to Capture Experience in a Place:

The Missing link Between Environmental/Visual Attributes and Affective Responses ………………………………....................... 40

x

2.2.4 Narratives as Expression of Urban Morphologies………………. 42 2.3 Research Method …..……………………………………………….. 46 2.3.1 Method……………………………………………………………….. 46

2.4 Findings ………………………………………………………….…... 56 2.4.1 Demography of the Sample ………………………………….….. 57 2.4.2 Place Categories ………………………………………………….. 60 2.4.3 Themes ……………………………………………………..……… 147

2.4.4 Conclusion ……………………………………………………... … 175 3. Part Two: Preserving Place Identity in Muslim Cities ……………. 177

3.1 Historic Preservation of Urban Landscapes: With Emphasis on the Arab World ...……………………………… 177

3.1.1 Historic Preservation in the USA……………………………….. 180

3.1.2 Historic Preservation in France…..…………………………….. 195

3.1.3 Historic Conservation in Britain……………………………...…. 200

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3.1.4 Preservation in The Arab-Islamic World: With Emphasis on Saudi Arabia……………………………..... 207

3.2 The Use of Geographic Information System (GIS) to

Facilitate Public Participation in Historic Preservation…….…. 230

3.2.1 Background on Digital Technology Use in Public Participation (As a Possible Solution)……………..…………………………. 236

3.2.2 Public Participation GIS (PPGIS)……………………………….. 240 3.2.3 Critical Technical Requirements for Historic Preservation

Planning…………………………………………………….......... 242 3.2.4 The Potential of Using GIS to Support Public Participation in

Historic Preservation and Issues Concerning Each Use .…. 248 4. Conclusion….……………………………………………………….… 252 4.1 Primary Findings ……………………………………………………. 253 4.1.1 The Method ……………………………………………………….. 253 4.1.2 Morphological Description ………………………………….……. 255 4.2 Research Contribution to the Theoretical Discussion on

“The Islamic City” …………………………………………………… 267 4.3 The Effect of Colonization on the Islamic City ………………..…. 269

xii

4.4 Assessment of the Research Method ……..……………………… 272

4.5 The Implications on Urban Policies …………………………..…… 276 4.5.1 The Prospect of Participatory Planning ………………………… 276 4.5.2 The Prospects for Historic Preservation ……………….………. 277

4.5.3 The Prospects for PPGIS in Historic Preservation …………… 281 4.6 Implications of the Research Findings on Adaptive Assimilation Practices ……………………………………………… 281 Appendix

A. Questionnaire ……………………………………………………..... 285 B. Place Categories Pictures………………………………………..... 287 Bibliography …..………………………………………………………...... 309

xiii

FIGURES

Figure 2.4.1 Social and Physical Interrelation in a Muslim Urban Fabric... 166

3.2.1 How GIS is Utilized in Public Participation in Historic Preservation ……………………..…………………. 250

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TABLES

Table 2.2.1 Stories That Take Place in Your Typical Traditional Environment 44

2.4.1 Sample Demographic Data …………………………………….…. 59

2.4.2 Number of Place Category Occurrences Per Subgroup ………... 61

2.4.3 Percentage of Place Mentioning Per Group and Gender ………. 145

3.1.1 Legislative Periods in US Conservation 1966-82 ……..……........ 184

3.2.1 DTs Utilized in CRM. (Myers, J., 2001) ……………………..……... 234

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1. Introduction

As powerful nations attempt to impose their own vision of what the whole

world should look like, and as economic and political superiority enables

them to broadcast a global image of a single flavored world, traditional

locales are striving for their basic right of preserving their inherited identities;

the right to be selective of what to adopt from other cultures, and the ability

to implement their own decisions in their own living environments.

This study focuses on the Islamic culture as it faces these forces. It attempts

to discover how members of the Islamic nation (Ummah) define the

image(s) of (an) “Islamic urban landscape”.

The premise of this study is that local communities should have the ability to

shape their own living environment in a manner that serves them best. They

can achieve this if they can develop a shared understanding of a desired

living environment and have the tools to participate in the decision making

and planning process. This study is aimed at discovering the traditional

identity of Islamic environments. The main hypothesis is that because

Islamic teachings have shaped Islamic built environments and societies,

people should have common perceptions of the character, appearance,

functions, and feel of Islamic communities. As Bianca puts it:

Perhaps the most significant social implication of Islam was the fact that the strength of its ritualized living patterns dispensed with the need for many formal institutions. A large number of administrative structures which are

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normally identified with cities-at least in Europe- did not develop simply because the society had internalized its structuring constraints, which minimized the need for external controls…the Muslim “res publica” was not the result of civil rights wrested from oppressive authorities but the outcome of the shared desire to follow certain religiously prescribed patterns of life which would hopefully provide man with peace and welfare in this world and salvation in the next world. (Bianca, 2000, p. 30)

If so, these perceptions should be useful as a tool for cultural preservation

across the spectrum of Muslim inspired cities, towns, and villages in

combination with other cultural heritages that contribute to making each

place special and unique. Scholars have been defining Muslim urbanism for

some time now. For example, according to Akbar (1988), there are four

major elements that “create the characteristics of the traditional Muslim built

environment” (Akbar, 1988, p. 107). These are: “the fina, dead-end streets,

hima and public spaces such as streets and squares” (Akbar, 1988, p. 107).

Bianca on the other hand divides the living environment of a traditional

Muslim city into: the residential unit, the mosque and related welfare

buildings and trade and production structures. Both descriptions of Akbar,

the Marcais brothers, Sauvaget, LeTourneau, Weber and Von Grunebaum

are of the physical environment of the Muslim built environment as

perceived by these scholars. But, as illustrated in Chapter 2.1 of this study,

there is more into the character of the Muslim built environment than its

physical characteristics; something that Stefano Bianca and Ismail

Serageldin showed knowledge and awareness of in their writings. There are

the intangibles, mentioned by Bianca (the religion influenced culture), which

require from researchers a full understanding of the physical and cultural

environments.

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Although there are slight variations in the way Islam is conducted and

practiced across the world, fundamentally, Islam is one. Since Islamic

teachings are those that defined and shaped Islamic built environments by

shaping the societies living within them, and since Islamic law is unified, all

over the Islamic regions and wherever Islam is present, one would expect

that all Muslims raised in an Islamic urban environment hold similar, though

not identical, views of how a Muslim urban environment looks, functions and

feels. This is not to deny the diversity of cities and communities that exist in

the Islamic world. “Creative diversity in culture and in the built environment

can be seen as a result of the development of a range of strong and specific

local identities, grown over centuries of contentious interaction between

man’s inner vision and his evolving natural and cultural environment”

(Bianca, 2000, p. 326). Gregorian, V., lists a number of Islamic cities,

Asfahan, Kufa, Cordoba…., each with its individual image but all have clear

commonalities too. (2003)

Not only scholars, but every Muslim person has an individual image of how

Muslim urban environments feel. Based on his or her personal experience,

each image has a set of characteristics that composes a personal image of

an urban Islamic Landscape. Each has physical and social components to

that particular feeling of a Muslim urban environment.

But what are the commonalities that define the characteristic image of the

Muslim urban environment?

The Islamic religion along with local social customs became instrumental in

shaping and preserving the social identity within the whole Muslim

“Ummah.” (Bianca, 2000) Islamic urban fabric is shaped by the Islamic

culture, which is fashioned by members of the Islamic Ummah. As many

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scholars stated: It is Islamic society's character that defines Muslim city

morphology. (Abo-Lghoud, 1993, Bianca, 2000) That common denominator

has unified the characteristics of Islamic cities. The sources of Islam are: the

Quran, Prophet’s sayings hadith, on one hand, and individual search ijtihad

and analogy qiyas. The last two are based on the first two sources. All had a

great influence on the Ummah. Islamic law has directly influenced the

environment and way of life. Bianca compares Islamic law with European

legal systems:

Due to the character of its sources and its objectives, Islamic law differs considerably from Roman law, which continued to serve as a basis for most European legal systems. Firstly, Islamic law constituted a religiously based, not a secular compendium of prescriptions. Secondly, it did not originate from abstract principles but from the live experience of an exemplary society. And finally, its main concern was not to settle economic and social disputes, nor to define a rigid penal code, but to promote an exemplary pattern of individual and collective human conduct. It was therefore not limited to "negative", i.e. restrictive regulations, but implied a complete "positive" system of human behavior (including a codex of good manners), which was highly ritualized. (Bianca, 2000, p. 27)

The “Muslim Ummah”, is identified, on the macro level, by Siijeeni (1995),

as a community with the following characteristics:

1. Unity of belief in a single God Tawhid and unity of faith Iman.

The stress here is on uniting all individuals into a single Muslim

community regardless of background; i.e. race, tribe or class.

2. Brotherhood. The concept of brotherhood is the keystone in Islam to

establishing an ideal society of one spiritual bond. This concept was

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first introduced by the Prophet (pbuh) in Al-Medina among Al-Ansar

and Al-Muhajirun by declaring his cousin Ali to be his brother and

stating that “every Muslim is a brother to other Muslims.”

Subsequently everyone in the society, irrespective of tribal

distinctions, race, nationality, or economic status, was integrated by

Islam as brothers in the Muslim Ummah for the sake of God.

3. Mutual love, peace and unity. These are the central themes in Islam

and are expressed implicitly through spiritual love and the sense of

unity and explicitly by material exchange in communal life.

4. Justice and equality. These are embedded in every aspect of Muslim

life, whether practiced in worship and social interactions, or penalties

uqubat.

5. Consultation Shura. The concept of consultation in Islam refers to the

need for consensus Ijma, whether in the family, among scholars, or in

government. The application of consultation is connected to justice,

equality, freedom, involvement, and responsibility for every Muslim.

For any consultation to become law it must be based on the Quran,

the Prophet’s (pbuh) teaching, and the consensus of knowledgeable

individuals Ahl al-Ray

6. A written constitution. This requirement is based on the teaching of

the Quran and the Prophet (pbuh). The Prophet (pbuh) was the first

spiritual and political leader who instituted a constitution for the

Muslim Ummah

7. The concept of struggle (jihad). The purpose of the Muslim struggle is

for every Muslim to defend the Ummah against the aggression of

nonbelievers; to strive against temptation, evil, and the enemies of

the faith; and to introduce Islam to other nations.

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On the micro scale, Islam teaches the individual of the Muslim Ummah to be

true believers. To be defined as so, they are required to acknowledge and

confirm to the five pillars of Islam Arkan ad-din. These pillars are:

proclamation of the unity of the divine Shahadah, prayer Salat, fasting

Siyam, alms Zakat and pilgrimage Hajj. The obligation of all Muslims,

regardless of color, race, wealth and social status, to this set of pillars is

what forms the unity of the Islamic Ummah. (Sijeeni, 1995) For this unity to

form, it is required by the individuals of the Ummah to commit to these

pillars. This commitment is the basis of the Ummah’s spirituality.

The special characteristics and practice of the Islamic religion order could

not but influence the corresponding social structure and living habits. These

were in turn clearly reflected in certain special preferences, basic urban

layout and artistic concept, which shaped the physical appearance of the

Islamic built environment. But do individuals coming from various Islamic

communities share a common image? What are the characteristics

composing the image of the Islamic city in the Muslim mind?

This study attempts to identify common denominators or recurring images

across interviewed groups in search of an answer for two questions. The

main research question is whether such a shared image exists among

Muslims. The secondary question is whether this image corresponds to

what has been described in the literature on the form of Islamic Cities or to

Islamic texts.

The participating subjects were members of a Muslim community in

Metropolitan Denver, Colorado, of the United States of America, who

described images from their native lands. This distance from their

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indigenous habitat, crystallizes images of personal native culture and

community. In addition, it gives a wider viewpoint toward issues and

characteristics that wouldn’t otherwise be noticed because of close

proximity.

The decision of utilizing residents of the USA was made for the large

number and diversity of Muslims in the USA, fulfillment of distance from the

original habitat required by the study and the researcher’s current presence

in the USA. Although participants currently live in the same urban

environment, i. e. Metropolitan Denver, CO., normalize possible

variation/biases caused by dissimilarity in urban conditions, it would be

interesting to see if images communicated by the participants changes with

the variation of urban living conditions.

The method used to reach this goal is a participatory method. Three groups

of participants from Morocco, Pakistan and Sudan were interviewed for data

collection. Each group was interviewed in two sessions of opposite genders.

Although Public Participation Geographic Information System (PPGIS) was

investigated as a tool of high potentials, capable of supporting the

participatory approach of this study, as events unfolded, the participants

chose not to use digital technologies to communicate their data, and

preferred face-to-face contact and low tech tools. In the questionnaire (see

Appendix A) distributed among potential participants, 0% chose to use

digital technology as a means of communication and illustration. Chapter

3.2 of this study will illustrate potential reasons for such attitude toward

digital technologies.

The method, described in the Chapter 2.3, is a departure from the

conventional methods used by many scholars of the 19th and 20th century to

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sketch ‘the Islamic urban landscape image’. These scholars relied heavily

on their own ability to draw the image of the Islamic City, and neglected

local public expertise on the matter; they also had a tendency to generalize

their finding of a locale to all Islamic regions, which this study did not

attempt to do. Though one had to admit that finding commonalities across

samples was expected, differences were also, rightfully, anticipated.

Grounded Theory, used for data analysis, was selected for its ability to

maintain parallel threads of commonalities and differences across the

different layers of analysis of the primary data processed. This will

guarantee celebration of both overlaps and differences across samples.

This study is arranged in two parts. The first one is entitled: ‘Is There a

Muslim City Image?’, while the second part is entitled ‘Preserving Place

Identity in Muslim Cities’.

Part one of this study, which is composed of four chapters, is geared

towards the definition of the urban image.

The task of drawing an image of the Islamic urban environment has been a

mission that many have endeavored to conquer. Different schools of

thought have evolved for that cause, each with its own strengths and

weaknesses. These schools are discussed in the chapter 2.1; entitled:

Historiography of Muslim City Morphology.

This is followed by Chapter 2.2 entitled ‘The Image of an Urban

Environment’. There, different modern and contemporary perspectives of

viewing and shaping urban environments’ images are discussed.

The next two chapters are dedicated to the experiment. Chapter 2.3

illustrates the research method used to acquire images of Muslim urban

landscapes from three batteries of participants. Participants from three

9

Islamic nation-states, namely: Morocco, Pakistan and Sudan, were given

the opportunity to express images of their own native living environments in

group settings. This is in an attempt to test a method aimed at sketching the

image of a local Islamic environment.

The next chapter, 2.4, is dedicated to the study findings. The results were

distilled down to place categories. Each category had social and physical

aspects that were researched for recurring themes within and across

groups.

Part two of this study, composed of three chapters, is geared towards

exploring digital technologies supportive of participatory efforts in historic

preservation of urban heritages. In a time where the majority of the world is

marching toward digital technologies, Geographic Information System (GIS)

is gaining recognition in the field of planning research as a tool of great

potential. Along with the recognition of public participation, planners,

sociologists and computer scientists have developed what came to be

known as network-based GIS and online Public Participation Programs

(PPP) such as: PPGIS and GIS/2. These systems have merged the assets

of both GIS and public participation for the sake of better planning.

These systems, just like any other tools, have their share of potentials and

problems. Chapter 3.2 of this study is geared at discussing these potentials

and problems in the field of historic preservation. Chapter 3.2 is entitled:

‘The Use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to facilitate Public

Participation in Historic Preservation’. There, Public Participation GIS

(PPGIS) is explored as a tool for preservation of places of historic and

sentimental value in urban landscapes. An assessment of using

10

contemporary digital tools, GIS and GIS subsidiary programs, are

discussed.

To set the stage for that discussion, this research highlights the dominant

schools of historic preservation of the world. The first chapter of this part,

Chapter 3.1, identifies different schools of historic preservation. It outlines

the characteristics defining historic preservation schools of, the United

States of America, Britain, France, and a number of Arab countries.

This last chapter of this part and study is the conclusion chapter, Chapter

Four.

It is important to state here, before the reader steps into this study, that this

endeavor is geared at testing an alternative method to depict the image of

the Islamic City, has been as, if not more, important a goal as defining that

image.

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2. Part One: Is There a Muslim City Image?

2.1 Historiography of Muslim City Morphology

The description of the Muslim city has been modified through time. This

change was influenced by the dominant schools of thought in the scholarly

area, the historical period, and the geographic context. In this chapter, I will

lay out the different schools of Muslim City Studies. Each is followed by a

description of the city as they thought it to be.

2.1.1 Scholarly Debate on the Image of the Muslim City

From my research, I found that the debate concerning the image of the

Muslim city is categorized into three main categories of scholars: early

orientalists, late orientalists and modern scholars.

In the following I will examine views of each category.

2.1.1.1 Early Orientalists

In the 1920’s, discussions of the Muslim city character was dominated by

the impressions of western orientalists whose descriptions were mainly

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based on their understanding of the morphological aspects of its urban

fabric. The pioneers of this line of thought were the Marcais brothers,

Sauvaget, LeTourneau, Weber and Von Grunebaum (Hakim, 1986, Abu-

Lughod, 1993.) The findings of this group can be summarized in the writings

of Von Grunebaum who based his arguments on the findings of those who

preceded him.

Many of these scholars described the Muslim city as an

inward oriented city with a Friday mosque and a market bazaar at its center. Its circulation network consisted of narrow irregular streets leading to segregated residential quarters, and somewhere on the outskirts there was a citadel (Alsayyad, 1991, p. 13)

Some added a communal bath to the main distinct elements of the Muslim

city. This concept was first introduced in the colonial period of the early 20th

century.

To William Marcais, Islam is an urban religion, which has produced a

civilization whose essence was its cities. (Alsayyad, 2000) He based his

argument on the fact that Muslims need a Friday mosque, which is an urban

unit. He ignored the fact that Muslims don’t need to perform Friday prayers if

they are not in an urban setting that has at least 40 male worshippers to

perform the Friday prayer. Thus, Islam is not an urban religion, but rather a

religion that answers to urban and nomadic societies. Le Tourneau

supported the same argument suggested by W. Marcais after his studies of

Fez, Morocco. According to Alsayyad (2000), he “over emphasized the

centrality of the Friday mosque and the market and the importance of public

baths” (p. 92). Later on, George Marcais described the unique morphology

of the Islamic City as a distinct differentiation between residential and non

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residential quarters. (Abu-Lughod, 1993) He defined it as a city with an

“ethnically segregated residential quarters and hierarchically ordered

bazaars.” (Alsayyad, 2000, p. 92) That is true, especially when it comes to

districts with an ethnic majority that shares a common national origin, but

that is not always the case. There are urban clusters that are defined by

geographic locations or by industries that were practiced within that urban

cluster. In such areas ethnicity is not the common denominator among the

district occupants.

In Syria, Sauvaget, J. (1949) concluded that Muslim cities have emerged

from pre Islamic Greco-Roman origin upon which new and disorganized

form was superimposed. That thought, in addition to the European vs.

Islamic city comparative work of Le Tourneau has led to the belief that the

Islamic City is characterized by what many Orientalists called disorder in

comparison to the clear order of the Greco-Roman cities. An example of

that is clearly shown in De Planhol writings of 1959. (De Planhol, 1959)

2.1.1.2 Late Orientalists

In 1955, Von Grunebaum introduced the most influential description of the

Muslim city’s structure. His orientalist assumptions were adopted even by

thinkers of the Muslim heritage. To Von Grunebaum, the character of the

Muslim city is as one with “introverted houses, walled quarters within the

city, narrow winding streets, and lack of open squares” (Sijeeni, 1995, p.

20). To him, the Muslim city is an irregular city with a concentric hierarchy

around a Friday mosque. It is a city that lacks municipal controlling

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authorities, which is compensated by the authorities of the heads of the

quarters segmenting the city.

In his article of 1955, Von Grunebaum writes describing the Market

hierarchy of the Moslem city:

Near the Mosques a religious center we will find the suppliers of the sanctuaries, the suq of the candle merchants, the dealers in incense and other perfumes. Near the mosque as the intellectual center we will also find the suq of booksellers, the suq of bookbinders, and as its neighbor, the suq of the leather merchants and the makers of slippers….Adjoining the group of Markets we inter the hall of the dealers in textiles, the qaisariyya, the only section of the suq which is regularly routed and which can be locked and where, therefore, precious materials other than fabrics will also be stored and exchanged. Next to the textile trade the carpenters, locksmiths, and the producers of copper utensils will be located; and somewhat farther from the center, the smiths. Approaching to the gates one will find…the makers of saddles...Then the vendors of victuals…on the peripheries of the town will be situated such industries as...the dyers, the tanners, and almost outside the city limits, the potters. (Von Grunebaum, 1955, pp. 146-147)

If we remove the bath as an urban element, the description above fits all

other medieval cities, Muslim or otherwise. “Von Grunebaum’s work showed

all of the negative, reductionist tendencies of Orientalists scholarship”

(Alssayad, 2000, p. 92). Von Grunebaum thoughts overlapped with

Webber’s in that Muslim cities lacked the characteristic that would define

them as urban. That was influenced by their comparative method between

Muslim and Greco-Roman cities. (Alssayad, 2000), (Sijeeni, 1995) The

comparison between Muslim and Greco-Roman cities stems from the

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thought that there are traces or inherited influences on Muslim cities from

their Greco-Roman predecessor. That was the view of the more

sympathetic scholars of that school to the Muslim city. However, the

majority thought that Muslims destroyed all traces of municipal order which

had existed in the Greco-Roman cities that came under Muslim rule.

2.1.1.2.1 Urban-Rural Debate

Lapidus, I. M. (1969), contradicted the previous thought. He clearly states

that Arab capture of Greco-Roman cities did not cause their destruction, but

rather changes during late antiquities. (Lapidus, 1969) Following the

previous school he attempted to understand, the Mamluk Era (1250-1517)

Muslim city through analyzing the social and political factors that contributed

to its morphology. (Alsayyad, 2000, p. 93)

Lapidus and followers of his line of thoughts have focused on understanding

the “political structure, economic activity, religious groups, and social

interaction within the Muslim community” (Sijeeni, 1995, P. 25).

In contradiction to the scholars of the previous school, Lapidus denies the

presence of an urban center in the Muslim city, and found it similar in

character to its rural surroundings. He concluded that the difference

between a Muslim city and its surroundings is the larger population of the

urban city. Sijeeni (1995) suggests that Lapidus’ findings were affected by

the style of research conducted by Muslim scholars who always included

the rural surroundings of a city in their urban research. The difference is that

the Muslim scholars treated the urban part of a city and its surroundings as

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two different entities. Lapidus on the other hand treated both parts as a

single united entity.

2.1.1.3 Modern Scholars

In the 1970’s, Albert Hourani and S. M. Stern introduced a new line of

thinking. Hourani has proven that there is distinction between the Muslim

city and its rural surroundings. That distinction is based on economical and

socio-political distinctions. (Hourani, 1970)

Speaking very roughly, we may say that we should expect to find such features as the following. First, there would be a citadel, very often placed on some natural defense work, and serving indeed to explain why there is a city at that place…. Secondly, there might be royal “city” or “quarter” which would have grown up in either of two ways….It might be a royal enclave implanted in an already existing urban conglomeration, or it might be a new foundation on urban soil and around which a conglomeration later grew, attracted by power, wealth and prestige of a court. However it began, it tends to be more than a palace: it would be rather a “compound,” grouping royal residence, administrative offices, places for the bodyguard or personal troops….Thirdly, there would be a central urban complex, which would include the great mosque and religious schools, and the central market with their khans and qaysariyyas, and with special places assigned for the main groups of craftsmen or traders. Fourthly, there would be a “core” of residential quarters, marked by at least two special characteristics: the combination of local with ethnic religious differentiation, and the relative separateness and autonomy of each quarter or group of quarters….Fifthly, and finally, there would be the “suburbs” and outer quarters where recent and unstable immigrants would live and certain occupations be carried on: in particular the

17

“caravan” quarters spread out along the main roads. (Hourani, 1970, pp. 9-24)

Unlike the previous scholars, who limited their studies to certain geographic

locations and generalized their findings to all Muslim cities (Abu-Lughod,

1993), Albert Hourani (1970) has initiated a Muslim city’s discussion with

distinctions that were based on “time, place and function” (Alsayyad, 2000,

p. 93).

This brings to mind urban developments of the colonial period in the Arab

and Islamic world. Are they Arabic? Islamic? or European imposed on the

foreign geographic location? It is evident from the article by Heba Farouk

Ahmed and B. Kamel (1996) that in that period, developments of both

European contemporary Cairo (1863-1952) and of Islamic Medieval Cairo

(969-1863) existed side by side. The Islamic character of Medieval Cairo

was to a degree preserved, for one reason or another, while Contemporary

Cairo had a newly foreign, introduced urban layout.

Evidently, all three factors listed by Hourani are variables that contribute to

the definition of the Islamic City. They help in understanding Islamic cities in

a clearer way.

A post Orientalism period followed. It was triggered by several factors

resulting from a look inward toward the national identity of Muslim-Arab

culture. This movement was a reaction to the fear of losing local uniqueness

for the rush for modernity, which was and still is mostly affected by foreign

thoughts and characteristics. The publication of Edward Said’s “Orientalism”

(1978) contributed to the nationalist movement at different levels and in an

array of ways. At the urban planning level, the nationalist movement has

18

caused governments to re-examine the character of the Muslim city, mostly

for developmental reasons. Out of this evolved three schools that became

distinct in the 1980s-90s: politically motivated group who are typically

nationalists, philosophically inspired group that are mostly followers of

Muslim mysticism (i.e. Sufis) and socially informed groups by scholars such

as Akbar. (Alsayyad, 2000, p. 94)

2.1.1.3.1 The Politically Inspired View

According to AlSayyad (2000), literature and conferences of the 1980s-90s

on Muslim urbanism were sponsored dominantly by international institutions

and local governments. He asserts they reflected a rise in “nationalistic

tendencies” (AlSayyad, 2000, p. 95). A list of publications and conferences

that were offered by renowned entities were illustrated as mediums of

nationalistic rhetoric. These included, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture,

The Organization of Arab Towns, the Saudi Government, the UNISCO,

Professors World Peace Academy etc. It was puzzling though how

intellectual production of such diverse entities classifies as nationalistic?

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica Online, nationalism is “Loyalty and

devotion to one's nation or country, especially as above loyalty to other

groups or to individual interests“ (Nationalism, web link, 7/18/05). In a time

where the Muslim World is divided into nation states, within the context

discussed above, Islamic nationalism, might be what AlSayyad intended in

his article. Although that is no more than speculation, it still does not explain

why the UNISCO would be interested in crystallizing the idea of Islamic

Nationalism.

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2.1.1.3.2 Philosophically Inspired

The literature is focusing on the Sufi branch of Islam and its views on

spirituality and design, although this group did not produce noticeable work.

One should note that, although philosophy shaped the thinking of emblems

of Sufism, such as Ibn Al-Arabi, and the early years of Al-Ghazili, it also

affect other branches of Islam such as Isma’ili Shi’ats. Beside that, there are

differences between Sufism and philosophy; as a matter of facts some Sufis

rejected philosophy and worked to purify Sufism from its affects. This

distinction was evident in the later work of Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali (1058-

1128), who is a symbol of Sufism. He used his strong background in

philosophy to critic philosophers in his book Tuhafut al-Falasifa (The

Incoherence of the Philosophers).

…he cleansed the approach of Sufism of its excesses and reestablished the authority of the ortho-dox religion. Yet, he stressed the importance of genuine Sufism, which he maintained was the path to attain the absolute truth. (Marvie, 2000, para. 5)

If this classification is motivated by the Sufi influence on Islamic urbanism,

then it may be more appropriate to use the term ‘mystically inspired’ than

‘philosophically inspired’ to describe this school.

Alsayyad thought that “they have made interesting connections and

constructed a deeper complexity” in Islamic urbanism research. (Alsayyad,

1996, p. 91) They combined “Muslim philosophy, Muslim architecture and

urban form“(AlSayyad, 1996, p. 91). Both AlSayyad and Elaraby mention

the Iranian born Ardlan N. and Bakhtiar, L. as distinctive scholars of this

research group. In their writings, they opposed the orientalist’s notion of

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centrality in Islamic urbanism as a manifestation of centralized authority.

Ardlan and Bakhtiar thought that it is a manifestation of the spiritual belief of

oneness in Islam. They also derived from Islam’s view of the human being

as of a noble status, and derived to the conclusion that all structures and

forms are to be conditioned to his needs. “The successful realization of this

principle involves the derivation of forms, symbols, styles and guidelines

from belief, thereby combining material life with spirituality” (Elaraby, 1996,

141).

This group has relied on verses from the Quran and the Sunnah (Prophets’

traditions) to create and interpret the Muslim environments.

2.1.1.3.3 Socially Informed

Akbar, on the other hand, has concentrated his work on the social aspects

of the built environment, which he argues have formed the morphology of

the Muslim city. He is concerned with understanding the process that

formed the traditional built environment rather than its physical form. To him,

urban form follows contemporary social principles of the society that

configured it. As a result urban morphologies are direct reflection of social

needs and processes. But societies change, so do their demands, quality of

life as well as technologies but “attention to the process that generated

those forms will bring us one step closer to a better environment” (Akbar,

1988, p. 200).

Akbar has identified four major physical elements of the traditionally built

environment of Muslim cities. These are: the Fina; “the space on the streets

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abutting a property, used exclusively by the residents of that abutting

property” (Akbar, 1988, p. 107), dead-end streets, hima “the protection of a

piece of land from being revived, owned exclusively by individuals so that it

can be owned and used by a specific group of people or Muslims

collectively” (Akbar, 1988, p. 124), and public space such as streets and

squares.

He states that “the claims of ownership, control and use for these four

elements and the relationship between them and the private properties

adjacent to them clarify to a great extent the mechanisms which gave shape

to the traditional environment” (Akbar, 1988, p. 107). One can notice here a

strong link between the urban morphology, the social and functional aspects

of the Muslim city.

Another scholar who can be listed under the ‘socially informed’ category is

Hakim. In his book, Arabic-Islamic Cities (1986), he generalized the concept

and layout of Tunisian cities, making them a representation of all Arabic

Islamic Cities, as did the majority of the western scholars. This is evident in

the incompatibility between the contents and the title of his book.

Although Hakim has been accused by Alsayyad to be affected by the

stereotype advanced by the orientalists, which is evident by looking at his

references, he took a leap ahead of other scholars by dedicating the bulk of

his book to understanding the integral effect of the social, cultural and

religious factors that shaped the Muslim cities. "The roots of the structure

and the unity prevalent in the numerous cities within the vast Islamic world

are primarily attributable to the relationship of parts and the resultant

structuring system which is generated and sustained by a set of building

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principles and guidelines. These are the products of the Fiqh: the

mechanism of interpreting and applying the value system of the Shari’a

(Islamic divine law) within the process of building and urban development”

(Hakim, 1986, p. 137).

Hakim finds that fiqh and “its primary sources, the Quran and the Sunna,

are crucial for the transfer of the value system to design and urban form”

(Hakim, 1986, p. 138). He states that the reason for the diversity in the

implemented building regulations at the micro scale in the Muslim city is

caused by the different interpretations of the Quran and Sunnah by scholars

following different religious schools of law and the inconsistencies among

the local traditions Urf.

The Maliki School of Law Hakim introduced through his research on

Tunisian urbanism has twelve principles and behavioral guidelines. These

are:

Haram, interdependence, privacy, rights of original (or earlier) usage, right of building higher within one’s air space, even if it excludes air and sun from others (not followed by other schools), Respect for the property of others, Pre-emption, seven cubits as a minimum width of public thoroughfares, any public thoroughfare should not be obstructed (by temporary or permanent obstructions), excess of water should not be barred from others, the right for usage of the exterior fina belongs to the owner of the house or building which abuts it and sources of unpleasant smell, and uses that generate noise should not be located adjacent to or near mosques. (Hakim, 1986, p. 20)

These regulations are judged by a Judge Kadi, and are regulated at a micro

scale. Interventions by central rule on the other hand, are typically at the

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macro scale. They would typically be concerned with executing a civil

project such as a mosque, a school, a new main road etc.

To widen the scope of principles summed-up above by Hakim, which were

of the Maliki School of Law, I am introducing the thoughts of Stefano

Bianca. According to Bianca (2000):

There are a number of factors that shaped Islamic Architecture: social, spiritual, natural, technological and most importantly, the realm of pre-formal archetypes (derived from ritualized patterns of human behavior) and not in ephemeral stylistic features. (Bianca, 2000, p. 10)

To him, manifestation of architecture is not based on explicit formal

prescriptions, but rather based on related customs, patterns of use and

corresponding structures.

One can notice that both factors and manifestations listed vary from one

location to another. As a result, the produced built environments under such

attributes are expected to be as unique as the factors that contributed to

their shape at a specific locale.

Bianca describes the Islamic city as a place where

Public space lacks the rigid layout which is imposed by highly formalized institutions, allowing for a high degree of interaction between various social activities, including religious functions. The mosque, as a main public core, is usually embraced by markets, and together they form coherent architectural complex. As the prayer space has to meet special requirements of cleanliness, it is always neatly defined and marked by gates and thresholds where visitors take off their shoes. The transition from the secular to sacred spheres, both contained within the same public section of the urban fabric, is accomplished by a few steps,

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which allow for easy interaction between the mosque and the market.

Meanwhile, the residential districts are shielded off from the main stream of public life. The houses, often closely knit together or built wall to wall in the case of courtyard structures, from inward-oriented autonomous units which are protected against visual intrusion from the street or from neighboring buildings. The access from the public areas to residential quarters is usually tortuous and broken into successive hierarchical sections, which herald increasing degrees of privacy. Dense residential quarters tend to swallow the street space and to convert it into private access corridors. Thus, the sanctuary of the house is not directly exposed to alien influence…. Dead-end alleyways and a progressive sequence of gates and thresholds are the preferred tools for achieving this protection, which preserves the “aura” (privacy) of the family sphere and prevent frictions with the public realm. (Bianca, 2000, p. 38)

It is very noticeable that the author is aware of the religious and cultural

aspects of the Muslim city life, and as a result was able to interpret the

urban form in a more clearly fashion than other Islamic Urbanism scholars.

So far, the scholarly account of the Muslim city concentrates on the

morphology, and how it supports the social structure and the way of life. It is

also important to investigate the institutional mechanisms that maintain the

synomorphy between the form and the life it affords. The next section

describes governance and administration.

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2.1.2 Governance and Administration

There are two main levels of Governance: The Emir or the governor of the

city who is more concerned with civic projects and developments at the

macro scale, and the local neighborhood regulators who are elected officials

to consult at the time of dispute. These official experts are of three kinds:

religious scholars Mufties, judges Kadies and someone with the expertise of

the Kadi who can make and execute judgments with regard to urban

regulations Muhtasibs (Hakim, 1986, Akbar, 1988)

The duty of the Mufti is to interpret the two main sources of Islamic

judgment: Quran and Sunnah in regard to dealing with issues of the day.

The Kadi, who should be aware of the interpretations made by the Mufti,

apply these to disputes and conflicts that arise. The Muhtasib is required to

have a certain minimal level of qualifications as are those required from the

Kadi, but unlike the Kadi, the Muhtasib is required to monitor the streets and

check for compliance with principal of behavioral guidelines.

The Muhtasib’s duty is to explain and execute various regulations of legal

ethics that apply to urban and market life. Ibn Khaldon describes this as

follows:

The office of market supervisor is a religious position…He investigates abuse and applies appropriate punishment and corrective measures. He sees that the people act in accord with public interest in the town. For instance, he prohibits the obstruction of roads…. He orders the owners of buildings threatening to collapse to tear them down and thus remove the possibility of danger to the passerby. He has authority over everything relating to fraud and deception in connection with food, weight and measures. (Ibn Khaldon, 1339, p. 29)

26

In other words, the Muhtasib’s jurisdictions include supervising scales, trade

regulations, building regulations, resolving disputes in relation to business,

trade, ownership or liability.

Fiqh (the process of interpreting and applying the value system of the

Islamic divine law Shari'a) and local traditions Urf have both tailored the

urban fabric of Islamic cities to fit the needs of their diverse inhabitants. On

the other hand, individual rulers such as caliphs and emirs have also

contributed to the rise or disintegration of the urban fabric. In the fifteenth

century and under the Mamluk period,

Aside from ownership, general control over property rights was derived from the responsibility of the regime to protect the public spaces from encroachments by private owners. In the flimsily built Muslim city of medieval days, shops and houses quickly grew over all available public spaces-squares, streets, mosques and school facades, walls, and bridges. Governors sporadically exercised a right of eminent domain, seizing properties, which encroached on public spaces, removing nuisances and dangers, and widening the streets. People could be forcibly moved from their homes and shops. No compensation was paid to private owners, although actual demolitions and improvements were made at the governor’s expense. Such measures, despite the presumed ultimate rights of the community as a whole, were unjust from the point of view of property owners who may not themselves have built on common way, but purchased property long ago erected in this fashion. (Lapidus, 1984, p. 17)

A governor’s right to modify or demolish existing private structures is based

on the notion that the community interest is ultimate, which in turn is a

religious concept. Unfortunately it was sometimes abused by unjust rulers to

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fulfill their personal desires. Such abuse existed during periods of decline

where central power was weak.

Starting with the mid 7th century, Muslim scholars were studying the

urbanization development process in the Muslim lands. “They studied a

wide range of settlement patterns, from small neighborhoods to complex

urban structures” (Sijeeni, 1995, p. 13).

One of these scholars is Ibn Al-Arabi, who was commissioned by the

Abbasid caliph to study urban patterns in 842 AD. He concluded his study

with recommendations with regard to site selection, environmental issues,

land subdivision, spatial patterns to accommodate cultural issues, social

unity and equality, urban social policy, settlement fortification, public access

to public amenities and socioeconomic issues. Clearly it is noticeable that

this study was concerned with plenty of other issues beside settlement’s

morphology. Another scholar is Ibn Al-Azraq who revised the urban policies

established by Ibn Al-Arabi. This study was influenced by Ibn Khaldun’s

interest in philosophy. (Uthman, 1988) His study came out with two major

urban policies: The city’s location should prevent harm and injury and that

the city should facilitate and generate sufficient resources for work and

development. (Sijeeni, 1995) Ibn Al-Azraq’s study was concerned with

urban and natural environmental issues in addition to urban and regional

socioeconomic development.

In conclusion, many of the turn of the 20th century scholars have agreed on

the presence of identical physical components in the Muslim city, but each

had his unique interpretations of the city’s layout and configuration.

(Alsayyad, 1991) Not many of them have considered the social and cultural

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factors that shaped the Muslim city. Hakim said that the results of these

scholars were “somewhat distorted, largely because of their emphasis and

methodology. They generally followed descriptive approach to the physical

manifestation of the city without equal emphasis and analysis of the process

of building and urbanization” (Hakim, 1986, p. 137).

The Muslim city has had many factors affecting its morphology among

which are: Past, pre Islamic influences, Islamic religious regulations Shari’a,

cultural norms Urf, time, place, and function. All these factors have given the

Islamic city its commonly shared characteristics throughout the Islamic

world. But since each of the factors mentioned above is a variable that may

change, these factors have also given each city its unique characteristics.

To Bianca “The respective regional style of Islamic architecture are not

necessarily linked by formal resemblance, but they show inner affection

which are clearly based on related customs, patterns of use and

corresponding structuring principles” (Bianca, 2000, p. 10). That is why

many later scholars of Muslim Urbanism have identified a common

denominator that gathers all Islamic urbanism. It is the common shared

process through which the Islamic city evolved.

The character of the Muslim cities’ morphology changes according to the

diversity of the factors that shape it. These are: social, spiritual, natural and

technological factors, in addition to the realm of pre-formal archetypes.

(Bianca, 2000)

Bianca singles out a social factor as the most influential among those he

listed. This factor is: “the realm of pre-formal archetypes (derived from

ritualized patterns of human behavior) and not in ephemeral stylistic

29

features” (Bianca, 2000, p. 10). Physical structures are not realized on the

basis of formal prescriptions; the way Greco-Roman architecture was

shaped, but rather based on related customs, patterns of use and

corresponding structures. So it is a process that influenced the shaping of

the Muslim urban environment.

The process that gave rise to the Muslim city was mobilized by three

elements: “a distinction between the members of the Ummah (community of

believers) and outsiders,.., the segregation of the sexes,…, and a legal

system” (Abou-Lghoud, 1993, p. 31).

Local behavioral norms Urf have been, in part, regulated by religious rules

fiqh. According to Hakim (1986), fiqh has also regulated building guidelines.

That is a major unifying factor of Muslim cities, but also, is a cause of

diversity at the micro scale. Since a Muslim city’s morphology is divided

according to ethnic, cultural, national and religious factors, and since each

ethnic group typically follows a certain religious school of thought, it would

be easier and more convenient for people of similar thoughts and ethics to

be living in the vicinity of each other.

The morphology of early Muslim cities was first influenced by local, pre-

existing urban styles, where they existed. (Ex. Greco-Roman, Persian...) As

the Muslim culture matured and settled in these cities, these past influences

either disappeared or were adopted in their original or altered forms. Muslim

cities have always adopted foreign concepts into their morphology as long

as they fit the cultural ethics and life style of the Muslim culture. One can

observe this process in pre-Islamic cities as well as in cities that were

founded by the Muslims.

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According to AlSayyad, the visual irregularity of form in Arab Muslim cities

are, generally, a “response to social and legal codes, and a representation

of the Islamic cultural system” (1991, p. 154). He acknowledges, though,

that planned Arab Muslim towns were geometric in pattern, but he does not

mention the factors that caused the loss of this geometry.

In conclusion, although the Orientalists have developed their descriptions of

Muslim cities by studying very few cases of limited Muslim- Arab regions,

they generalized their findings to all Muslim cities. One can safely state that

the stereotype of Muslim cities having a central palace, mosque, residential

quarters, bazaars and baths has some legitimacy. One can find that in the

writings of Hourani and Alsayyad. Such descriptions fit other non Muslim-

Arab cities of the Middle Age Era, and as such, the morphological

description of the Muslim city is not what makes it unique, but rather the

process, formed by the social factors, is what gave it its form(s).

Nevertheless, one can not escape but notice commonalities, such as: the

use of locally available materials, awareness of local climate and other local

natural factors, the response, in form, to local social and behavioral

traditions, that spaces are tailored to the needs of the current users with

emphasis on the concept of no harm to others is to be exerted.

Administrations of Muslim-Arab cities have the common feature of being

decentralized. In general, urban decisions are made at the city level, rather

than state level. Exceptions occur where the city has capital status or if it is

of a regional, national, or religious importance.

The head of a neighborhood, or the head of a trade, will be the first to refer

to when disputes occur. The kadi is next in level if the disputes were not

settled. A kadi is topped by the head of Kadies who is topped by the Caliph.

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Most disputes are solved at the neighborhood level, if not then at the Kadi’s.

The advantage of that is the close proximity of the judging figure to the area

and conditions under which the dispute occurred. The involvement of the

government in shaping the urban fabric, though minimal, occurs depending

on the rural and the kind of rule exerted at the time.

So, a traditional Islamic city is in fact a representation of the era at which a

snapshot was taken. This image will vary once any of the variables is

changed. But what contribute to shaping such an image? The following

chapter is discussing factors constructing the image of a place.

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2.2 The Image of an Urban Environment

Every place in the world has its unique ambiance. This ambiance stems

from two types of factors. The first is social and cultural. The other is the

physical character of the place. (Nasar, 1997) The physical characteristics

of the place are affected, though, by social and cultural factors. Social and

cultural experiences, and memories of these experiences, reflect on our

judgment and evaluation of a place. They are, on the other hand,

contextualized in place.

“Many individuals’ most powerful memories revolve around place” (Marcus,

1992, p. 87). These memories are subject to the type of experiences they

provoke." We remember landscapes where good things happened to us"

(Riley, 1992, p. 19). Though this is true, we also remember places where

bad experiences happened. Powerful memories of these places are

associated with shared pleasant experiences, as well as experiences that

are private and unpleasant. Positive experience results in attachments and

bonds to places (Brown and Perkins, 1992), negative experiences, on the

other hand, may result in disattachments. So, depicting human memories of

places is subject to memories of communal and personal events, on one

hand, and the physical context in which they took place, i.e. the surrounding

landscape. (Massey and Jess, 1995)

A great amount of research was conducted regarding the image of a place,

the meaning of a place, and the effect of social, cultural, and physical

factors on human perception of their surrounding environments. In the

following section, I will summarize highlights of this research.

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2.2.1 Image of Place

Visual images and perception of city landscapes were of great concern to

planners and architects. This concern is based on the idea that city

landscapes may have value, as a source of delight, to the inhabitants.

(Nasar, 1997) Kevin Lynch has focused on this in three of his books: What

Time is This Place?, A Theory of Good City Form and The Image of the

City.

In What Time is This Place?, Lynch focuses on the importance of the

temporal legibility of a place. He argues, legitimately, that every place

should have a link to its past, and a hint of its future. This assessment

critiques environments that are changing so fast that there is little evidence

left of its past as well as those that either freeze historic places in time or

limit historic form in new developments such as New-Urbanism’s ‘Snapshot’

style of development. It answers to any development’s need to evolve,

smoothly, through time, while preserving its inherited characteristics.

In his second book, A Theory of Good City Form, Lynch introduces five

‘dimensions of performance’ in a development. These are: vitality, sense, fit,

access, and control. Even though these dimensions may not be easy to

measure and they may be in conflict one with another (Ford, 1999, p. 255),

they make intuitive sense for city planners.

Lynch defines these terms as follows:

Vitality: the degree to which the form of the settlement supports the vital functions, the biological requirements and capabilities of human beings-above all, how it protects the survival of the species…

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Sense: the degree to which the settlement can be clearly perceived and mentally differentiated and structured in time and space by its residents and the degree to which that mental structure connects with their values and concepts… Fit: the degree to which the form and capacity of space, channels and equipment in a settlement match the pattern and quantity of action that people customarily engage in, or want to engage in… Access: the ability to reach other persons, activities resources services information, or places, including the quantity and diversity of the elements which can be reached. Control: the degree to which the use and access to space and activities, and their creation, repair, modification and management are controlled by those who use, work, or reside in them. (Lynch, K., 1981, p. 118.)

Lynch adds two more meta-criteria dimensions. These are:

Efficiency: the cost in terms of other valued things, of creating and maintaining the settlement, for any given level of attainment of the environmental dimensions listed above.

Justice: the way in which environmental benefits and costs are distributed among persons, according to some particular principle… (Lynch, K., 1981, p. 118.)

In The Image of the City, Lynch argues that a key variable in determining

environmental quality is legibility (imageability). He defines a legible

environment by three characteristics: identity, structure, and meaning. The

first two are easily accomplishable, (they are the ones Lynch focused on

(Nasar, 1997)), but the third is harder to materialize. (Ford, L, 1999) Lynch

thought that meaning is very eccentric, and thus very difficult to get a

consensus from the public. Neither Lynch, not his followers paid much

attention to meaning. Saleh states “The evaluation and debate of city

35

imagery are usually extended in the aspect of aesthetics, which, more or

less, falls unfortunately into the realm of individual bias and arbitrariness”

(2001, 319). Although it is true that meaning is personal and thus subjective,

post Lynch research has “identified consistent consensus in people’s visual

preferences in the environment (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989; Nasar, 1989;

Nasar, 1994; Ulrich, 1983; Wohlwill, 1976) “(Nasar, 1997, p. 10). In this line

of research the connection between visual preferences and meanings that

people attach to places is not as clear. Therefore, one cannot assume that

when people agree on the visual aspects they also attach shared meanings.

The frameworks put forth by Lynch and his followers (some have proposed

variations to his original concepts), are themselves social constructs and

they reflect the prevailing issues and attitudes of their times. Societies

evolve through time, as do their perception of identity, structure, meaning,

temporal layers, and sense toward performance dimensions.

2.2.2 Meaning of Place

The meaning people assign to a place heightens imageability, and

imageability intensifies meanings. (Nasar, 1997) Rapoport dissects meaning

into three levels.

Meaning has three levels: A lower-level meaning, denotative meaning, coincides with object recognition; a middle-level meaning, connotative meaning, refers to the emotional values associated with the object; and a higher-level meaning, abstract meaning, refers less to the object than to broader values. (Rapoport cited in Nasar, 1997, pp. 6-7)

36

Rapoport’s distinction among these levels implies that whereas connotative

meanings may be unique to individuals, abstract meanings are shared by

the collective community, thus reflecting broader societal values.

Definitions of the word abstract from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary further

clarify the distinction. They read:

Disassociated from any specific instance, … expressing a quality apart from an object,… dealing with a subject in its abstract aspects,…and having only intrinsic form with little or no attempt at pictorial representation or narrative content. (Web link, 2004)

So, the higher-level the meaning, the more “disassociated from any specific

instance” it is (Web link, 2004), and the more likely it is for people to reach a

consensus.

Meaning is strongly associated with feelings, opinions and emotions.

Abstract meaning is forged by the multidimensional character of community

sentiment and its complex sources in both subjective perceived and

objective aspects of the local environment. Meaning is transformable too.

There are three stages in the transformation of the meaning of places.

These are: rootedness (self-unconscious act), sense of place (self-

conscious act) and the shift from conscious to manufactured. (M. Arefi’s,

1999)

The first, rootedness, occurs when a sense of meaning is developed

through establishment of long term relationships within a place. This sense

of meaning is the result of a non self-conscious act of creating meaning.

The second, which is a self-conscious act, takes place once planning gets

involved in retaining an existing, or maybe fading sense of meaning.

Examples of that are historic preservation efforts. The third stage occurs

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when meaning is manufactured through planning. Examples would include

‘Disneyfication’ and ‘branding’.

Any or a combination of all of these stages can exist at any particular place.

Each has its supporters and defenders. It is dependent on peoples’

sentiments towards their environments.

In reference to Schumaker & Tylor, (1983), Hummon states that “at the most

general level, research on community sentiment can be divided into three

broad approaches: those focusing on community satisfaction, on community

attachment, and on identity and community life” (1992, p. 254). Hummon

finds that these three approaches, though they overlap, differ considerably

in conceptualizing community sentiment, their disciplinary roots, and

preference of methodological strategies.

Community satisfaction approach is rooted in psychological studies

(Campbell, Converse, & Rodgers, 1976, Marans & Rodgers 1975), along

with studies that are focused on community, environment and sentiment.

(Guest & Lee, 1983, Shumaker & Tyler 1983) It uses social survey

techniques where researchers evaluate popular subjective assessment of

the community and then analyze issues that improve or diminish individual

satisfaction in both local and larger metropolitan context. Ecological,

environmental, social, and perceptual factors influence popular sentiments

at local scales. The size and type of community, the quality and ownership

of housing, and the quality of physical neighborhood are particularly

important objective factors. Satisfaction with local areas is also effected by

residents’ communal positions and their opinion of their community.

The second, community attachment approach, is rooted in community and

urban sociology. (Hummon, 1992) It uses survey research techniques to

38

study the nature and basis of deeper emotional bonds to local places, rather

than satisfaction. ”This literature has approached local sentiments as the

study of emotional investments in place” (Hummon, 1992, p. 256).

This approach was dominated by the “declined community” thesis,

introduced by classical social theorists such as Toennies, Marx, Wber,

Durkheim and Wirth. They argued that the urban conversion to a capitalist

order meant a decline in the quality of local community life. They thought

that an increase in “size, density and heterogeneity of urban life weakens

the primary ties of urbanites to neighbor and kin” (Hummon, 1992, p. 256).

This theory weakened as it was proven by ethnographic studies that

neighborhood life and sentiment remain strong among local neighborhood

groups in modern times. (Rivlin, 1982)

The third approach is the identity, place and community sentiment

approach. Although researchers focusing on this approach come from a

wide and very diverse array of disciplines, they tend to base their research

on participants’ observations or in-depth interviews. Followers of this

approach focus on exploring ways by which locales are permeated with

personal and social meanings. They also incorporate ways in which

representative locales provide a central symbol or locus of the self. (Lavin

&Agatstein, 1984, Proshansky et al., 1983, Rapoport, 1982)

According to Hummon (1992), the three complex approaches to identity,

place and community sentiment provide four central insights into the

phenomenology of community meaning and sentiment. First, this research

“documents how biographical experience with a locale can transform the

local landscape into a symbolic extension of the self by imbuing it with the

personal meanings of life experiences” (Hummon, 1992, p.

39

258).…Secondly, it “clarifies how neighborhoods and communities are

imbued with public meanings and, as such, serve as symbolic locales with

distinct cultural identities” (Hummon, 1990) in Hummon, 1992, p. 259).…

Thirdly, research on community and identity illuminates the way various

social identities can become embedded in and communicated through the

local environment, reinforcing the sentimental bonds for people and places”

(Hummon, 1992, p. 259).…And finally, “these studies document the

complex relation between community sentiment and community mobility”

(Hummon, 1992, p. 259).

Although each of the three research approaches discussed above, has its

own methods of conceptualization, study implementation methods, and wide

range of disciplinary roots, different scopes of community sentiment are

embedded in configurations of psychological, social and environmental

factors. In addition, all three approaches to community sentiment research

agree that community sentiment is subject to a people’s perception of their

local community, their social status in both the local community and the

larger society, and the objective qualities of the community, both as a built

and a social environment. Community attachment, community satisfaction

and community identification are best conceptualized as different facets of

community sentiment.

The meaning of a place is influenced by the social characteristics present in

and around the place. The image of a place, on the other hand, is shaped

and molded by its physical characteristics, along with surrounding physical

characteristics affecting the place. Researchers on place identity show that

“space is socially constructed and can be imagined as formed out of

stretched-out social relations” (Massey and Jess, p. 220).

40

Physical (objective) and social (subjective) variables are considered

adequate in both behavior setting and story telling of events in place. Both

will be discussed in the following sections.

2.2.3 Theoretical Construct to Capture Experience in a Place: The Missing link Between Environmental/Visual Attributes and Affective Responses

Because societies are dynamic and evolve through time, so do spaces and

their identities. Therefore, it is people who make and use spaces and endow

them with meaning through their activities in place. Study of these activities

in place can help understand the way meaning is attached to place. A

theoretical construct that allows study of both activities and physical

characteristics is the behavior setting. As defined by Barker and Wright,

(1955), Barker, (1968), behavior setting is “a standing pattern of behavior

and a part of the milieu which are synomorphic and in which the milieu is

circumjacent to the behavior” (Bechtel, 1977, p. 22). In other words, a

behavior setting is a repeated pattern of behavior occurring again and again

in the same urban context at a certain time. Though it is a separate entity, a

behavior setting is a part of the flow of behavior of the community. (Bechtel,

1977) Furthermore, as Barker and Wright found out, “individuals were not

the primary units of behavior because whenever they behaved, whenever

they did anything, it was as part of a behavior setting” (Bechtel, R., 1997, p.

226).

People’s interaction and awareness of their behavior settings differ, thus

ecological psychologists found that behavior settings are “the best

41

predictors of human behavior and also make up the fabric of daily life”

(Bechtel, R., 1997, p. 244). In a study conducted in 1971, Wright found that

people’s knowledge of their physical and social context differ according to

their interaction habits with their behavior settings. In his study, he

compared small-city children knowledge of their town with large-city

children. He found that the small city children were more aware of their

urban context due to fewer behavior settings that resulted in a repetition in

life style, which resulted in more awareness and knowledge of the urban

context and the people in their cities. The large city children have listed a

larger quantity of behavior settings but with minimum detail and knowledge

(Bechtel, 1997).

In short, a behavior setting does not only stand for places that humans grew

attached to, through active or passive contact, but more importantly a place

with personal and collective meanings, as in Wright’s study.

In a behavior settings analysis of the city of Janesville, Sancar (1993) found

eight image dimensions and attributes in the study participants’ descriptions

of specific behavior settings. These are:

(1) Economic potential: unconstructed space with growth potential, industrial and/or commercial viability, locally owned businesses, speculative real estate. (2) Diversity of compatible land-uses: a successful mix of industrial, commercial, residential, recreational, and public service type land use. (3) Historic significance: historic landmarks historic fronts, memorable historic events associated with places; (4) Fond memories: personal or family events that make a place special; (5) Appearances of environment: building types and styles; age of buildings (older or newer), strong urban form… (6) Significant land feature and land

42

form… (7) Location factors… (8) Importance as an activity place. (Sancar, 1993, p. 79).

Sancar found that the economics and activities ranked as the most

significant of all image dimensions in all tested settings. Location and

appearance of the living environment ranked second. The researcher has

also found that certain dimensions rank top with regards to certain settings;

“History and natural features ranked as a major dimensions affecting the

image of Rock River sub-area” (Sancar, 1993, p. 79), which reflects that

historical presence in an area reflects highly on its image and meaning.

The physical extent of a setting varies and its spatial dimensions are defined

by cultural orientations and social organizations. (Fries, 2000) As people

related more to a special setting, they tended to expand the area they

sensed belonging. This area is bond to psychological components. These

are: “special memories, special imagery, the special framework of current

activity, and the implicit special component of ideals” (Fries, 2000, p. 197).

In other words, continuity of pattern of behavior settings in a community is

responsible for the formation of shared meaning and place attachment. One

expression of such meaning are stories people associate with most salient

behavior settings or contexts for experiences in a particular place.

2.2.4 Narratives as Expression of Urban Morphologies

Large-scale social groups, especially those prearranged as scattered urban

communities (Webber 1963), need to normatively express themselves if

they are to materialize as distinct social entities. In Anderson’s (1991) terms,

43

they need to imagine themselves as communities. These stories are of

meanings and stem from memories and locations of common values to the

communities. These stories will express the way these communities

envision themselves, and their perceptions of their immediate surrounding

environment. In their effort to invoke meanings of high cultural values, such

perceptions use memories, social dynamics and descriptions of urban

contexts to which the illustrating culture attached itself, all of which are

interdependent. All memories are parts of social dynamics, and both take

place in an urban context whether it is a room, a house, a

street…”Memories are a significant part of who we were, the foundation of

who we are” (Day, 2002, p. 113). The social context is also dependent on

the social aspects and the memories of its inhabitants. Revisiting and

touching places and objects from childhood bring to mind long forgotten

memories. That brings a deeper layer of meaning to that particular place.

Such places and objects can have similar meaning; though they will vary in

depth, even if altered. According to Cox, (Arefi), “the meaning and memory

of place endure long after the place itself may have been physically altered”

(1999, p 184).

It is important to have a memory in the first place for meaning to endure. To

have a memory, there is a need to sense a place. Sensing is an action that

requires stimulation. A dull place will not evoke sensing and thus will fade

out of memory (Day, 2002); while an interesting place will always be

remembered through its interesting physical characteristics or exciting

events that took place within its boundaries, or most likely by both since

each would have had the tendency to support memories of the other.

The method used by Proctor, Sancar and Alanen (1990) is suitable for

translating narrative feed-back into environmental knowledge. The matrix

44

used (see Table 2.2.1) is aimed at drawing out behavior settings and their

meanings. It allows the narrators (the participants) to choose the scale of a

memorable event and the time frequency in which it occurs. It illustrates the

narratives in combination with time-space factors. This method has the

potential to generate insider’s knowledge when used with local residents of

a studied area, which is needed in collaborative planning.

In conclusion, the image of a place is a vital part of built environments.

Architects and planners were drawn to this notion and integrated it in

constructing built environments.

Table 2.2.1: Stories That Take Place in Your Typical Traditional Environment

In his book “The Image of the City”, Lynch stresses the importance of

legibility (imageability) in any cityscape. His frameworks and the majority of

his followers were social constructs.

Daily Weekly Annual Once in a Life Time

City

-----------

Neighborhood

-----------

Home

45

Since societies change, perception of identity, structure, meaning, temporal

layers, and sense toward performance dimensions also changes as a

byproduct of the societal changes. As a result, the image of a city is

constructed of snapshots of the societal perception of the factors mentioned

above. So, meaning changes as societies change.

That is not the only level of change in meaning. Meaning also changes

within the same society. Rapoport broke down meaning in that sense to:

denotative, connotative, and abstract meanings, where denotative meanings

are common to individuals and abstract meanings are mostly shared by the

collective. In addition, meaning changes consciously, unconsciously, or

through a combination of both. These changes are tied to public sentiment,

which is an aspect of social life that has been researched by psychological,

social and environmental sciences.

It is fitting, therefore, to construct the character of an environmental unit (a

place) using behavior setting analysis, and narratives. Narratives have

strong social meanings and are mostly contextualized in local places.

These places are found at an array of scales ranging from macro to micro

levels. They also are always set in a time-space. Thus narratives have a

high range of detail contextualizing their social and physical environment

(their behavior settings). These narrative constructs are of great

importance. They are shaped by the local culture which constructed the

environmental settings and later-on was affected by their own construct.

The characteristics of a place preserved in a narrative are a part of the

cultural identity. Because they had strong meanings they were preserved in

the memories of society collectively or the individual’s.

46

Narratives in conjunction with time-space parameters would be the method

to integrate meaning, social and physical attributes via description of

behavior settings would be an appropriate way to research image.

The following chapter presents an illustration of the research method used

in the experiment center to this research. The method used explores for

meanings that are derived from narratives shared by participating subjects

of behavior settings they are familiar within their home land. The shared

narratives are framed by time-space parameters to help participants focus

on selecting meaningful narratives that carries rich memories capable of

enriching the database needed for the experiment

2.3 Research Method

As discussed in the introductory chapter, the goal of this is to discover how

members of the Islamic Ummah define the image and the qualities of a

“Muslim City”. This sets the parameters for participants’ characteristics,

selection and gathering methods, organizing the data gathering settings,

interview protocol and recording method.

These are the topics that will be discussed in the following sections.

2.3.1 Method

Primary data was collected using interviews with member groups of the

Islamic community Ummah to depict the image of the traditional physical

Islamic urban fabric. The method used was a co-operative inquiry research

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method, where members of a Muslim community acted as co-researchers.

They gave their impressions of their traditional native living environments

after being “freed from the distress of early conditioning and restrictive

social customs or their native environments” (Reason, 1988, p. 264). Such

freedom is required for proper Co-Operative Inquiry. (Heron, 1977; Maslow,

1968; Rogers, 1961; Rowan, 1976) Humanistic psychologists, who

originated the Co-Operative Inquiry method, thought that the best technique

for this method to achieve its goals is to mobilize it in groups “with norms of

authentic communication” (Peter Reason, 1988, p. 264). Each participant is

a unique individual and has self-determining ideas and reality that may or

may not have similarities to other members of his or her group. This

uniqueness should be celebrated, as opposed to what orthodox social

science inquiry methods do, where subjects of inquiries are alienated from

the inquiry process and its knowledge outcome. (Reason, 1988) As a matter

of fact, advocates of this method think that an appropriate research on

people is one that

Addresses them as self-determining, which means that what they do and what they experience as part of the research must be to some significant degree determined by them. (Reason, 1998, p. 264)

Similarities or differences may or may not exist across the different

participating groups, but the concept of self-determination will allow for the

widest range of variation in feed-back from the participants and thus a wider

chance to detect similarities or their absence in the collective response.

Each produced a reality of his or her own; each is a product of each

participating individual and collective mind and what is there (Skolimowski,

1992), “the amorphous primordial givenness of the universe” (Reason,

1998, p. 262).

48

Urban physical units were investigated through asking participants

questions about daily, weekly, annual, and once in life-time social

experiences. Physical characteristics of urban units were explored by linking

them to social events. These events will have to be of a particular

importance to the participants, thus vividly memorable and participants will

have noteworthy amounts of details. By comparing these images across

groups, the researcher is aiming at finding a common thread, if any, to

traditional urban fabrics of the different regions from which the sample

groups originate.

2.3.1.1 Character of the Respondents

As Reason puts it, a key question about research is “Who owns that

knowledge, and thus who can define reality? “ (Reason, 1998, P. 263). It has

always been important for decision-makers to be in touch with the public

regarding their built environments. It is important for decision-makers to

acquire knowledge about issues of concern to the public. This knowledge is

vital to shaping any living environment to fit the public’s requirements and life

style. This issue has gained more emphasis in these times of pluralism. In

Islam there is the concept of Ahlul Hal Wal Aqd. These are in essence, the

members of the community’s decision-making council, to whom the

community refers to resolve problematic issues. These are: the ulema, kadis

and muftis, the sheikhs of the various professional guilds, heads of major

families and clans and ethnic groups. Such councils are called-for by Islam.

They are called for in the Quran “ PQRST رىWX PهZ[و أ( ) ( who (conduct) their

49

affairs by mutual consultation Shura)” (The Holy Quran, sura xlii:38.)These

councils are present in one form or another in every Muslim community.

Although members of councils are selected from the public, they do not

necessary reflect a typical person’s life style and sense of judgment, and as

a result will not reflect the same conception of urban images as a typical

member of that culture. Therefore, it would be worth while to go to the

source to portray this image. These are the regular members of the Muslim

Ummah.

The respondents of this study are members of the Muslim population in

Metro Denver area in Colorado. They are from three countries of origin:

Pakistan, Sudan and Morocco. Each of these is a sub-culture of the Muslim

Ummah, and each has its distinctive character and variations from the

others. These variations include, but are not limited to the following:

religious sects, cultural, political, history, exposure to foreign cultures…etc.

Variations and local aspects of each will allow me to encompass more local

details into this study, which will translate into a more accurate image of the

physical form of the Muslim City. Ideally the more sub cultures included, the

higher the resolution of the sketched image, but for convenience and

similarities of the current living environment of all participants, I will limit the

number and location to the three mentioned above.

Each group consisted of two sub-groups of Men and Women.

There were seven participants in each sub-group. Participants were

selected based on a set of criteria:

1. Members of the Muslim Ummah

2. Being far from his/her original environment for a minimum of two

years

3. Has no immediate plans yet to return to their native environment

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4. Has lived in his/her native environment for a number of years past

adolescence

5. Adults of 25 years or older

6. Currently living in the Metro-Denver area

Ideally, ties to such an Ummah are stronger than ties to nationalities or

ethnicities. In addition, the Ummah includes Muslims from outside the

Muslim region (for example, Chinese, Indian, and US Muslim citizens.) If it is

the ideal image of the Muslim city that is searched for in this study, then

both arguments mentioned above favor including persons who look at

themselves as members of the Ummah rather than members of individual

nations. Nevertheless, the Muslim community has always been diverse.

There were always individuals and groups with sentiments that were more

connected to tribes, cities, ethnicity or states. (An exception for that was the

early period of Islam where the Ummah came before all other ties.) So,

incorporating opinions of all Muslims, weather they perceive themselves as

a part of the Ummah or otherwise, is more representative of past and

current public sentiments. After all, even those who view themselves more

tied to geographic nations both contribute to, and gain from, the cultural

attributes to which they were subjected. In this case, it is the culture of the

Muslim Ummah. During the interviews the participants will be asked if they

find themselves more connected to the Muslim Ummah Vs. other entities

(ex. nation states, local sub-cultures, tribes….).

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2.3.1.2 Selection of Respondents

Diversity in nationality is a controlling factor that can be used to evenly

distribute the sample along a wide cross-section of the geographic spread of

Muslim faith members. It will incorporate sub cultural diversity into the

feedback.

Three groups of Muslim communities from the United States of America

(USA) were subjected to this study. They were selected from:

1. Denver, CO., which has a population from Morocco.

2. Denver, CO., which has a significant population from Pakistan.

3. Denver, CO., which has a significant population from Sudan.

The selection of the three groups’ countries was dictated by the availability

of a sufficient number of subjects that are willing to participate in this study

and the researcher’s access to the groups.

These three groups share: living in the same living context in the USA, living

in close communities, a common religion, and permanent residency in the

USA. On the other hand, they differ in culture and geographic location.

The expected respondent had the following characteristics: Muslims who

lived a part of their adult life in their native regions, greater than two years in

the USA, 50% male – 50% female, council & non-council members, adult

population and permanently in the USA.

It is important to gather and record respondents’ views of traditional urban

heritage shared by Muslim Communities. The aim of this is to define

common patterns, if any, of physical urban units and behaviors (as Barker

calls it ‘behavior patterns’.)

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2.3.1.3 Organizing the Data Gathering Settings

Each participant was checked for the criteria of eligibility. A search for the

minimum of 14 participants for each group was conducted. The first seven

that fulfill the study’s criteria were invited to participate. E-mails, phone calls,

face to face meetings, and third party contacts were used to spread the

word about the study and the participants’ selection criteria, while face to

face and phone calls were used to issue the invitations to participate.

The participants were interviewed in two sessions per group. Men and

women from similar original nations were attempted to be interviewed in one

day, separately, but in a sequence. That would have allowed the interviewer

to focus on the similarities and differences across both groups of similar

backgrounds. It would also have given better convenience for families

participating in the study. That was not successful in most of the cases for

reasons that will be discussed in the conclusion chapter.

2.3.1.4 Tools for Recording Responses

Every session was recorded on tape, and the interviewer recorded any

other observations on a pad in writing. In addition, a board was used to

record participants’ responses and a writing pad with a sheet showing Table

2.2.1 will distributed among participants.

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2.3.1.5 The Interview Protocol

The first minutes, after inviting the participants to snacks and refreshments,

were used to break the ice. Emphasis was placed on the importance of the

participant’s feedback for this particular study. During that period, emphasis

was placed on the expected feedback is from the participant’s personal life

experiences and habits. (So, all feedback is to be from the participant’s own

memories.)

As the session started, the consent forms needed to conduct this research

was introduced. The research project was introduced and an explanation of

the structure of the session was made using the events matrix (see Table

2.2.1). A copy of the matrix was given to each participant for the duration of

the interview. On the matrix sheet, every participant was asked to write four

events that are of significance to him/her. These events are daily, weekly,

monthly, annual or a once in a lifetime event. They will be at different

scales. The participants were allowed to choose the context scales,

because they vary from one personal experience to another because of

context variation. The participants were probed to explore a larger or

smaller context if they focused on one and neglected the other. The group

setting increased the probability of convergence of images within groups,

which elevated the level of details in shared images. Each participant

pronounced his/her events to the rest of the group in a round-robin fashion;

first the daily then the weekly, the monthly, the annual and later the once in

a life time events. They were given the chance to write extra events if

desired, or change the ones they already wrote after the turns. (Members of

the group may inspire others with events)

The discussion was all in English.

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Each was asked to describe these events briefly, and was then asked to

describe the context in which they took place. Other members of the group

were allowed to state variations to similar context that are derived from their

own experiences.

For closure, and after the matrix exercise, the participants were asked the

following questions in an attempt to find a possible consensus among the

group.

1. What makes a city “Islamic”?

Follow ups:

• What are the attributes that are necessary for identifying a city

as Islamic?

• Which of these attributes were present in our previous

discussion?

2. As you know, change is part of life and societies. As Islamic societies

are modernizing, do you think that the image you described should

be retained? How?

3. Do Muslims that you know care about their urban heritage?

The feedback from the participants on the events and scales exposed to

discussion were turned into transcripts that were analyzed for similarities

across the different groups of participants in search for a common thread

that unify the character of Islamic cities.

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2.3.1.6 Analysis Method and Tools

Grounded Theory was used to analyze interview transcripts. It is a

robust and systematic method of designing conducting, analyzing and evaluating research, which at the same time facilitates and integrates the scientific and creative of research. (Bailey et al., 1999, p. 170)

Grounded Theory has also the advantage of “being open to and facilitating

the reflexive management of qualitative research process” (Bailey et al.,

1999, p. 170). A much needed quality to evaluating open-ended questions’

feedback.

During the analytical process, the participants’ responses, has been distilled

down to place categories. The advantage of that arrangement is that it

ultimately yields descriptions of places, which is more relevant to urban

planning. Although repetition of places and elements may confine

participants’ input, the pay-back is substantial increase of image refinement.

After all, with the relative small number of participants, one would expect

some place categories, present in participants’ native land, to be passed by,

and the convergence adds focus to the places mentioned. It is worthy to

mention that some participants changed their places after they knew other

people are using them. Their intention was to enrich the data with diversity.

After the first run over the transcripts, each interviewed subgroup had its

own place category list. Each place category had its own detailed

description of social and physical characteristics mentioned by the

interviewees. Each description has been tied to the original interview

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transcripts by references to respondents’ feedbacks. The place categories

were communicated back to the members of the subgroups for feedback.

The next stage of analysis was the creation of theme categories. Each

subgroup has had its own list of themes derived from, and tied to, its own

place categories. The themes were cross-referenced to Islamic themes from

the Quran and Prophet Mohammad’s traditions’, Islamic texts, as well as the

Prophet’s companions. The aim of this step is to find themes that are

common across groups, and to test the derivative themes to see if they

complementary or negating to Islamic doctorial.

The next chapter illustrates the results of the experiment.

2.4 Findings

The results of this experiment are divided into three parts: demography of

the sample, place categories and themes derived from the social and

physical aspects of the place categories. The first part, demography of the

sample, illustrates the background and character of the sample as derived

from the pre-interview survey. The second part, the place categories, has

two subdivisions illustrating its characteristics: social and physical

characteristics. These are directly eluted from the subjects. The third part,

the themes, on the other hand, is a set of derivatives of the place

categories. It is composed of merged social and physical characteristics that

are based on information shared by the participants. The place categories

and themes are laid out using direct and paraphrased quotations, from the

interview transcripts. In addition, there are researcher interoperations of

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data shared in the interviews. The place categories and themes were sent

to subjects who participated in the interviews for affirmation, and all

modifications were incorporated into these two sections. In the following is

the demographic character of the participating sample.

2.4.1 Demography of the Sample

The absence data of the Moroccan female group, as seen in (see Table

2.4.1) was caused of by their lack presence in the area. All females were

recruited through female recruiters who are acquainted to the researcher; of

which none was Moroccan. The majority of the male Moroccan participants

showed lack of interest in introducing female subjects to the study, and the

few attempts were determined unsuccessful. Thus the female subgroup

was excluded from this study.

From the recruiting questionnaire, it was evident that the groups have a lot

of commonalities (see Table 2.4.1). The vast majority of the participants in

this study, 74.2 %, were of the 25 - 44 age group. That has a direct

correlation with the fact that this is the age group of college students and

professionals available in the Denver Metro area. Education-wise, 96.8%

had undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate degrees. The majority of

the participants lived the majority of their lives in their native countries and

left them directly for the USA. As for connection to groups, 93.5% of the

population viewed themselves as Muslims first before ethnic or national

membership.

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The commonalities across the groups have yielded commonalities in events

and places. Nevertheless, that did not prevent diversity, because each

individual has his/her background and experience package. In the following

I will illustrate the character of the places shared by the participants.

The participants to this study were all from urban environments; with

ancestry ties to rural environments. That showed in the description of their

events, which were mostly in urban context, unless they are visiting

grandparents of aunts and uncles who are living in rural settings.

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2.4.2 Place Categories

The place categories below are divided into three groups: Moroccan,

Pakistani, and Sudanese. Each is divided into two subgroups, except the

Moroccan, which contains only one subgroup, the male subgroup.

Each set of place categories comprises of several places described by the

subgroup participants. Even though city, neighborhood, and home were used

in the Table 2.2.1, presented to the participants in the workshop, the data

lend city, neighborhood and country categories better. That place category

was used for composing Table 2.4.2.

As illustrated in Table 2.4.2, place categories and the frequency at which they

were mentioned varied within and across the groups. The total number of

places mentioned across the three groups was 117 places, spanning a variety

of places types.

In the following I will demonstrate the place categories shared during the

interviews. They will be listed in three groups that correspond to the three

nationalities involved in this study. Interview quotations refer to a code where

the first letter is the country’s initial ((M) for Morocco, (P) for Pakistan and (S)

for Sudan); the second letter refers to the gender of the participant ((M) for

male and (F) for female, and lastly, a number that refers to the particular

participant. That code is followed by the transcript page number from which

the quotation is extracted.

Pictures, representing the place categories mentioned in the following section

are illustrated in Appendix B.

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2.4.2.1 Morocco

Of the Moroccan females within the Metropolitan Denver area, none was

found that was willing to contribute to this study. Therefore, the data of the

Moroccan group is limited to the male subgroup.

2.4.2.1.1 Male Subgroup

Seven place categories were mentioned in the interview. They varied

between city and neighborhood scales. Public recreation areas topped the

list with seven places. The home came second, being mentioned six times.

Streets, commercial places and cities came third. Educational institutions

and mosques came fourth.

2.4.2.1.1.1 City Scale

There are four place categories under the city scale. These are: cities,

commercial, educational and recreational. In the following are the

categories as characterized by the participants.

2.4.2.1.1.1.1 Cities

Four cities were mentioned in the interview. These are Alarash,

Casablanca, Marrakech, and Fez. The first and the second were mentioned

64

for their character as a place, while the other two were the context of places

within their urban fabric, respectively. In this part of the place category I will

be discussing Alarash and Casablanca.

The Spanish colonial city, Alarash, is located in the north of Morocco. The

city is located on the cross roads of major importance. That, along with its

distinct character, makes it a favorable destination for tourists.

It is mostly visited by Spanish tourists, but Moroccan tourists also frequent

the city. In this illustration, the participant visited the city as a member of a

group of four male friends. They rented a furnished colonial house for the

duration of the summer.

The city has a colonial character core, surrounded by modern extensions.

“It’s a city…with buildings that were built during the Spanish occupation with

old Spanish style ornamentations. We used to go to the sea using canal

boats.…we would walk to the river and then take public transportation, a

river boat, to the sea front” (MM2, personal communication, p. 112).

Using river boats for transportation is preferred in the city. As the

participant puts it: “There were busses, cars, and not many taxies. Taking a

river boat saves you time” (MM2, personal communication, p. 112).

Casablanca is also a colonial city, with a French colonial style. “It was

developed at the time of the French” (MM4, personal communication, p. 25).

The urban fabric of the downtown is a mixture of old colonial large villas,

and modern high rise buildings. There is “a multi use downtown in

Casablanca. Banks, government buildings, etc. … there are buildings over

twelve stories high mingled with villas. The villas were replaced by large

65

buildings during the last twenty to thirty years. The whole city is not old”

(MM4, personal communication, p. 119).

One can notice the mixture of old and new urbanism interconnecting the

socio-economic activities in both cities. The morphology of Casablanca is

unique in that old, low density, and new, high density, buildings are set side

by side in the city’s core. It is reflective of the city’s economic well-being and

of the last twenty to thirty years. The magnitude of economic growth is

understood by a participant’s statement reflecting the economic power of

the city; “80% of the (country’s) commerce is there (in Casablanca).” (MM4,

personal communication, p. 119).

2.4.2.1.1.1.2 Commercial Places

Two places were named. Both are of historic and cultural significance. The

first is a traditional Moroccan goods whole sale market. It is located in the

center of the historic city Fez. The second is the world cultural heritage site,

Jami’ Elfina’, outside Marrakech’s old city gate.

I will illustrate the image of the old Fez market first. It’s a place where

traditional products of neighboring cities and villages are auctioned and sold

to individual shoppers. These products include: “leather jackets, shoes and

many things that have a lot of connection with tourism, Shoes for men and

women, we call balghah” (MM5, personal communication, p. 109). The

auctioning is limited to two days a week. “Usually Saturday and Sunday

mornings and evening, there are auctions” (MM5, personal communication,

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p. 109). The shops are small and have some of their goods displayed

outside. Although the main goods sold are traditional products, food and

groceries are offered in some shops. The shops are single story, and are

lined all along streets. “It is huge. It is three hundred to four hundred small

shops. You can’t just call it a building; it is a small city in itself. It is special

for business. It is a commercial district, but only for clothes and shoes, or

leather. No one lives there, it is just shops” (MM5, personal communication,

p. 110).

The shops have distinctive façades. They are “wood, carved wood, and the

grounds are old tiles zalleej. There are signs on the shops of Koofi writing in

blue or golden colors” (MM5, personal communication, p. 110).

The other commercial place mentioned in the interviews is the Jami’ Elfina’,

in Marrakech. It’s a world renowned cultural landmark. The square is an

open place with shops at its boundaries. “It is dedicated to entertainers

(Mainly)” (MM4, personal communication, p. 107). That is why a full

description is placed in the Public Recreational Places category.

2.4.2.1.1.1.3 Educational Institutions

A single public university was mentioned in the interview. It is a relatively

large university, with about eight thousand students. It is a fenced and gated

compound. Only students are allowed in, because of security reasons.

“When you are around the university there is a military presence at all times,

due to riots between students and the university. The military guards are not

allowed to go inside the university.” (MM5, personal communication, p.

115).

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The campus was developed over time into a modern campus. The

entrances to the buildings are where grades are posted at the end of the

semester. “It’s always up (high) so that nobody can touch it” (MM5, personal

communication, p. 115).

There are book vendors squatting outside the gates. On the inside, there

are vendors selling fruits to the students. The university offers discounted

food on campus. These are offered only to students. Needy or homeless

non students will shake their key chain while amongst student groups, to

signal needing food coupons, and typically get it from them.

2.4.2.1.1.1.4 Recreation Area

There were six public recreational places mentioned, which varied between

passive and active recreational areas. These are: coffee shops, a cultural

square, a neighborhood’s local streets, a youth recreational center, a youth

summer camp, and a stadium.

The coffee shops mentioned are in two different contexts. The first is a

modern sea front coffee shop, while the other is a traditional old city coffee

shop.

Both are places of socialization at which people gather daily to talk about

various issues. A typical gathering time is “every evening, around 5 or 6

p.m.… sometimes (for) two to three hours” (MM2, p. 99). Both are

frequented by locals, in contrast to tourists, and can serve hundreds at a

time whether indoors or outdoors. “During the summer, outdoors, and if it

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was cloudy then indoors. It depends on the weather” (MM2, personal

communication, p. 98).

The old town coffee shop can serve up to two hundred persons. Inside,

traditional elements are present, some in modern manifestations. “It had

modern blue and yellow zalleej on the floors, with yellow and multiple other

colors on the lower half of the walls. The upper half of the wall was cream,

with the ceiling being carved gypsum” (MM2, personal communication, p.

99). The furniture though is juxtaposed with the traditional theme. The

furniture used is plastic tables and chairs. (MM2, personal communication,

p. 98)

One can notice that the more private an element, the more traditional it is.

The modern coffee shop, on the other hand, is one of many in a row on the

sea front at the edge of the city. It consists of three sections: one outdoor

and two indoors. Each section has a different seating arrangement, but no

physical separations. The innermost indoor section has traditional wooden

seats arranged around high tables. The middle (indoor) section and the

outdoor section are furnished with forged iron furniture. The style in general

is eclectic. “It is a modern one” (MM2, personal communication, p. 99). The

walls are pink, and have large square windows along with modern oil

abstract paintings.

The whole coffee shop is open toward the sea front, with nothing but a road

separating it from the sea. “At night the road that is a motor road flips into a

pedestrian only area, with no cars allowed” (MM2, personal communication,

p. 100). So the connection to the sea is both visually and physically stronger

at night than it is during the day.

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The second subcategory is the world renowned cultural square of Jami’

Elfina’. It is located outside the gates of the historic core of Marrakech.

Nearby is the minaret of the main historic mosque of the city. The square

has an image of being at a fair, though its surroundings are more

commercial. “The place is well visited by the locals, who are more in

presence than tourists” (MM4, personal communication, p. 104).

It’s dedicated to entertainers. It can be singers, story tellers, snake charmers, or food. There are various types of restaurants. You can also have a place dedicated only to orange juice. That is, of course, the square itself. But around the square, you have all sorts of things. You have shops, banks, pharmacies, you know, and all sorts of commercial places. (MM4, personal communication, p. 107)

Although it looks chaotic, “you would know where to go, and there is a sort

of order in the disorder” (MM4, personal communication, p.108). The ground

is asphalt and there is traffic running along the side of the square. “You also

have traffic, you know, cars bicycles, motorcycles, horses, and even

carriages with horses things like that. So, you have all means of commuting

and transportation… There is no sign to tell you that this is where the traffic

should be, but somehow people know” (MM4, personal communication, pp.

108-109).

The third public recreational sub category is neighborhoods’ streets. Streets

are considered an extension of the house space. They are a semi- public

space, especially if they are a dead-end or a minor street in a residential

area. That is why streets are used for recreational purposes such as weekly

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card playing or daily football. Streets are discussed in a place category by

themselves.

The fourth public recreational sub category is a youth recreational center. “It

is located on a major road, on the sea front, in the middle of the city” (MM3,

personal communication, p. 106). The building has two stories and is beside

major administrative municipal buildings. Its facilities offer a variety of

sports, cultural, and educational activities.

There is a computer room and other rooms for other activities; a big hall for weekly activities that has a stage, a curtain and chairs…It is mainly geared toward youth functions. It hosts cultural activities, basketball, table tennis; all are indoor activities, except the volley ball and the basketball courts. (MM3, personal communication, p. 106)

All these facilities are provided to the public for a small, symbolic, fee. The

fee covers training three times a week and a major game with a visiting

team on Sundays.

The close proximity of the center to major administrative bodies of the city is

reflective of the centrality of youth to the administration.

The fifth subcategory is youth summer camps. These camps are monitored

and supervised educational assemblies, but also hold sports activities. The

main activities are “crafts, cultural, general knowledge competitions,

sometimes sports” (MM3, personal communication, p. 113). They are

mainly for youth to explore environments different from their own.” The

Ministry of Youth and Sports picks coastal campgrounds for people from

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mountainous areas and mountain camping grounds for coastal youth. It is

usually (assembled) in the summer, during school vacations” (MM3,

personal communication, p. 112). The number of youth is about one

hundred fifty per camp with fifteen to twenty supervisors.

The setting is simple. And very symbolic.

There were only tents, except for the dining hall and the toilets, which were buildings. We would sleep and have our meetings in the tents… There would be a leveled cement ground on which the tents are placed…with about 1m between the tents. Their lay out is circular with a field in the center. There will be a flag pole in the center. The court is where activities took place. (MM3, personal communication, p. 112)

The sixth, and final, subcategory is that of stadiums. A stadium was

mentioned in connection to the final Mediterranean championship football

game in Casablanca. It was Mohammad V stadium. The complex is

surrounded by large gardens with large trees set within a fence. (MM2,

personal communication, p. 116) The stadium’s location is peculiar for the

participant.

It is located in the center of modern city of Casablanca...it is located in a very nice area. It was built in the 1970’s…was renovated for these games. (MM1, personal communication, p. 116)

It’s a complex that facilitates many functions including “soccer, track and

field…swimming, basketball, volleyball…concerts…sometime even the king

will have something…the Pope spoke there” (MM2, personal

communication, p. 116).

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In short, it is a large, multi-purpose center, but mainly a sports complex.

2.4.2.1.1.2 Neighborhood Scale

There are three place categories under the neighborhood scale. These are:

streets, homes and mosques. In the following are the categories as

characterized by the participants.

2.4.2.1.1.2.1 Streets

Streets double as semi private places where residents play and socialize.

During the interview, there were descriptions of an old and a modern street.

In an old traditional neighborhood, male members of the community play

cards weekly in the dead-end alley zanqah in front of their house. This place

is considered subconsciously as an extension of the house. This was

evident in the wording of the participant. “The house, or in front of the

house, on chairs, with friends; the place changes, sometimes it is in front of

my house, other times in front of friends’ houses” (MM2, personal

communication, p. 105).

The street is 3 meters wide, and about 30 meters long. It has a numerous

houses on both sides. “Houses (are) attached to each other, with no buffer

between the street and the actual houses. Some of the houses are high,

others are low. They vary in area and height. The highest is three floors

high and the lowest is one floor high” (MM2, personal communication, p.

105). The windows have distinct character. “Windows were cantilever and

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flat. They were made of wood and metal. Some children will sit in the

windows overlooking the street…some will have planters in them” (MM2,

personal communication, p. 105). Plants are not present in the streets, but

can peek out of houses. “One of the houses had a big grape vine. And only

one of the houses had some big trees” (MM2, personal communication, p.

105).

The modern street has a different character. The street described is

separated from the houses by setbacks. These buffers are the houses’

backyards. Metal fences with vines provide the privacy desired by the local

culture. (MM1, personal communication, p. 95)

The street is 4 meters wide. It is paved asphalt without sidewalks, but rather

ditches with grass. Young boys and men play football daily on the street.

The houses are a unified one story high. They differ in colors, but are all

light. “Usually the color is light grey, which is the most common, the normal

color of bricks, beige, and sometimes light yellow” (MM1, personal

communication, p. 96). So all the houses give their backs to the main street,

and face a dead end road. This gives more privacy to the neighborhood and

its residents through orientation of houses and the streets’ hierarchy.

2.4.2.1.1.2.2 Homes

Six homes were described. Four were houses, and two were apartments in

multi story buildings. The houses were traditional houses, while the

apartments were modern. Three of the houses are in old city quarters, while

the fourth is a traditional style villa in a modern quarter.

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In the houses, there were openings to the streets, but rooms mainly open to

centered courtyards. “There was a court with the room around it. Rooms,

the kitchen, bathroom and things like that” (MM4, personal communication,

p. 101). The courtyard was treasured. One was described as one with

An open roof. I like that because everybody had their own piece of sky… I like the fact that there is this open space, because if there is sunshine you know from home. If it is raining you definitely see it and you feel it, things like that. You are really in touch with the outside even if you are inside your home. You see what I mean? You are in direct contact with what goes on outside at least weather-wise. While in the apartment it is all enclosed, encapsulated, and you know, you have to look out through the window. (MM4, personal communication, p. 101,114)

Functionally, courtyards are incorporated as a significant part of daily life.

Many things happened in that court besides playing football…in the summer it gets very hot in Marrakech. So in the afternoon, we used to clean it with water, to reduce, basically, the heat. Then we put some kind of furniture in the court, and we would have some kind of coffee, tea or something like that. And when we would have visitors, we would sit there. And not only in the afternoon, even in the evenings we had dinner there. And that is where the sheep are slaughtered for Eid ul Adha. (MM4, personal communication, p. 102)

Large gatherings of friends and neighbors take place in courtyards. In one

case, male members of the neighborhood packed a courtyard to watch a

regional football game. “He had a color TV, and we would sit on the ground.

In the open court inside the house” (MM2, personal communication, p. 116).

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There is symmetry in the room locations around the courtyard, and in the

openings on the courtyard. “…for the two rooms facing each other, there

were two windows each” (MM4, personal communication, p. 101).

The courtyards described had richly patterned tiles on the ground, and on

the lower half of the walls. They have geometric patterns. The upper parts

of the walls are painted in light cream or white.

Plants are minimal and most of the time do not exist in the courtyards

described. Only one house mentioned “vines on the walls” (MM2, personal

communication, p. 117). Plants, on the other hand, are used to decorate

windows. “Windows over looking the street… Some will have planters in

them” (MM2, personal communication, p. 105).

One courtyard had a well by its side. It provides water to the house and the

plants.

The living room doubles for a dining room, or a reception area. In Ramadan,

the whole extended family gathers for breakfast Iftar. One room was

described as “a typical Moroccan one” (MM1, personal communication, p.

111).

The room has a high cushioned, sectional-type seating all around the living room, with pillows and tables. Basically two large tables. The tables were higher than the seat level of the seating (used for dining). The entrance had no door, just an arched opening. The seats had patterned upholstery. The floor was mosaic, and there was a rug, a traditional Moroccan rug. Sometimes the rug was there covering the entire floor, other times, it was just the

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mosaic. The walls are white with no tiling (zaleej). The normal is white. The ceiling was a very simple plain ceiling. There are some lights and chandeliers. We had two windows…One opens on a wind shaft that is open to the sky ellemrah. There were curtains. We had a TV, and we always ate at the tables. Sometimes we needed to bring extra chairs. (MM1, personal communication, p. 111)

From the description, one notices a room that is sporadically heavily used

by a large number of people for multiple functions.

Another living room was described in the interview. It was very large in that

it hosted a large wedding ceremony congregation. The wedding party is

relatives who were allowed to use that place because of family and social

cooperation and support. This support is diminishing in these contemporary

times.

Traditionally…everything happened in the house where the wedding is taking place. You might hire someone to cook… to do all the cooking for the invitees. People of the bridal and groom party and their families will take care of serving the food…may be months before that that the family and family friends will gather to prepare for things like sweets and so on, so they will make them…if you have a friend or someone close with a bigger place like that, you may ask that person to accommodate the wedding. It depends on the relationship between people. (MM4, personal communication, pp 118)

This is not the case now.

Now, you can prepare things outside, it costs a lot of money, and it is less sociable, you know what I mean? Usually before, it was a social event, people would gather for many weeks to prepare for things and people were happy. They were looking forward to an important event.

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Now, it just comes to that particular event, that particular day and then it is over with, you know, after that day… (MM4, personal communication, p. 118)

The room is a part of a large villa.

It is a big living room. So it is really a traditional Moroccan living room, in the sense that the roof is carved gypsum and the doors are made of carved wood. The sofa (seating) is all around the room against the walls. That was good, because combined with the fact that the living room was really big, it accommodated all the people invited to the wedding. There were well over two hundred people inside the living room. (MM4, personal communication, p. 118)

There was occasionally an added structure in the room made

especially for the wedding. There was

one particular detail in…the middle of one of the walls. It was a structure (a stage) for the bride and the groom, for them to sit there to be seen by everybody. (MM4, personal communication, p. 11)

So, temporary arrangements are incorporated into a place setting to

accommodate special occasions.

The other type of home described in the interviews is apartments. They are

set in modern developments of the city’s urban fabric. Both have room

views over parking spaces, though not all rooms have that.

The first apartment is set at the ground level of a five-story high building,

which is a part of a complex of similar buildings. The apartment described

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has five rooms total, and is shared by a husband and wife, the husband’s

mother and his younger brother.

The layout of the apartment is set to reserve private places at the deep end

of the apartment. The kitchen is set in-between semi public and semi private

parts of the apartment.

When you just enter the apartment, you have the kitchen, ok. After the kitchen, there is a hallway, which is where they have the telephone, right? On the right, there is a living room, European style. It is common to have a European-style living room, and another Moroccan-style living room. (MM4, personal communication, p. 113)

The two reception/living rooms are distinct.

People want to sample both things. There are things that are more typical to Morocco. So in the furniture and the layout of things, in this particular apartment, it is actually in the European room that they have the Hi-Fi system, so it is all linked with European culture…the Moroccan living room is relatively small…the seating was raised above the floor by a type of wooden platform, and in the middle you had a table, for people who wanted to eat. There is a table there all the time. In the Moroccan living room you have the television, and there is a little window from which you can see a little garden and the space dedicated for parking. (MM4, personal communication, p. 113)

The European room is larger than the Moroccan room. The Moroccan room

on the other hand, has the dining table and the TV, which are more

incorporated elements of the daily life.

Being on the ground floor, the apartment has access to the garden outside

the building; a part of which is dedicated for the apartment. “It is just a small

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garden, which is also used for hanging out the laundry” (MM4, personal

communication, p. 114).

The second apartment described in the interview is a singles’ apartment.

There, the bedroom of the participant was described, as opposed to the

apartment. It is a multi-function room in which the participant did his

studying, sleeping, and some entertaining.

The room was approximately 4m x 4m, with a closet, a rug, a bed and a glass window that overlook a public parking space. The walls were a cream color. There were two wall hangings. The first one was of an old taxi car with the Moroccan flag on it, and the other one was of a flower vase. There was no TV in the bedroom. There was a room with a TV in the apartment, though. I just had a small cassette recorder in the room. (MM4, personal communication, p. 117)

Although the event that triggered the discussion of the room was winning

the lottery to get an American green card after being rejected eight times,

one can notice a sense of nationalism with the local taxi and the Moroccan

flag. There was no assigned study place. The participant would study “on

the floor, on the bed, but had no desk” (MM4, personal communication, p.

117).

2.4.2.1.1.2.3 Neighborhood Mosques

Two mosques mentioned were conveniently located for the participants. It

was a five to fifteen minute walk from their homes. The closest mosque was

the context of the event, and thus was described with detail. The other was

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mentioned for its dominant place in the old city of Fez, where an event took

place. The mosque was hardly described, except that it has sixteen gates

and that it was historic and massive. It is named after a female historical

figure, Fatima Al-Fihriah.

The first mosque was vividly described. Stylistically, the mosque had a

typical Moroccan style.

I think Moroccan mosques have had the same model usually, and they still have the same model; the same structures, the same design, more or less. There are some with much more luxury, I would say, but the structure and model is the same. It is the same cubical minaret sawm’ah, with only one minaret, not like others, and there are no domes on the mosques. It is horizontal with the sawm’ah as the vertical element. (MM1, personal communication, p. 103)

There are differences in the amount of artistic details among mosques, but

they have similar main components.

The indoors have “a lot of columns, everywhere. They do end in

arches, with a lot of carved designs and artistic work” (MM1, personal

communication, p. 104). The outdoors has an open plateau separating the

mosque building from the streets. There are no outer walls, though. The

grounds around the mosque are barren and have plants. It is decorated with

traditional tiles, zalleej. From the outside, one can notice the endowment

shops (waqf) concept present in this mosque. “Before entering there are

one or two shops outside” (MM1, personal communication, p. 103). These

shops are located outside the mosque’s boundaries. “They sell everything.

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You can find books related to Islam and religion, but you can also find many

other things, so the shops outside are related to the mosque” (MM1,

personal communication, p. 103).

Modern and traditional elements are mixed in the mosque. The indoor

carpet is modern, while the outdoor is carpeted by traditional woven palm

tree leaf mats Haseer. That is mostly used on Friday prayers, where

worshipers overflow onto adjacent streets “During Friday prayers, the

circulation stops outside” (MM1, personal communication, p. 104).

So, adjacent open grounds to the mosque are turned into prayer grounds

when needed. This is conventional within the culture.

2.4.2.2 Pakistan

In the following is a list of place categories named and described by the

Pakistani male and female subgroups.

2.4.2.2.1 Male Subgroup

Memories of the Pakistani male group fall into six place categories. They

varied between city, neighborhood and countryside scales. These are:

mosques, homes, public recreational places, schooling institutions, work

places, and streets. Mosques are the most frequently mentioned place in

the interview, far more frequently than streets and work places. Homes

came second, while public recreational places were the third most

frequently mentioned place category, and schooling institutions fourth. In

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the following section, I will illustrate the description given for each by the

participants.

2.4.2.2.1.1 City Scale

There are four place categories under the city scale. These are:

commercial, educational, recreational and mosques. In the following are the

categories as characterized by the participants.

2.4.2.2.1.1 .1 Commercial Places

Three commercial places were described in the interview. A family furniture

retail business that is located in a furniture market, various endowment waqf

shops under a mosque and a weekly Bazaar. Each has a unique character.

The furniture market is a specialty market with individually owned shops. “It

was in a main furniture market, mostly wooden furniture, but I added steel”

(PM6, personal communication, p. 15). The shops are deep linear places,

where furniture is exhibited in the main space, and the back is used for an

office/ social place. Socialization at the back of the shop is a daily activity.

“We did not really play much there, because lots of customers would come

in, but we had pakoras and tea or samosas, those were the top thing, every

day” (PM6, personal communication, p. 14).

Occasional markets are common too. They convene in a variety of time

intervals. The weekly and the cattle bazaar are described in the interviews.

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Weekly bazaars occur in the city center where there would be adequate

space. In some cases, where the settlement has grown, it convenes

multiple times and may be in several places. “About the center of the city

there will be a big ground area. So usually, when the population was small,

they would hold it only once a week, and then once the population

increased, they started holding it twice and then thrice a week on different

grounds just to serve different community” (PM8, personal communication,

p. 31).

Weekly bazaars are specialized mainly in daily household goods. They

were “governed by the city government” (PM8, personal communication, p.

30). The place is described by one of the participants as a place where

“there were no shops there but there were huge grounds dedicated to it”

(PM4, personal communication, p. 28). They will have groups of vendors;

each is specialized in a cluster of similar goods. “There were three different

regions, on the far right, there were vegetables and fruits, in the middle

area, there were sports goods and things like that, and on the far left, there

were spices and things like normal kitchen utensils. As you go inside

deeper, these sections keep on changing” (PM4, personal communication,

p. 29). There are subgroups of each of the main groups based on similar

goods offered. “It was divided, according specialty” (PM4, personal

communication, p. 19).

The vendors will be mostly sitting on the ground in lines, and there will be

lots of bargaining between the vendors and the customers. “Obviously there

was a lot of haggling between customers and those sellers about prices and

if you are not given the good stuff” (PM4, personal communication, p. 28).

The result was that “the prices will be very competitive there compared to a

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real shop” (PM8, personal communication, p. 30) Shoppers would buy their

whole week’s needs and may take into service “Kholies” (PM8, personal

communication, p. 30) to carry their goods.

The other form of an occasional market is the cattle market associated with

Eid. They commence a few weeks before Eid ul Adha. “It is not permanent. I

think they brought the animals from other areas” (PM1, personal

communication, p. 47). They tend to assemble outside city limits because

they are “really messy” (PM1, personal communication, p. 46).

The last form of commercial settings mentioned are the waqf shops

attached to main mosques.

There is a kind of a common practice in most of the towns in India and Pakistan… the mosque will be higher up, and the lower section will be a market. (PM7, personal communication, p. 31)

These shops offer a variety of goods “it could be silk, it could be clothes,

and it could be hardware, so they don’t have to go far… everything in

different areas” (PM7, personal communication, p. 31). These shops are

incorporated into the mosque “in order to maintain the mosque financially”

(PM7, personal communication, p. 31).

2.4.2.2.1.1.2 Educational Institutions

Schooling institutions are the fourth most frequently mentioned

environmental setting. Whether it is a school or a university, all were large in

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size, and composed of several buildings within large closed compounds.

They accommodate various grade levels. “…It (the school) had such big

boundaries, so you can see it’s a school” (PM8, personal communication, p.

7). “…there were three buildings in the school. One was the junior school,

the second was the prep school, and the third was the senior school” (PM3,

personal communication, p. 21). The majority of the school compounds

were open game fields, with games that are most popular to the culture.

Almost 70% of it (the school) was just grounds, and 30% of it was buildings, … they had football grounds (soccer), hockey grounds, a couple of basketball courts, and lots of empty fields where we invented our own games. (PM8, personal communication, p. 7)

The grounds also had “about three or four football (soccer) grounds, the

ground for cricket, table tennis, every kind of sport you can think of and they

had a mosque there ” (PM3, personal communication, p. 21).

Main structures are multi-story buildings, “two story buildings” (PM8,

personal communication, p.6.) They are built of white brick “it (the school)

was mostly brick. I mean the outside was brick. You can actually see the

brick outside, with the inside off-white in color” (PM3, personal

communication, p. 20). The white color is the dominant color for schools.

“Mostly the schools will be white” (PM8, personal communication, p. 7).

The buildings may have other facilities besides class rooms. They may have

language laboratories, or a mosque. Because of the facilities offered in a

school, distance from home to school becomes trivial. “The journey was

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about 45 minutes to 1 hour… My parents chose that school because it was

one of the best schools in the town” (PM3, personal communication, p.19).

University buildings have similar characteristics to schools’, but are larger

and more complex. They are mostly modern, but may have a British colonial

core. The most vivid description I had of a university campus was of a

promenade-like walk within a closed campus. It was a walk which was well-

planted and manicured. “It was much maintained and, of course, itself lined

with trees and flowers and bushes” (PM4, personal communication, p. 9).

There are sculptures and focal points around the path along which people

sat and socialized in groups.

In that particular case, experiencing the walkway in its physical and social

aspects was the ultimate goal of the walk, as opposed to an announced

destination. “…it was really the trip, because whenever when we used to go

there it was about to close… a good ten to fifteen minutes of walk” (PM4,

personal communication, p. 9).

2.4.2.2.1.1.3 Recreation Areas

There was a variety of public recreational places mentioned in the interview.

They varied from an open ground next to a mosque to ones standing on

their own, from a colonial multi-functional stadium that is owned by the

government, to a cricket stadium built for charity by donors, from a public

park, and finally a club. A common theme across these places is that they

are all multi functional.

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The grounds next to the mosque also functioned as a place “to learn how to

drive. My father used to take me to a nearby large ground, where our

central mosque was” (PM1, personal communication, p. 34). They are also

used as a playground for kids “In one section there was a play area with lots

of swings and slides for kids” (PM1, personal communication, p.35).

Other forms of urban open grounds are played on, and utilized for other

functions. One example of that which surfaced in the interview is an open

dirt ground.

The park mentioned is a planted ground in the middle of houses. “We used

to play on grass… it has small trees on the sides and edges… It is a park in

the middle of the houses” (PM2, personal communication, p. 24). One of its

uses is active recreation. In public parks football and jogging are common.

Though football is prohibited, it is still practiced there early morning. “It was

prohibited to play in the park, but we still used to play… there was a jogging

track on the edges and we used to play in the middle” (PM2, personal

communication, p. 24).

Plain dirt, urban, open grounds have multiple uses. They are used for

cricket, weekly bazaars, and expositions. They are grounds of no distinct

character without a function being held on them.

Stadiums have multiple functions too. Functions mentioned include playing

cricket, (PM5, personal communication, p. 38), cattle shows, “jump over

cars in that stadium. Lots of rough things. The army used to display their

guns and stuff like that. There used to be bear and dog fights there, too.

(PM2, personal communication, p. 48)

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The stadium that hosts the rough exhibitions “was built in the British era,

circa 1700-1800, but it does have modern facilities in it” (PM2, personal

communication, 48). The interviewee used these words to describe the

stadium: “It was not that old”, which seems to reflect that history and time is

relative.

Sports clubs were the last of the public recreational places mentioned in the

interview. The example given was mentioned for a social occasion rather

than sports. Clubs are used to hold wedding occasions. Clubs have

replaced houses in hosting weddings. As stated in the interview

in Pakistan people do not hold marriages in their houses. Houses are small. And so, these clubs have arrangements for marriages. They have big lawns, and a big house, depending on what season it is. Arrangements for tents and food, and will have good parking areas are there (PM3, personal communication, p. 57)

Occasions’ halls and grounds at clubs can be huge. “They could have taken

about ten thousand people” (PM3, personal communication, p. 57). The

building described in the interview was described as “quite an old building,

dating back to the 1920’s-1930’s” (PM3, personal communication, p. 58).

Fitting to the culture and the wedding occasions,

they have traditional decorations, and traditional lighting, which is mostly white lighting. They were very beautiful, plus the building was quite old. It had a dome on top, plus small rooms on the sides of it. And then it had a big hall inside. (PM3, personal communication, p. 58)

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Such places commonly have traditional elements, to reflect what seems to

be a typical global inclination of following traditions for marriage

ceremonies. They are saving the hosts the hassles of arranging all which

would be needed at homes, but deprive the community of stronger ties

woven through collaborations in holding such occasions in the home.

The public recreation places mentioned in this interview varied in complexity

of spaces and functions, but they were all multi-functional, which reflects the

high flexibility of urban components.

2.4.2.2.1.1.4 City Scale Mosques

Mosques are places that exist on several scales. A mosque can be a place

that can exist as an independent structure, which can be a local mosque or

a central mosque. It can also be an attached structure to a public or private

institution.

As mentioned by an interviewee,

It was the kind of a mosque which is within a walled compound and immediately adjacent to the house. There was a bigger mosque also where the Friday Prayers were held outside the boundaries. (PM7, personal communication, p. 12)

Mosques were mentioned as an integral part of school “and they had a

mosque there (at the school)” (PM3, personal communication, p. 21), as a

part of a complex which is a multi-use open place, “nearby a large ground,

where our central mosque was” (PM1, personal communication, p. 34), a

destination for Friday, for Taraweeh Prayers, and as a refuge from danger

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“people would go hide in the mosque” (PM6, personal communication, P.

55).

Independently standing mosques tend to be larger than those attached to

institutions.

The architectural elements mentioned in mosques are: domes, minarets,

and courtyards. Mosques can be of multiple floors, with shops on the

ground floor. These existed across the different locations and scales. Larger

mosques have residences attached for the Imam and the Moathin (the

person who calls for prayer), religious schools and street level waqf shops.

The mosque surroundings are also destinations for everyday shopping. “It

will have a number of shops underneath, so that you don’t have to go far

away” (PM7, personal communication, p. 31). Typically mosques have waqf

shops attached to them that serve the daily needs of the community.

The mosque itself is practically waqf, but, in order to maintain the mosque financially, there is a common practice in most of the towns in India and Pakistan. The larger portion of the mosque will be higher up, and the lower section will be a market. The market can have a lot of things, it could be silk, it could be clothes, and it could be hardware, so they don’t have to go far. (PM7, personal communication, p. 32)

The convenience of the location grows additional attachments to the

surrounding area of the mosque.

Socially, formal and informal education is conducted in larger mosques.

Older and more knowledgeable worshipers are an extension to family

guidance and mentoring.

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…one of the gentlemen who was regular in coming to the mosque, he had seen me and he knew me. He gave me some prayers to recite to help me modify my feelings. I did it and have been doing it. So, there is a certain kind of attitude of education coming up through a social level and a personal level, where a man goes through certain kinds of experiences. (PM7, personal communication, p. 52)

So the mosque is a source of social and spiritual guidance for the youth,

while its surroundings supply the daily physical needs.

2.4.2.2.1.2 Neighborhood Scale

There are four place categories under the neighborhood scale. These are:

urban parks, streets, homes and mosques. In the following are the

categories as characterized by the participants.

2.4.2.2.1.2.1 Urban Parks

The park mentioned is a planted ground in the middle of houses. “We used

to play on grass… it has trees small trees on the sides and edges… It is a

park in the middle of the houses” (PM2, personal communication, p. 24).

One of its uses is active recreation. In public parks football and jogging are

common. Though football is prohibited, it is still practiced there early

morning. “It was prohibited to play in the park, but we still used to play…

there was a jogging track on the edges and in the middle we used to play”

(PM2, personal communication, p. 24).

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2.4.2.2.1.2.2 Streets

Central governmental buildings are laid on the major side streets in the

city’s downtown. “First we passed by the high court of the city, then we

passed the courts, the central courts of the town” (PM3, personal

communication, p. 22). The streets are one way. And lacking some

organizational elements, such as lines. “…by one way I mean four cars are

going in one direction and another car comes from the other direction.

There are no lines or anything, so you can treat it as one way” (PM3,

personal communication, p. 22).

Also, main roads in a city can be muddy, such as a road leading to a military

camp toward which the city grew and embodied (PM6, personal

communication, p. 55).

Walkways within private or public institutions can be the exact opposite to

the muddy street. The can be manicured and planted with trees, bushes,

and flowers. They may have sculptures on their sides, and are forming a

focal point for socialization and leisure. “It was much maintained and, of

course, itself lined with trees and flowers and bushes” (PM4, personal

communication, p. 9). There are sculptures and focal points around the path

around which people sit and socialize in groups.

So, streets in general vary in scale and importance. Size of the street does

not suggest higher maintenance or lavishness.

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2.4.2.2.1.2.3 Homes

Of five houses mentioned in the interview, only one participant mentioned

his own. The others mentioned were two grandparents’ houses, a parent’s

house and a friend’s house. Three out of five were city residences. The

fourth is a rural, village house that has all the modern amenities of a city

house. “It (the house) had all the amenities you would expect of a house in

a town” (PM3, personal communication, p. 36). They were all houses, as

opposed to apartments, and one of the houses is a unit in an identical

governmental servants’ housing complex. This complex, though modern, is

mimicking the old traditional local style.

It was one of the first houses built in that city. The city itself is not more than forty-five years old. Houses are fairly new…It was definitely a cookie-cutter type building….and the whole area was initially meant for government servants, and it was built in the old style. There will be a compound within the inside and everything such as the bathrooms, the kitchen and the rooms were built in the old style. (PM4, personal communication, p 42)

The most common physical component mentioned in a house is a garden.

All houses mentioned had a garden. They are an integral part of the living

environment of the house.

The garden can be at the side of the house or in the form of an inner

courtyard. It can be entirely paved, is entirely lawn, “if you enter the house

there is a lawn, and toward the end of this lawn there are these lawn stairs”

(PM8, personal communication, p. 54), or half paved. “It was about six

hundred square feet out of a six hundred square yard house. Half of it is

paved” (PM5, personal communication, p. 51). The gardens are planted

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with various productive plants. “In the summer season when it is fruit time, I

used to climb them once or twice a week to pick the fruits … I have lots of

trees in my house” (PM2, personal communication, p. 37).

Trees, bushes and flowers are either planted in the ground or in planters

that vary in size. “It had some small trees, flowers” (PM5, personal

communication, p. 51). It is very common to introduce, and extend, outdoor

greenery into the courtyard setting. But large trees mostly line the edge of

the garden/courtyard adjacent to the street. “In the garden, it is a dense

area, around three to four trees in a very tight spot, right next to a wall”

(PM2, personal communication, p. 37). That may be for privacy reasons.

The house has levels of privacy. Male friends will gather at a satellite or

unattached unit to the house.

Most of the time because we have lots of friends, it is sometimes ten or twenty, so we have to find a place where we do not care if we make lots of noise, so usually we are sitting in the back of the home or a place where we can make as much noise as we want… It is kind of a separate area. (PM6, personal communication, p. 33)

If there are servants in the house, they will have their own private quarters,

separate from the family quarters. “The other portion, houses all the

employees that worked in the fields” (PM3, personal communication, p. 36).

The family’s part of the house is also divided: “there are 2 portions, “one you

can say is just for the ladies and the families, and the outer portion was for

when had visitors from outside” (PM3, personal communication, p. 36). “We

had a big room in the home called ‘Lady Sitting’ that was a lounge, and all

of the cousins would sit there” (PM3, personal communication, p.50).

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With all that sense of privacy, houses are rather airy and have a sense of

openness. It is common to have large door-size windows in houses, along

with many openings per room. “It had big doors and the windows were door

size. And it had wind catchers on top, and, you know, in old houses, you

have many doors in every room…” (PM3, personal communication, p. 50).

The openings have patterns on them, which is an appreciation of the

pleasant elements of the room, which makes the room have a pleasant airy

environment. Older houses are more responsive to local climate than

modern houses. They tend to be more airy. Besides larger openings than

modern houses, the ceilings of the rooms will have vents that will allow hot

air to escape, to be replaced by cooler air from the many openings in the

walls. That is a great response to local climate and an ingenious

architectural element that uses basic fluid dynamics to acclimatize indoor

places.

The roofs of the house are without walls. “Our roof did not (have a parapet),

that was kind of scary. I mean it was a pretty large open area, so, I tended

to stay in the middle, and try not to go close to the edges” (PM1, personal

communication, p. 17). Roofs are used for play, raising pigeons or hens, or

a place to sleep on a hot summer night. “There was a water tank on top… a

TV antenna… at one point I had chickens walking around me while flying

kites” (PM1, personal communication, p. 17).

The house is the center of social life. It is where children play with their

siblings; extended family members live and socialize daily, weekly or

annually. Houses are the core of the societal social life and socialization

skill mentor.

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2.4.2.2.1.2.4 Neighborhood-Scale Mosques

Neighborhood mosques have the same physical characteristics as city

mosques, but in a smaller scale. They have columns and arches, high

ceilings, good illumination, minarets, domes, walled paved courtyards

around their buildings and waqf shops all are in smaller scale than city-scale

mosques. Ablution and toilets are within the walls but in a separate

structure. Unlike city-scale mosques, which can host thousands,

neighborhood mosques hold hundreds in and around the mosque’s vicinity.

Socially, strong ties are common among neighborhood mosques’

congregations. Mosques are another place where neighbors establish and

elevate pre-established social ties by through unifying in worship five times

a day.

Informal religious education is conducted in neighborhood mosques. Older

and more knowledgeable worshipers are an extension to family guidance

and mentoring.

…one of the gentlemen who was regular in coming to the mosque, he had seen me and he knew me. He gave me some prayers to recite to help me modify my feelings. I did it and have been doing it. So, there is a certain kind of attitude of education coming up through a social level and a personal level, where a man goes through certain kinds of experiences. (PM7, personal communication, p. 52)

So the mosque is a source of social and spiritual guidance for the youth,

while its surroundings supply the daily physical needs.

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2.4.2.2.1.3 Countryside Scale

There is one place category under the countryside scale. That place

category is garden and orchard.

2.4.2.2.1.3.1 Gardens and Orchard

Outside a city lay the one example of a rural landscape mentioned by this

group. The appreciations of one’s rural and natural surroundings were

shown in the following description of a rural village setting.

We had fields; wherever you went you would see a different kind of crop, and if it was an old crop you would see the crop grow up, and in the next season you would see another crop. You would see all kinds of animals (domestic) cows, buffalos, sheep…The vastness; you can go anywhere. (PM3, personal communication, p. 36)

His setting is experienced by walks and biking on a regular basis.

…bicycling on the sides of the fields, and then you go to the canal,…I do that until now, it was a weekly routine then (when young) and now when I go back to Pakistan. (PM3, personal communication, p. 36)

Within this setting lay the houses and urban facilities of the village life.

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2.4.2.2.1 Female Subgroup

In the Pakistani female subgroup, eight place categories were shared during

the interviews. These were: homes, schooling institutions, commercial

places, neighborhoods, public recreational places, dormitories, mosques,

and private orchards.

Of these categories, homes were the most frequently mentioned place

category. Eight homes were mentioned by the participants ranging from

their own homes to homes of parents, grandparents, an aunt, and brothers.

All were houses as opposed to apartments.

The next most common place category was school. Schools and colleges

were the context of four event memories shared in the interviews. This

varied between school and college. That was followed by commercial

places, neighborhoods, public parks, respectively. Each was in the context

of several events shared. Each of the dormitories, mosques, and private

orchards categories was named once in context of an event.

In the following, I will illustrate the descriptions shared during the interviews

of each place category.

2.4.2.2.2.1 City Scale

There are four place categories under the city scale. These are:

commercial, educational, recreational and mosques. In the following are the

categories as characterized by the participants.

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2.4.2.2.2.1.1 Commercial Places

There was one form of markets described in the interviews. It is described

as a linear strip of shops. It is specialized in particular merchandise, though

other goods and services may coincide with the dominant ones.

The market described is the Urdu bazaar, which is specialized in books and

stationery. On top of the three colorful steps to the book stores book binders

are seated who will take shelter under the shades of the stores and offer

their services to the customers who pack the bazaar. “It was packed with

people, jam-packed with people, children saying I want this, mothers saying

no you can’t” (PF2, personal communication, p. 38).

The bookstores are elevated as mentioned above from street level. They

are huge, very well lit and their walls are entirely covered with books. (PF2,

personal communication, p. 38).

2.4.2.2.2.1.2 Educational Institution

This includes academic places and dormitories. Schooling is a priority to

participants. In the interviews, they reflected the emphasis and

determination that their families placed on education.

My grandfather…really wanted me to complete my masters’, so after he passed away, I completed my masters’. I was in the first part of my masters’ when I got married… I completed my final after my wedding. (PF5, personal communication, p. 11)

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As a part of the devotion to education, a participant always shopped

anxiously for the next year’s school supplies once the previous year ended.

My big thing was getting ready for the next grade. To get all new things, books, notebooks, pens, pencils, uniforms, bags, backpacks and all. I used to love looking forward to that. That used to be the best part. (PF2, personal communication, p. 25)

Many forms of transportation are used to get to school. Carpools, driven by

an aunt or parents, taking the school bus and walking are all used to get to

school.

Schools are large complexes with multiple buildings. School complexes are

walled in with solid walls. As one private school was described, it “was a

humongous school, very big and huge. They would have, I think, from the

4th grade all the way through high school” (PF6, personal communication,

p. 13).

Schools have sports fields that reflect national interest. “We used to play

field hockey…we even used to play cricket” (PF6, personal communication,

p. 15).

The school has multiple-story brick buildings within its boundaries. The

classrooms

were pretty well lit. They were almost outside. You know, they did not seem like windows, they were like verandas. You can look out and there were no glass or anything, not windows like here. I think because there it was not as cold as it is here. It was hot there. (PF6, personal communication, p. 15)

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Universities are much larger than school complexes. As one college was

described:

The College was big and nice… actually the building was huge and the yard of the college was very large… There were trees …It was a modern college. I have seen the University of Colorado, and the buildings are kind of similar. Not exactly the same, but similar. (PF5, personal communication, p. 12)

College grounds are used to hold private functions, “the Mehdi (henna

application) function was in my husband’s university; he arranged the entire

function … at night he rented the university grounds” (PFM4, personal

communication, p. 42).

University grounds are also used for fundraising and to celebrate holidays;

They will invite people from outside. The wife of the vice chancellor will also be there. She was very friendly. These were excellent fund raising opportunities for the dorm too….around Spring date, they will dye the scarves in different colors and we will have sweet things and everything. (PF2, personal communication, p. 8)

It is evident that universities are a major social environment as well as

educational.

Dormitories exist as a part of a university campus. A female university

dormitory was described as the center for social life for about eighty-five

university students. “It was a beautiful place… very picturesque setting.

There were gazebos covered with flowers and climbing vines all over the

place” (PF4, personal communication, p. 7).

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The dormitory consisted of two U-shaped, two story high buildings facing

each other. The buildings had over fifty rooms, a kitchen, a dining hall, a

common room, a library, and a management office. The buildings had an

enclosed courtyard between them. It was described as one with a

beautiful garden gazebo and flowers all around the place, it had a central fountain and there were four paths that lead to each side of the building. That made huge patches, and there were benches in the middle with flowers all around…Where the benches were was cemented, and parts had some plants, but were mostly flowers and at least a couple of shade trees. So, anytime of the day that you wanted to sit, there would be shade. (PF4, personal communication, p. 8)

There are also fruit trees.

Sounds are rich there. There is the central fountain and “A lot of birds” (PF4,

personal communication, p. 8).

Seasonal, cultural and fundraising functions are held within the dormitory

and its courtyard.

2.4.2.2.2.1.3 Recreational Places

Two large public parks were illustrated in the interviews. One was at the

edge of the city while the other was a half hour walk from the place of

residence. Otherwise both parks had similar characteristics.

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Both parks are big and full of trees.

Full of fruit trees,… had apple trees and plum and these kinds of trees… flowers, red flowers, very light, which are special in Pakistan; I do not see them here; and fruit trees, big fruit trees which we were allowed to pick. (PF1, personal communication, pp 20-21)

The park at the edge of the city had evergreen trees. “It had evergreen

trees, I remember that, and there was a whole green yard” (PF6, personal

communication, p. 27). It also had a lake around which people have picnics.

These places are furnished for public pleasures. “There were swings…

cement benches” (PF6, personal communication, p. 27).

What stood out in the interview was the amount of attention paid to

encountered landscape and urban elements of walking to the park, as

opposed to driving to the park. That included audio and visual details. There

was a brick bridge over a canal that is “a heavy and strong bridge. It was for

both pedestrians and cars” (PF1, personal communication, p. 21). There

was a detail of “ice making factories. They had strange sounds, the water is

dripping over this ice making plant, and it made strange sounds “ (PF1,

personal communication, p. 21).

2.4.2.2.2.1.4 Mosques

Only one mosque was mentioned in the interviews with the female group

from Pakistan. It was a large mosque that was in close proximity to the

place of residence. “I never went inside. It was a huge white marble

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mosque, the biggest mosque… It was a stone throw away from us” (PF2,

personal communication, p. 37). It is a multi story mosque that had several

elements typical to a large mosque. There was “A huge door, with very

intricately carved minarets, four that you can see and there might be

another two in the back” (PF2, personal communication, p. 37). Athan is

heard outside the mosque, and so are Quranic recitations during the

Ramadan Taraweeh Prayers. There was utmost appreciation for that. Older

ladies go to stay in the mosque during Ramadan for I’tikaf, in devotion to

nothing but Allah. The people of the mosque, i.e. the Moathin and the Imam

are very well respected. “People will come to him for advice and ladies will

bring their kids up to the Moathin to blow on their faces after prayer to make

them feel well” (PF2, personal communication, p. 37). The worshippers are

looked upon highly too. People will stand with their children at the entrance

and the worshipers will pray for them and blow into their faces for blessings”

(PF2, personal communication, p. 37).

The society is very connected to the mosque and the mosque is very

connected to society even though it was a place rarely frequented by

females (until they reached old age) for prayers, it still had central

importance in a symbolic sense. These ties are at spiritual and physical

levels.

2.4.2.2.2.2 Neighborhood Scale

There are two place categories under the neighborhood scale. These are:

neighborhood and home. In the following are the categories as

characterized by the participants.

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2.4.2.2.2.2.1 Neighborhood

As was discovered in the Homes category, it is most likely that the

neighbors are the extended relatives. Although residents of a neighborhood

are close acquaintances, they are not always relatives.

The neighbors in front of us were shop keepers. They had a huge shop at the shopping mall, where they used to sell all sorts of cosmetics and shows like that. We had a good relationship with them. The neighbors in the back of the house were not really close relatives, but relatives to my brother-in-law. They were his relatives, and a good family relation. (PF2, personal communication, p. 34)

The overall attitude in the neighborhood is friendly and social.

During Eid you took shankhormah or sweets, mahayet golab jaman, and things like that around to your neighbors’ houses, as gifts. It used to be a big thing; we used to volunteer to carry the tray. (PF2, personal communication, p. 34)

The neighborhood is of mixed socio-economic families living next to each

other.

…our neighbors were farmers. The distinction between urban /rural is blurred, largely because Islamic communities carry urban qualities; Islam encourages social unities, which encouraged gathering of communities in urban settlements. It is not common for agricultural families to live in cities. Over the weekend, the ladies used to go attend to the field and I was allowed to go with them. (PF2, personal communication, p. 19)

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The houses had good views of surrounding open grounds, with planted

fields at the edge of the city. The streets had no plantings, but some

ornamental trees planted by the neighbors, each along the inside of their

own boundary walls.

The local streets within the neighborhood are unpaved, but are covered with

pebbles.

2.4.2.2.2.2.2 Homes

During the interviews, eight homes were described. They ranged in height

between one and two stories. A common description was that they were

“airy” (PF4, personal communication, p. 9) (PF2, personal communication,

p. 18) (PF1, personal communication, p. 19). Homes have all the needed

modern installments. Homes tend to host extended families, most of the

time siblings of a single house family unit, with some exceptions. A

participant has clearly stated that they “were living in a joint assembly” (PF1,

personal communication, p. 2). Another example of the same concept, but

implemented on a larger scale is illustrated in the following.

All of my mom’s uncles were living on the same street. All the brothers were at the end of one street and we (the grandparents) were living on the other end of the street, and an uncle was living right behind us. (PM5, personal communication, p. 16)

Close residential proximity allows members of an extended family to offer

support, in more variety than distant accommodations. Children stay at their

grandparents’ or aunts’ and uncles’ houses if parents are out of the home or

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are unable to take care of them. Close proximity allow members of the

extended family to be more involved in the issues of their relatives, allowing

the society to be tight and more social. This is evident in the frequent

visitations and gatherings a family has amongst each other.

If the extended family lives in adjacent houses, as opposed to different units

of a single house, gatherings take place in the house of the senior member

of the family.

…every evening they would come to our house, because my grandmother used to live with us. They used to spend about two to three hours every evening with us drinking tea and having fun. It was such good fun. (PF5, personal communication,, p. 16)

Houses are active social contexts for family activities. Homes are described

as the place where the extended family, who happened to share the same

home or live in close proximity, will gather daily along the with occasional

company of friends and neighbors in the courtyards. Homes’ courtyards are

places where families, and possibly friends, gather for tea and snacks while

having religious or political discussions every afternoon or evening.

(It is) very common in Pakistan to have tea. So I had to make tea around 4 o’clock, exactly… evening everybody was sitting in the courtyard,…my father’s older brother and his younger brothers, we used to sit and have talks, mostly political or religious, because my elder sister was a very religious person, as well as political. So we had our opinions and we had our discussions and disagreements everyday in the evening. And my grandma used to sit there and have her own opinion which was totally different from ours. But our family was very open and we could talk about

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anything. That was the evening most of the time, sit and talk. (PF1, personal communication, p. 3)

I always loved to make the afternoon tea, because I loved making snacks…, in summertime, washed up the courtyard so that it will be cool. We had wrought iron furniture. So we sat there and had tea and chatted. (PF2, personal communication, p. 4)

Courtyards are typically paved, but some had lawn; “we had a manicured

lawn which is where we used to have the iron furniture” (PF2, personal

communication, p. 5). Courtyards also have plants. Some are large and

rooted in the ground. These are typically along an outer wall, but some are

in the center of the courtyard. Their most admired qualities are shade,

flowers and fruits. These shows in the following description: “We had some

trees for shade…This is inside, within the boundary wall. The side has only

the wall with the tall trees” (PF2, personal communication, p.5). Also,

we had some apple trees. It was mostly acacia trees. Underneath we had roses, all colors. In front of that was just my mom’s hobby, where she grew some cilantro, onions, and occasionally she would plant cucumbers. Nothing big, just something for her to do. (PF2, personal communication, p.7)

Another participant describes the same setting in these words:

In the courtyard (sahin) I remember we had an apple tree, flowers, and a few other things in our backyard. The trees were along the side walls. You know there was a boundary wall, and there was a little plant garden all along the inside. Some were tall. (PF6, personal communication, p. 33)

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These plants are loved and admired “there was a tree in the middle. It was

an orange tree. I used to water that tree. I used to love that tree actually”

(PF5, personal communication, p. 11).

Potted plants are also common in courtyards; “We had big pots with plants,

but the courtyard did not have big plants” (PF1, personal communication, p.

3). Another participant states that they “have a few potted plants, but not

planted in the ground” (PF4, personal communication, p. 10).

Greenery is introduced to private open places in many forms, but mostly in

productive plants.

One can find that the sahin is not always an open space fully enclosed by

the house structure. Most of the time, courts are open at least on one side.

All sides have walls, though. “It is a huge rectangle. On three sides there

were rooms. There is a kitchen and an entry way, and this is the side that

has only the wall with the tall trees” (PF2, personal communication, p. 5). A

fully enclosed courtyard is mentioned in the following “the rooms were in a

row around the courtyard. You can enter from one room and go around

back to the same room” (PF5, personal communication, p. 17).

Different house units are set about the courtyard, and verandas are

common transitions between house structures and their courtyards. An

illustration of that is in the following description: “we used to play there on

the stairs between the veranda and the garden coming from the house”

(PF6, personal communication, p. 34). The veranda is an element that

showed up in more detail in the following: “White and black tiles all around

our veranda and our courtyard” (PF1, personal communication, p.1).

.

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Kitchens and sometimes bathrooms are separated from the main house

structures, and set across the courtyard from the house main structure. A

separate kitchen in the house is described as: “on three sides there were

rooms. There is a kitchen and an entry way, and there is the side that has

only the wall” (PF2, personal communication, p. 5). Another illustration of a

separate kitchen is shown in the following “on the other end of the courtyard

we had a kitchen” (PF1, personal communication, p. 1). Houses can have

multiple kitchens to serve multiple families sharing a house. A separate

bathroom and showers was illustrated by PF6 (personal communication), as

a place on top of a flight of stairs in the courtyard.

A servant family shares the house. They would live in separate quarters

from the house’s main structure but share the same courtyard.

Living rooms and bedrooms are multi-functional. Studying and worship

takes place in bedrooms, while dining can take place in any room. Some

houses have assigned dining rooms though.

The rooms have some elements that would help acclimate them for

optimum comfort. Air vents at wall tops for hot air to escape along with large

windows are used to ventilate rooms. Crafts and sceneries of beautiful

landscapes are hanged on walls. Embroidered accessories are used to

boost hominess and comfort within rooms.

House roofs are used for storage, but also for sleeping on a good night; “on

summers we used to sleep occasionally on the roof” (PF2, personal

communication, p. 61).

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The ladies of the house tend to be craft oriented. They master several

artistic skills and use their products to decorate the house. They are also

extremely keen on their schooling and education along with cooking and

housekeeping skills.

2.4.2.2.2.2.3 Countryside Scale

There is one place category under the countryside scale. That place

category is garden and orchard.

2.4.2.2.2.2.3.1 Garden, Orchard

A private orchard was described in a representation of ties to open spaces

in a village. The orchard is big, and not far from the place of residence,

about a ten to fifteen minute walk. It is planted with fruit trees, including

“mango trees, peaches, and orange trees“ (PF5, personal communication,

p. 22). It is a five foot high walled orchard with a big open entrance and a

small building housing the attendant. “Not a house but just one room. The

guy, who was taking care of the orchard, would live there and take care of

the orchard” (PF5, personal communication, p. 23). Next to the small

building is where a simple picnic place is used to socialize, and eat fruit

from the orchard.

Near the room, he made a clean place where we would put a mat, where we would sit. We would have about three folding beds and we used to sit on those and we used to

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eat. It was a traditional kind of a setting. (PF5, personal communication, p. 23)

The plants are irrigated from a nearby canal.

The canal water was just coming. They had a ditch or something, and they used to put a kind of a lead at the end where they are moving the water to the other end, and they used to move the end from one place to another. (PF5, personal communication, p. 23)

It seems that the females had more fine details regarding the five senses

(smell/taste/touch/sound/vision) compared to the males, and were more

aware of and attached to natural elements.

2.4.2.3 Sudan

Various places and scales were covered during the interviews with both

males and females. They shared events, and details, covered parts of

homes, and widened up to city and regional scales. The wide coverage of

scales was common with both male and female subgroups.

2.4.2.3.1 Male Subgroup

Nine place categories were discussed during the interview with the male

participants from Sudan. These are: homes, schooling institutions,

neighborhoods, cities and towns, mosques, commercial places, and public

recreational places. Streets were the most mentioned places, possibly

because the impact of the distance traveled to destinations was mentioned

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the most. Mosques were mentioned second, and markets were third in

frequency.

2.4.2.3.1.1 City Scale

There are four place categories under the city scale. These are: city,

commercial, educational and recreational. In the following are the

categories as characterized by the participants.

2.4.2.3.1.1.1 Cities

City components are reflective of natural, social, political and economical

factors. They reflect on the urban morphology. The Nile flood is a major

factor shaping the demographics and socio-economics of its adjacent

settlements.

When the flood takes place it causes a lot of atrocities. It wipes out many gardens and agricultural lands, and plenty of houses nearby the Nile banks. These people have lived there for centuries. This is an annual event in Sudan, and sometimes it was very devastating…The farms for example, the big fruit trees, don’t get damaged, but vegetables and bananas get destroyed immediately… the authorities started giving away lands from the flood plain to people with lands on the Nile. Farms remained, but some residential areas were moved. (SM7, personal communication, p. 87)

The majority of migrants from flood devastated lands do not return to it but

rather settle in major cities where industrial, administrative and economic

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centers are. Although major cities can be subjected to flood devastations,

they have less of an impact, due to higher construction standards. The

cultural center presented by the people of China, which was built on the Nile

bank in Khartoum was constructed to withstand such natural disasters.

(SM7, personal communication, p. 87)

Cities such as Juba, the capital of the South, have a character that is

reflective of the dominant culture. Houses are simple and less private. They

have no walls around them. The houses are scattered around a forested

land organically. The economy is very basic too. It is basically a support of

the military town. (SM2, personal communication, p. 91) The population of

the city is diminishing because of war, and the military culture is dominating

the society.

It is a much simpler place than larger cities, where the urban fabric serves a

more complex and sophisticated function.

2.4.2.3.1.1.2 Commercial Places

Commercial places vary in concentration, location, and specialty across the

urban context.

Various specialty shops are scattered along main streets. “You see a lot of

small shops, groceries, stores, mechanics, and different kind of shops all

the way, along the street” (SM3, personal communication, p. 67). These are

a part of the houses built on road sides.

High concentration commercial places are also present. They were

described as

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...the main shopping area of Bahri is the main market of the area of north Khartoum city. This area is for markets. There is no residential area in the market area. They are multi-story buildings. The ground floor is mainly shops, while the upper floors are offices. (SM3, personal communication, p. 68)

A lower concentration of shops, set around a courtyard like open space, is

common within neighborhoods. The open space in the middle is used for

the weekly market.

It is like a square. Most of the stores that are all around are the big ones. The small ones in the middle are huts. You can probably find three or so in the middle. So the surrounding ones are established stores while the ones in the middle are temporary. (SM2, personal communication, p. 77)

The permanent stores are lined in four L-shaped one story high structures.

They form a square in the middle. The stores open to arcades separating

them from the open space in the middle.

The temporary stalls in the courtyard are erected on Friday mornings, the

weekly market day, and the weekly national holiday.

The market is specialized in residents’ daily needs. “Mostly food and a few

of them have clothes and accessories for the girls, but mostly food such as

meat shops and groceries” (SM2, personal communication, p. 77).

Walking to the market is the common practice. “…they don’t bring their cars”

(SM2, personal communication, P. 77). Purchased goods are transported

back home on a donkey cart if too heavy to be carried.

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It is evident that there is a hierarchy of markets within an urban

environment. Each level serves a purpose, and each is located to serve the

public convenience.

2.4.2.3.1.1.3 Educational Institutions

Three forms of educational institutions were mentioned in the interviews.

These are: schools, universities, and training facilities within governmental

administrative institutions.

Schools are typically clustered in groups of gender segregated schools.

These clusters are of old, colonial, and modern buildings. All are walled,

and have playgrounds in and outside the walls. Schools were mentioned the

most.

My school was one story high. It was walled by a solid wall. The classes were in lines parallel to each other, each line of similar level of classes. There were teachers’ offices scattered all over the school, so that they will be everywhere. It was a big school with a cafeteria, a theater, and a basketball court. There was a large soccer field out of school; there was a smaller one inside the school. At the entrance of the school there were the managerial offices. There was a main door that was always open, but the side doors were open only at recess. (SM5, personal communication, p. 73)

Another participant described the British colonial schools as:

This school was built during the British colonial rule. It was very big and organized. It contained a lot of football

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stadiums and basketball courts. You can sense the British architecture the way they built the rooms, the center of the school, and the way they organized the roads inside the school. I think during the British rule they used this school as a military camp, to teach some Sudanese and British solders in this school. (SM1, personal communication, p. 64)

The functions of colonial schools have been modified. It seems

they are looked upon as model schools.

Students are allowed to go out of the school boundary at recess. They

prefer to go outside for the food, and feel freedom. They prefer outside food

over the cafeterias. (SM5, personal communication, p. 74)

The university mentioned is the University of Khartoum, in the capital of

Sudan. The university has a walled campus and a dorm outside, but nearby,

a campus for boys, as well as one for girls. “It’s not far from the campus,

just one block away. There are separate ones for boys and girls, with the

girls’ a little bit far away from us” (SM2, personal communication, p. 65).

The location is very convenient, because students walk to campus.

The last educational institution mentioned is one of those associated with

governmental administrative agencies. A training facility attached to the

Council of Auditing, was described by one participant. It is built within the

same compound hosting the Council of Auditing. The compound has

buildings from different eras.

An old building, since the British. The other part is in a new building, behind the previous building. It is a three story building. It has the class rooms. And we were in the third

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floor. The old building is a one story building. (SM6. personal communication, p. 74)

It is evident that organizations are filling in the open spaces they have on

their property, by adding new buildings and structures as needs arise.

This is the case here, where the institution has large open grounds.

The grounds are used for official and social gatherings. “The annual

meeting of the Council of Auditing would (be) held in the courtyard space in

between the three buildings” (SM6, personal communication, p. 88).

2.4.2.3.1.1.4 Recreational Places

On the Eid, it is common to go out. Male members of the family would

arrange for a picnic or just an outing.

A public place was described in Khartoum City. It is a densely vegetated

place, near the Nile.

It is a small forest…on the Nile…It is natural, and it needs cleaning for a place on which to sit. The most attractive thing in it is that it is at a close proximity to the Nile. People can swim and play soccer, and there are no buildings nearby or anything. You can find five to fifteen groups here and there at Eid time. Some are chatting, others are singing, and others are playing. (SM5, personal communication, p. 88)

One can notice appreciation of natural places and definitely a huge

appreciation of the Nile. Large group social gatherings are very treasured

too. In this particular case, the group needed a bus to transport them to the

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picnic place. This is very reflective of strong social ties within the extended

family.

2.4.2.3.1.2 Neighborhood Scale

There are four place categories under the neighborhood scale. These are:

neighborhood, streets, home and mosques. In the following are the

categories as characterized by the participants.

2.4.2.3.1.2.1 Neighborhoods

Neighborhoods are government regulated, but the public has relative

freedom in shaping their locale. Some neighborhoods have distinct

characters. “Actually, they are big houses that were built during the British

colonial rule” (SM1, personal communication, p. 63). These houses are now

reserved to higher level government officials, and have a distinct layout and

image from older local constructions.

It is different, because the size of (the colonial) houses (is) very big, and surrounded by trees and small bushes and there is a small creek...These houses were built from modern materials, concrete bricks. The previous (old traditional) houses were built from mud bricks. But the difference is that there were huge verandas, around the British houses; (they) included big lots of gardens, verandas and pools. They had this openness to the outside, while the previous don’t have this openness to the outside. Even the atmosphere when you come through these houses (the colonial) is different, because of the

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gardening and the trees. (SM1, personal communication, p. 63)

Older colonial residential neighborhoods are low density and have an

emphasis on the outdoors. They are open to the surrounding gardens and

water. The traditional old houses are closed to the outside and open to the

inside of the house. They are small in size too, in comparison to the colonial

houses where the structures are large and spread horizontally.

Contemporary residential districts are a “modern residential area, the

houses built of cement and they have different floors…big houses and some

of them have two floors and some of them they have three floors” (SM1,

personal communication, p. 63). Sometimes the number of stories is much

higher, six to seven stories high, mostly to accommodate extended families

in a single building. (SM5, personal communication, p. 81)

The image of modern neighborhoods is of a monotonous and unified style.

“All of these buildings look as if there is only one designer in Sudan

who designed all these buildings” (SM5, personal communication, p.

82).

Government administration buildings are typically clustered in a

neighborhood or on a major street. “…the largest in Khartoum…is a one

way road; most of the governmental institutions are there” (SM6,

personal communication, P. 75).

Zoning laws are enacted in the country, but they are more focused on

building quality, not the size or image. (SM5, personal communication,

p. 85)

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The youth of the neighborhood utilize vacant lots to play football. They

will take care of cleaning the grounds and have local tournaments with

the youth of other neighborhoods. This is a reflection of social ties

within and across neighborhoods planted from an early age.

2.4.2.3.1.2.2 Streets

All streets mentioned in the interviews were urban/city streets. It is evident

from the interviews that city streets are much more congested with traffic,

especially during rush hours. “Normally around 6 o’clock (AM) it is very

crowded with cars, and you can see people on the sides of the streets

waiting for public transportation in their company cars” (SM3, personal

communication, p. 67). This is due to land use policies where business is

centralized in one part of the city and residential districts in another. The

majority of participants lived far away from their place of work. “…Khartoum

is where I work. I live in Om Dorman, another city, it is about 18 miles”

(SM3, personal communication, p. 67). Another participant lived the same

situation. “I used to go from one city to another for work. From Om Dorman

to Khartoum.” (SM7, personal communication, p. 70). A third participant

needed to drive for 45 minutes to get to work. (SM7, personal

communication, p. 70)

Streets turn into bottlenecks at markets, causing traffic to be a hassle. That

is not caused by the road’s size but by the people using them. “Once at the

market, the road is very narrow, especially because of parked cars”

(SM4, personal communication, p. 121).

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Road capacity, in general, adds to traffic congestions. ”the roads do not

manage the standard needed for the inflation in motor vehicle

numbers” (SM7, personal communication, p. 70). Although cars are a

major cause of traffic congestions, other modes of transportation are

common to urban streets.

A third cause of traffic congestions are weddings. This effect is very local

and is accepted by the society.

The houses, when it comes to gatherings are usually small for occasions. So, in most cases, they are held in adjacent streets. The street is about fifteen meters in between two houses. How would people receive 3000 guests in their house? So they use the street. In this harsh climate, people erect a large tent-like pavilion structure to accommodate this large number. It is erected right in the middle of the street. The street gets closed, from the morning to the night, and then the tent is deconstructed once people leave. (SM4, personal communication, p. 84)

This practice is becoming less common due to the societal inclination to

hold wedding parties at clubs and occasions’ halls.

Many modes of transportation navigate the urban setting. Bicycles, public

buses, public cars, private cars and trains are mentioned in that urban

context.

It is common to have shops on the sides of arteries attached to houses.

“Mainly the shops are part of the houses that face the street. They open part

of the house for a shop and they rent it out. Most of the shops are a part of

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the houses. You will rarely see a house by itself. (SM3, personal

communication, p. 68) These are extra income generators for the

household.

The presence of trees outside the houses and on the sides of the streets is

dependant on personal taste and desire. They are planted by the home

owners. Shade trees are very well desired and appreciated though. The

Niem is the most mentioned tree in that urban context. Along the Nile

Cornish, extremely large trees are common. “A lot of trees, big trees, we call

them Labakh, which are huge trees with five to six feet diameter trunks,

almost covering the whole width of the street” (SM2, personal

communication, p. 65).

2.4.2.3.1.2.3 Homes

Three houses were mentioned during the interviews. These were:

grandparents’ home, a friend’s home, and a participant’s own home. These

varied in age and in character, but had overlaps of place functions and

elements.

The grandparent’s home was associated with an Eid’s extended family

gathering. It is common to gather at the family’s patriarch’s house for such

occasions. “…Eid ul Adha. It’s a big event for us in the family. We have a

big gathering in the main (grandpa’s) house” (SM2, personal

communication, p. 85). These gatherings last half a day, starting after Eid

prayer.

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The house is divided into smaller segments, each of which is for a member

of the extended family. The layout is as such:

My grandpa’s house, we call it housh, is a big one with multiple houses in the same court. There are openings in the walls, with no doors, so you can walk through to the other house. They are definitely like your relatives, like your aunts, close ones, mostly four to five houses in the same area so you can go from one house to the other and meet your relatives These units are arranged around a courtyard Housh and each has its own smaller open space that is connected to the main courtyard through an open gate. (SM2, personal communication, p. 85)

The courtyard is barren and the only shade is that of the house.

For breakfast, sometimes you still have the shadows of the house, so people will put out a table and some chairs somewhere and they will sit, or they will just put a carpet on the ground. We will have a big plate in the middle. But for lunch we just go inside, because it is too hot. They go to the salon, or a big room inside. (SM2, personal communication, p. 85)

It is evident that people will use the outdoors as long as the weather

permits. They will switch to the indoors once it is too harsh to stay out.

The other home described is a friend’s house that functioned as a hub for

friends to gather and socialize every Friday for breakfast.

We are a group of residents, who are originally from different areas of Om Dorman. Each brings something for breakfast. Each tries to bring something nice. Because of the traffic we have breakfast at about 11 am. There will be about fifteen to sixteen persons. Before breakfast we will

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talk, exchanging news of the week. We stay until about 2 pm. (SM4, personal communication, p. 80)

These friends knew each other before their current residential

accommodations, which spread them across town, and are using this

arrangement to keep and maintain their strong social ties.

The group gathers outside the house boundaries, on the street, but will

have their meal in the house garden. It is a garden with:

three Niem and labakh trees (large and shady trees) at the edge of the house’s outer boundaries under which we sit… there are flowers, and there is a grape vine canopy, and lemon trees and zayzafoon. The trees were productive, but they are mostly liked for their looks. (SM4, personal communication, p. 80)

Shade, productive trees, and flowers are looked upon as favorable

contextual elements for a good social gathering.

The third and final home described is a one story house that has separate

quarters for family from guests. Gender segregation is most obvious in the

home when non family member guests are present.

…because of our culture, sometimes there is a partition between the salon and the main rooms. Sometimes some guests would not be allowed to sit with our family. That is why the salon is for guests, maybe if it is one of our relatives, he will be allowed, but the salon is mainly is for our guests. (SM1, personal communication, p. 89)

The family quarters has a room for the owner’s parents in addition to the

children’s and a master bedroom. The kitchen, the shower-room and toilet

are separated from the house.

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The showers, in a separate place, it is not connected to rooms like in America. Bathrooms are near the males’ rooms, but not connected to the building, and the restroom is far away from the main rooms. (SM1, personal communication, p. 89)

This home is modern, but using old techniques to acclimate to its

environment. Rooms have high ceilings, a verandah attached to them and

plenty of large windows for ventilation.

These houses vary in age, materials, and category. Houses have three

categories in Sudan. All are based on building quality and size. But they all

reflect the culture and natural environment in which they are built.

2.4.2.3.1.2.4 Neighborhood Mosques

In the interviews, three mosques were mentioned. All were at a very close

proximity to places of residence. One participant estimated the distance to

be “about three minutes’ walk” (SM7, personal communication, p. 79).

Another stated that “the mosque is one block away from us” (SM6,

personal communication, p. 82).

All mosques mentioned are incorporated in residential neighborhoods in a

variety of ways. Physically they are in the middle of the districts. “They are

residential…most of the people there own their houses. The mosque,…, is

in the middle of the area” (SM1, personal communication, p. 75). The call

for prayers Athan, which is heard across the neighborhood, is another way

the mosque is connected to its residential surroundings.

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Mosques, nonetheless, have a wall distinguishing their boundaries Haram.

Style and configuration is another distinguishing factor. “You can sense the

Islamic architecture. There are a lot of arches and on the top of the mosque

there is a huge dome” (SM1, personal communication, p. 76). Other

elements such as mihrabs, minarets, many columns, chandeliers, and

Quran bookshelves are present and considered contributing factors in

shaping the Islamic sense. Shops are a common component outside

larger mosques. “There are shops…at the outer walls of the mosque.

They are waqf” (SM7, personal communication, p. 79). These are

mostly convenience shops. (SM1, personal communication, p. 77)

The grounds between the walls and the mosque buildings are used for the

overflow of worshippers during Friday prayers. These are larger in land area

than the mosque’s building. (SM1, personal communication, p. 76) They are

furnished for shade, which can be provided by metal hangers or shade

plants.

Mosques are a dynamic entity. They vary in size, and can grow as needed

and as space is available. “A small prayer area Zawiah that they used to

pray regular prayers in a long time ago was rebuilt in a modern

fashion now. We pray Friday prayers in it now” (SM7, personal

communication, p. 79).

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2.4.2.3.1.3 Countryside Scale

There is one place category under the countryside scale. That place

category is garden and orchard.

2.4.2.3.1.3.1 Garden and Orchard

Farms and orchards are common along the Nile. These can be at a very

close proximity to major cities, such as the capital Khartoum. “Not far from

Khartoum, I would say, about fifteen miles from the last residential area"

(SM3, personal communication, p. 78). Such farms can be for commercial

use or just private purposes. Their close proximity to the Nile is a blessing

for good access to water and good soil, but can be a major disadvantage

when floods occur.

Although common, only one private family farm/orchard was described in

the interviews. “It is just a family farm, for our family’s needs” (SM3,

personal communication, p. 78). Family visitation to the farm is typically for

a half a day on Fridays, the national holy day and on Eid. Although there are

workers living on the farm the family practice farming when there. Being

limited to family needs,

it is a very small farm with fruit trees; oranges and mangos and some vegetables such as tomatoes, onions, a couple of cows for milk and two or three chicken sheds. It is about 21 acres. (SM3, personal communication, p. 78)

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The only structures at the farm/orchard are a metal fence, a small home for

the keeper and a small hall that is surrounded by a patio, for the family

when visiting.

2.4.2.3.2 Female Subgroup

Nine place categories were discussed during the interview with the female

participants from Sudan. These are: homes, schooling institutions, work

places, dormitories, neighborhoods, historic towns, streets, commercial

places, and public recreational places. Homes were mentioned the most of

all categories.

2.4.2.3.2.1 City Scale

There are five place categories under the city scale. These are: city,

commercial, educational, recreational and work place. In the following are

the categories as characterized by the participants.

2.4.2.3.2.1.1 Cities

The historic city, Sawakin, was mentioned in the interview. It was a very

wealthy and multi-cultural city on the Red Sea.

It used to be the biggest port, earlier, and it still has old houses that are not used now. It does not look like it is two

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to three hundred years old (size wise) because it used to be a very rich city. It was a destination for ships coming from the north, like Turkey or Egypt and from the south like Yemen. (SF4, personal communication, p. 56)

The old city was mostly abandoned as the country’s main port activities

moved to Port Sudan under the British rule. The current government has

“reestablished the port; rebuilt it and they used it again. And it is mainly for

the passenger ships going for Hajj or Omrah and returning, but also cattle”

(SF4, personal communication, p. 57).

Morphologically, the city has an old and a new part. The two parts are

separated by about a fifteen minute’s drive (SF4, personal communication,

p. 58).

The old city is a local and regional tourist attraction. Tourists walk around

the city on half day visitations. They will enter the houses, though privately

owned, to explore old structures and architectural artifacts.

The old city’s streets vary.

Some of them are straight, and others are in circles. It is not in order. This street, for example takes you out. The second one after is not parallel and takes you out, but you might find it a dead end, closed. (SF4, personal communication, p. 58)

It is evident that organic is looked upon as disorder in the description above.

On the sides of the streets are high buildings built of coral rocks. The average height of buildings is between two to three stories high; some just look like four, because of the different leveling used…some are very big houses, and sometimes they have fifty to sixty rooms. Some of these

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buildings are five or eight stories high, all built of coral brick. (SF4, personal communication, p. 58)

What is common across all the buildings are large window sizes, high

ceilings, and the various detailed wood treatments mashrabias they have

resulting in high ventilation. The coral rock is another response to local

climate. The highly porous rock is a good insulator; minimizing outside heat

from penetrating into buildings.

The old buildings also have verandas and attractive designs. People would

be

passing by and see, because they have the designs they have the verandas, and the mashrabias and also it has lots of influence, in furniture which is old and has a lot of style. (SF4, personal communication, p. 58)

Although older houses are neglected by their owners, they are considered

of a strong influence and much appreciated stylistically to the public.

2.4.2.3.2.1.2 Commercial Places

Concentrations of shopping and commercial functions are present in major

cities.

Khartoum Bahari Market is a kind of a formal market. It is like a formal market… it has companies, travel agencies, medical centers, and shopping, along with services, all in the same place. It is a center place so; people want to make their business in this center place. (SF1. personal communication, p. 49)

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The market is a street with ten to eleven story high buildings,

in the same building you can find stores for shopping, clothes, maybe a library. You find everything. I don’t know why, all the first floor is mostly furniture. (SF1. personal communication, p. 49)

The market has cafeterias and restaurants that people can order in or to-go.

These utilize the street areas in front of the stores with tables and seats

geared to serve their customers. So there is specialization in markets, but

there is also some overlap.

2.4.2.3.2.1.3 Education Institutions

A major city public university, as well as its dormitory, was well illustrated. It

is a large campus, with two smaller satellite campuses in and around the

city. All campuses are under the same management, though each has

unique colleges. They also have the same student union, which is elected

across all three campuses.

The main campus is a walled campus. It has a metal wall forged with

decorative iron. The campus has a spine road connecting two main gates of

the campus. It has large shade trees that cover the entire road. There are

seats and benches that are well used by students for social gatherings on

the road sides.

It is asphalt and it is very wide. It has cement benches along the side the road. There are really big trees, around

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one hundred to one hundred twenty years old. When you look at the trees from the end from the main library, they are higher than three floors…the road is all covered and closed with the trees. It is a good place, because it’s the center of the school. If you go there, you can see all your friends from different colleges; engineering, business and science. All the people with free time sit there. (SF1, personal communication, p. 53)

Colleges are built in a unifying style, though they are not identical. All have

arches, wooden windows and doors, and are set around the main spine.

They all have green walks connecting them to the university’s main spine.

The university’s library is set at the intersection of the main spine with

another main road, reflecting the position of the library in the hierarchy of

campus buildings.

The whole campus was built during the British rule of Sudan.

The female dormitory associated with Khartoum University is located across

the street from its walled campus. Both boys’ and girls’ dormitories are off

campus. The girls’ dormitory is closer to campus than the boys’.

You can see the classrooms from the girl’s dormitory,…The campus there is separate, and there is one dorm for girls, right across the street, and three to four blocks away is the dorm for the boys. (SF1, personal communication, p. 44)

It was evident that the university was expanding in population. At first the

dormitories were within the gated campus.

Earlier, we used to have the dorms inside, like at CU, but when the colleges expanded and they had more schools, they needed to use all the campus, so they moved the

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dorms across the street… There is still a wall there that divided the area into two, because it was used for both boys and girls. (SF1, personal communication, pp. 45-46)

For local social and cultural norms, the boys were the ones sacrificed and

pushed further from campus and the girls were given proximity priority.

The dormitory is a walled complex with seventeen multi-story residential

buildings, twenty to twenty-five convenience stores, a study hall, a dining

hall, two kitchens and plenty of open space with game courts and greenery.

The buildings are mostly three stories high set parallel to each other in rows. Each floor has ten to fifteen rooms like a row. In front of the rooms…a veranda, a long thing, and at the end there are also eight to ten bathrooms. The rooms have three to four bunk beds, desks, and a kitchenette. Students of one college are given a whole building, with each floor designated for a college level. Students move up their building’s floors as they advance in their college studies.

The students are given the right to select their roommates, so they were all friends. That reflected on the social life at the dormitory. In a description of the social standing of the large (one hundred persons) study hall, a participant said: “And I used to like it very much, because it included all my friends and I felt very comfortable. (SF1, personal communication, p. 45)

The dormitory is an active place. Besides studying, sleeping and dining,

students played sports on the dormitory’s grounds. This is most common on

weekends. Students play on their own or get a “trainer for exercising if you

want. Between 2-5 PM, there are different activities in the dorm you can

join” (SF1, personal communication, p. 45).

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Since all students at the dormitory have their families out of town, they tend

to focus on the dormitory’s activities as a substitution for time spent away

from family.

These activities are held on the green grounds filling the space between the

buildings. The grounds have plenty of large old shade trees. They are also

lined with boxes of jasmine bushes. Grounds are heavily used for social,

sports and study activities.

To accommodate students’ life styles, the study hall is open all the time, and

the stores scattered across the dormitory grounds serve most students’

needs.

2.4.2.3.2.1.4 Public Recreational Places

Two forms of public recreational areas were mentioned. The first is what

was called Carnival. It is an amusement park with modern rides, located in

downtown Khartoum. It is open year round, but has more emphasis during

the Eid time. People will visit it as a part of their Eid activity and it will

respond by adding more games, rides, and festive decorations.

Every family, or every two to three families go together (to the carnival), and they take their kids to the downtown where there are carnival places, music and parties,…in Eid is more fun and decorated; more games and more fun and music and everything. The people are very happy to go, because during the year they get busy and do not go, but during Eid they go. (SF2, personal communication, p. 54)

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The place is large and has open green spaces between the rides and the

restaurants.

Another type of public place that people go to, as a part of Eid activities, are

clubs. They are sport clubs with restaurants on the sea front or the Nile.

Just like the carnival place, it has green spaces and restaurants from which

people enjoy watching sailing ships day and night. Clubs have leisure sports

too. These include swimming pools, tennis courts, ping pong. They also

have playgrounds for children.

Following the traditional construction custom, older clubs are built of local

coral reef bricks.

So, visiting such places, though open and visited during the year, intensifies

at Eid time. The recreational facilities respond to the occasion by adding

rides and holiday decorations. Open green grounds are much appreciated,

and children’s playgrounds are common.

2.4.2.3.2.1.5 Work Place

A huge management training and maintenance complex is created to serve

and administer Port Sudan. “It is a very old building and a very old place. It

is the main port in Sudan or the first and major port in Sudan, and the

buildings are mostly operating buildings” (SF2, personal communication, p.

47).

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The layout of the high-walled complex is linear in which departments are set

along a main axis road. The buildings were built over a long span of time.

Each department had its own walled space.

Each department has a separate wall,…the first is built of very old sea rocks (coral rocks)…that is for the first department (the old one). The second department…is a training center, but it’s not very old. The old first building is maybe one hundred years old, but the second department after is maybe forty to fifty years old. It is just a training area…it is mainly a quiet area. Then there are the departments for shopping for supplies. It is not modern like the training center, but is kind of old, with a low fence built of coral rocks. It is two floors and it is all offices…there is a press where they can make publications for us and they also do commercial work. There is also a big wide area that is open. At the end of this row, are the headquarters, It is kind of new. It used to be in an old one (building) but this new headquarter was built ten to fifteen years ago. It is a kind of a tower, with eight to ten floors. (SF2, personal communication, p. 47)

So, the deeper one move into the complex, the newer the building. The

distinct zoning and segregation of functions is carried on within the

buildings. They are divided according to functions, just as is the case with

the overall complex. “There are four rows of classrooms and then our

offices are on the other side, followed by the manager and the supervisors

and then the training instructors” (SF2, personal communication, p. 47).

The industrial form and layout is very distinct in this place.

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2.4.2.3.2.2 Neighborhood Scale

There are three place categories under the neighborhood scale. These are:

neighborhood, streets and home. In the following are the categories as

characterized by the participants.

2.4.2.3.2.2.1 Neighborhoods

That there is an obvious distinction of character is evident across different

parts of the city. “When you cross the bridge, it looks like a different

neighborhood” (SF1, personal communication, p. 48). The change of

character mentioned, has focused on land use, density of buildings, and

building materials.

Besides a commercial neighborhood, the interview yielded a description of a

residential neighborhood. It is a place where old urbanism is mixed with the

new.

This place is very old. You can see some very old houses where they are built of mud bricks. They look like the normal ones with cement, but the roofs are built of metal. All of them have one floor...It is a good neighborhood and you can find very modern places, but still some people have very old houses. (SF1, personal communication, p. 49)

There, residents plant trees in front of their houses for shade.

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2.4.2.3.2.2.2 Streets

Although streets on the Nile are mostly congested with traffic during the

day, they have low traffic and are pleasant at night. People walk these

streets for pleasure during their free time.

After five or six in the evening, people like to go out and walk in the streets, and it is nice, because it’s not a very busy place. You can take the kids, with the family, if you want to go for a walk. (SF5, personal communication, p. 50)

The restaurants, coffee shops and ice cream shops are busy during that

time, so people would not sit inside, but rather take their food to eat along

the walk, or eat it on tables outside the stores at the streets’ side.

…the ice cream store… is very busy; you can sit inside the store. Some stores will have a second story, like for pizza. You can sit inside the second store, but most of the time you take your stuff out and enjoy walking. There are cafeterias, like restaurants, that sell food and lunch and everything. They have these nice tables outside and inside. You can sit inside or outside. (SF5, personal communication, p. 59)

A commercial street has shops lined with multi-story buildings. The ground

level stores are specialized stores, while the upper levels are commercial

offices. (SF1, personal communication, p. 50)

Major streets are bridged over the Nile to the city center. A British colonial

bridge was described as follows:

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It is a metal bridge … it has arches…not roofed… it is green...two ways each of two lanes, and there are also two paths. One is for bikes and motorcycles and one for walking, most of the times people…walk enjoying the Nile. (SF1, personal communication, p. 50)

2.4.2.3.2.2.3 Homes

All three homes described in the interview were grandparents’ homes. They

varied between old and new. In these homes, rooms are gender defined.

There are two main divisions of the living quarters in these homes. The first

is the family/ladies’ quarters, and the second is the guests’/men’s quarters.

The family quarters of the house are set at the inner part of the house. The

two parts can be separated by a courtyard-like open space.

An old sea front house is described as a place that

Had a very long veranda and the bedrooms open onto it. And there is a main bedroom for the father and mother and then a second one that is in a row facing the veranda which is facing the street... at the end of it there is a wall and a big door separating this place from this, and there is a big veranda and one bedroom and a salon for men... then at the far end there are rooms in the same style, there are two to three rooms in a row and then there are two kitchens.... they make a big kitchen where you cook everything and then another smaller one. (SF2, personal communication, p. 51)

With all the divisions caused by the strong sense of privacy, the house is

airy and well ventilated and built to function in a hot humid environment.

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Because the city is very humid, the homes are 100% wood. The homes are like a wooden fence. The fence is not completely closed. The lower 3/4 is closed and the top ¼ is a square patterned wood which opens to let air in... Rooms are facing the street, which separates the house from the sea. They are very high, and it had a very long veranda. The rooms are elevated relatively high above ground level to allow for better exposure to air drafts. All these elements allow the house to be acclimate through good ventilation. (SF2, personal communication, p. 51)

The courtyard is also fitted for the hot climate. It has several big date palm

and Niem trees for good, well used, shade. “The family will gather on hot

days or on Fridays, to eat and stay and make a BBQ in it” (SF2, personal

communication, p. 52). The courtyard was at a time used to host domestic

animals in one of its corners.

They have a place to keep the sheep and goats, but not nowadays. Because my father is a veterinarian, we used to have some at out home. We had ducks and like two hundred chickens. (SF2, personal communication, p. 52)

Modern homes are set differently in term of solid/void configuration. They

tend to have multiple stories, “The average is three floors in this

neighborhood, but sometimes you can find a very big six or eight instead of

one floor” (SF1, personal communication, p. 56). Modern houses have their

open spaces located differently from older houses,

influenced by the British, where you find at the entrance a big garden and at the end of it there will be a houses or maybe a big garden to your right or left on either side of the house. (SF1, personal communication, p. 56)

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So in other words, the garden space is not concealed within the house but

rather at the sides.

The configuration of the house is similar to the partitioning of the older

houses, though larger in scale.

Mostly these people make the family houses’ first two floors for the reception of people. Then the third and up are two or three apartments for each floor. Sometimes there will be an extended family where they give the top floors to a family member, like a daughter or a son. Sometimes they rent it, if their family members are out of the country or something. They make it an investment. (SF2, personal communication, p. 51)

The sense of hospitality is very evident in the house configurations of old

and new. It is a response to cultural norms. “The people from the country

come for ships to go for hajj, so all the time you have guests from all places,

and they had no hotels, so you had to have a separate place for the guests”

(SF2, personal communication, p. 51).

2.4.2.4 Conclusion

Many places were mentioned during the interviews. The frequency of

mentioning a particular place varies across groups and across gender.

Table 2.4.3 illustrates the percentage of mentioning of a place category in

relation to a group and to gender.

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Homes are the highest mentioned place for two out of three groups

(Moroccan and Pakistani) and the second highest the Sudanese group,

where streets were the highest.

Even though city/neighborhood/home categories were used to elicit the

discussion in workshops, the data lend itself to city, neighborhood and

country side categories better. Boundaries between home and

neighborhood are blurred in spite of strict rules for privacy that makes the

home appear “introverted” to an outsider. However, home without its

neighborhood context is meaningless. And, the neighborhood is clearly

made up of homes that are organically correlated to make up the

neighborhood.

Another interesting result that should be mentioned is the infrequent

mention of the countryside events. The framework for the discussion did not

include a “regional” or “rural” category. Therefore, the resulting categories

are almost exclusively urban. However, in spite of this, four out of five

groups did talk about the countryside. What does that mean?

One reason for that is the strong connection to family members, such as

grand parents and uncles, who are living in the countryside. Another reason

is that the groups involved in the study have rural roots. Or it might be an

idealized image of urban minds of the rural life and environment that

motivated sharing events in rural context. It might be all reasons mentioned

above or a combination of a number of them.

Females provided richer description of places in all of the groups, compared

to the males. This is interesting considering the findings in western cultures

where the cognitive map of females were found to be less articulate and

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covered smaller areas compared to their male counterparts. Not only the

narratives were richer, the females covered the same territory as the males.

This is significant, given the socially motivated restrictions put on women in

Islamic countries. This result may be a function of the technique used that is

narrative rather than mapping. Nevertheless, it is something that warrants

further investigation.

Work place ranked the lowest in the percentage of mentioning. Only one

person mentioned work. It was a female from Sudan.

Gender wise, work places, education, neighborhoods and homes were

mentioned the most by the female subgroups. On the other hand, mosques,

urban parks, streets, and recreational facilities were mentioned the most by

the male subgroups. City, commercial, homes and gardens and orchard

places were mention by both genders in a relatively equal frequency.

As one goes over the place categories illustrated by all participating groups,

one notices themes reoccurring within or across groups. These themes are

sometimes physical, other times social. In the following part of this chapter, I

will highlight and demonstrate these themes and link them to places of

occurrence, and to Islamic texts and traditions.

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2.4.3 Themes

Islamic and secular themes have surfaced from the events/places

illustrated in the place categories above. They showed up through the

social characteristics of the studied subcultures; and through that in their

urban morphology.

The categories explained below are a distillation of recurring themes from

the wide array of information derived from the data shared by the

participants from all three countries involved in this study. Each is linked to

related Islamic texts and teachings, if applicable to establish religious

influences on the behavior settings, i.e. activity/place ensembles where is

a congruence between the physical or morphological characteristics and

activities.

2.4.3.1 Centrality of Religious Functions, and Celebrations, in Social Life

Rِeligious functions such as Friday prayers, Ramadan and Eid are central

to social life. They are weekly and annual rituals through which social ties

are reinforced. The most frequent are Friday meetings typically occurring

after Friday prayer. “My weekly memory was going to my grandparents’

house every Friday” (PM3, personal communication, p. 35). Meeting at

the families’ elder’s house is typical, but meeting at friends’ houses is also

common. One participant reflected that by stating: “On the weekend…my

father…would invite people to come over, or we would go with them on

the weekend (Friday)” (PF6, personal communication, p. 26). Gathering

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with friends on Fridays is practiced in Sudan too. A Friday breakfast

gathering takes place at a friend’s house. According to the participant, that

time is invested to keep social ties that are weakening by current housing

policies practiced in Sudan through which people are granted residential

lots based on job rank and level of income, thus scattering family, friends

and neighbors across town.

Ramadan is one of the annual religious events that gather family and

friends and neighbors. In Ramadan, religious and social activities

dominate life. Many activities are held in mosques.

Taraweeh (special prayers in Ramadan)…along with some kind of explanations of Quran and Sunnah (prophet traditions) sometimes occur in the morning also, generally the whole period will be spent…in the mosque. (PM8, personal communication, p. 44)

On the social front, extended families typically gather for a Ramadan

breakfast Iftar in the elder’s house. That is what the female participants

concentrated on in the interviews. Ramadan was a joyful time, full of

happy memories.

Eid celebration is another holiday where all members of the family gather

from different regions and possibly across continents. “Eid Ul Fitr and the

Qorbani also is a part of the family functions” (PM8, personal

communication, p. 44).

This gathering takes place in the elders’ house.

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Normally it’s my father’s place. I mean the elders of the family who will become the center for all the children and the grandchildren that will be a very common kind of a thing. (PM8, personal communication, p. 44)

The gatherings are not confined to houses, but rather extended to parks,

clubs and carnivals. “After ten to eleven (AM) every family or every two to

three families they go together and they take their kids to the downtown

where there are carnival places and music and parties” (SF2, personal

communication, p. 54). In other words, celebration of religious events

takes place at various scales and all domains of urban fabric.

2.4.3.2 Public Responsibility

Participants from three regions have agreed that it is the responsibility of

the capable to help the disadvantaged. This sense of responsibility

towards the community has shaped the use and physical form of both the

private and the public realm.

Socially, closer members of the family, extended family or the neighbors

give psychological and physical support in time of need. Examples

included a daughter of a broken marriage take care of by a grandfather

and then an aunt, a mother and her young child sharing the limited space

of an apartment with her elder son and his wife, or family members

opening their house for the wedding of a relative. These are examples

which show that social responsibility begins at the inner circle of societies.

Muslims were directed to this in the following Prophet Mohammad’s

tradition:

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Narrated Anas bin Malik: Abu Talha was the richest man in Medina amongst the Ansar and Beeruha' (garden) was the most beloved of his property…Abu Talha got up in front of Allah's Apostle and said, "O Allah's Apostle! Allah says in His Book, 'You will not attain righteousness unless you spend (in charity) that which you love,' and verily, the most beloved to me of my property is Beeruha (garden), so I give it in charity and hope for its reward from Allah. O Allah's Apostle! Spend it wherever you like." Allah's Apostle appreciated that and said, "That is perishable wealth, that is perishable wealth. I have heard what you have said; I suggest you to distribute it among your relatives." Abu Talha said, "I will do so, O Allah's Apostle." So, Abu Talha distributed it among his relatives and cousins. The sub-narrator (Malik) said: The Prophet said: "That is a profitable wealth," instead of "perishable wealth." (Bukhari, web site, 2005)

Caring for the deprived is extended to the public realm as well. The Waqf

system reflects of the sense of public responsibility demanded by the

religion. Waqfs are religious, economic, residential and recreational real-

estates dedicated to serve the public for the sake of Allah. Awqaf (plural)

vary in size and locations; stadiums, shops and mosques were mentioned

as waqfs throughout the interviews. Mosques, which are generally waqfs,

tend to have waqf shops in their vicinities. Typically mosques have waqf

shops attached to them that serve the community’s daily needs.

The mosque…the lower section will be a market, and the market can have a lot of things, it could be silk, it could be clothes, it could be hardware, so they don’t have to go far. (PM7, personal communication, p. 32)

These are donated to the mosque by charitable persons of the

community. The lease revenue of the shops support the mosques

maintenance or expansions, if needed, and the worshipers have easy

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access to daily household shopping needs (PM7, personal

communication, p. 31). To shop at the waqf shops is a responsible thing to

do, because the mosque benefits from the sustained shops, and so does

the local economy. Also, keeping in mind that Muslims pray five times a

day, the location next to the mosque makes shopping for everyday needs

very convenient. This type of spatial mingling of the mundane and the

sacred gives the Islamic public realm its unique identity. Such unexpected

juxtaposition often surprises those who encounter these places for the first

time. It is an ingenious cycle that only flourishes with the sense of civil

responsibility.

2.4.3.3 Maintenance of Values by Spatial Articulation of Private and Public Realm

Interconnected concentric layerings of a social life have reflected on parts

of the urban form; namely, the extended family house, adjacent streets,

mosques and local parks.

Interconnected concentric layering of social life reflects on urban form.

First there is the family. It is where children learn their basic social skills.

Then these skills further develop through contacts within the second layer,

which is the extended family. The family life ideally is embedded within the

second layer, which is the extended family in the confines of the joint

assembly of households. The next layer is the neighborhood; interaction

with neighbors most often occurs in the adjacent neighborhood streets.

Links to the rest of the society is maintained in mosques, markets and

local parks. It is arguable that the morphology of the traditional Muslim city

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has evolved to support the social values and communal ties according to

Islamic teachings. Al-Bukhari, Muslim and other early scholars devoted

chapters in their collection of Prophet Mohammad’s traditions relating to

urban affairs. More recently scholars, such as Hakim, point out Quranic

verses and Prophet Mohammad’s traditions on Muslim Urbanism. (Hakim,

1986) The following sections attempt to show how the spatial arrangement

of private, semi-private and public realms has been informed by Islamic

teachings, values, and practices.

2.4.3.3.1 Private Realm

Social skills and ethical conduct are planted and nurtured in childhood,

through exposure to members of the extended family since birth.

Gathering at the family’s seniors’ house illustrates the centrality of the

elders. “We used to go to my grandparents weekly and catch a lot of the

family there” (PM5, personal communication, p.39). Gathering at the

eldest house adds much structure to the family; where different age-

groups develop social skills within and across groups. “I mean the elders

of the family becoming the center for all the children and the grandchildren

would be a very common kind of a thing” (PM8, personal communication,

p. 44). To have that attitude toward family and family values is not

extraordinary, especially if we read the following verse from the Holy

Quran:

And we have enjoined on man to be dutiful and kind to his parents. His mother bears him with hardship. And she brings him forth with hardship, and the bearing of him, and the weaning of him is thirty months, till when he attains full

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strength and reaches forty years, he says: "My Lord! Grant me the power and ability that I may be grateful for Your favor which You have bestowed upon me and upon my parents, and that I may do righteous good deeds, such as please You, and make my offspring good. Truly, I have turned to You in repentance, and truly, I am one of the Muslims (submitting to Your Will). (Surah 46: 15).

Strong relations to direct family are also asserted in hadith.

Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, The word 'Ar-Rahm (womb) derives its name from Ar-Rahman (i.e., one of the names of Allah) and Allah said: 'I will keep good relation with the one who will keep good relation with you, (womb i.e. Kith and Kin) and sever the relation with him who will sever the relation with you, (womb, i.e. Kith and Kin) (Bukhari, web site)

The typical extended family’s daily gatherings, or on Fridays, Ramadan or

Eid are other assemblies that build up strong social skills and family ties in

preparation of the children and youth to be strong members of the larger

society.

So we had our opinions and we had our discussions and disagreements everyday in the evening…our family was very open and we can talk about anything… anybody can come and join in, neighbors…any time without any boundaries. (PF1, personal communication, p. 3)

Abu Huraira, may Allah be pleased with him, reported: Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) observed: He who believes in Allah and the Last Day should either utter good words or better keep silent; and he who believes in Allah and the Last Day should treat his neighbor with kindness; and he who believes in Allah and

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the Last Day should show hospitality to his guest (Muslim, web site)

The joint assembly household is a major contributing asset to this type of

upbringing.

The cellular house configuration, needed to suit joint family assemblies, is

commonly mentioned across groups. The house, the most intimate and

private urban unit has kept its traditional cellular configuration across the

regions. Keeping the traditional extended family residential arrangements

alive is representative of the strongest form of ties within the society.

For the house to serve an extended family, it is equipped with multiple

service units, such as kitchens, bathrooms and toilets to serve the various

households within the house. This eliminates causes of friction and turmoil

within the extended family and causes more comfort and peace to the

extended family arrangement. Service units, one has to mention, were

found to vary in size, shape and level of equipment;

We…had two kitchens in the house, one was smaller and one was big…my uncle’s wife…used that kitchen, which was bigger and it had a water pump…more space…cabinet and…a big window also. The kitchen…I used…had no windows. (PF1, personal communication, p. 2)

This arrangement was accepted.

It is common, across regions, for such services to be physically distanced

from the main house building, or located across an open space from the

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living quarters of the house. (MM4, SM4, and SF1, personal

communication) This detachment might be caused by noise that may

affect the living quarters. The courtyard, or the common ground, is where

the family meets daily for their afternoon forum. That is a very politic place

to gather and discuss issues openly. Being open and unroofed is another

factor that makes people detach themselves from the normal enclosed

rooms of the house; an open place selected to be the most public place in

the house. An open place that the whole house is open to, through plenty

of windows, doors and porches, while sheltered from the outside by a wall

and trees. A place where “Everyone has his own patch of sky” (MM4,

personal communication, p. 64); linking him/her to the infinite, to the

truth…to heaven. It is not a coincidence that participants called the

courtyards, “Alriyadh” (Rawdah; singular) (Participant, personal

communication, P. 111). That is a word used for gardens, and many times

used in the Quran and Hadith in reference to paradise gardens. Thus,

courtyards are well decorated with traditional artistic influences that are

rooted in the local cultures; all of which are influenced by Islam. Fruitful

(productive) trees, scented flowers, geometric (order) brightly colored tiles,

sometimes a light (conservative) touch of the source of life (water), all of

which is set in a geometric (ordered) layout. To that place all house units

have visual or audio access. So all house units have a link to the Rawdah;

a family’s own private piece of heaven. Courtyards are an urban element

that links surrounding urban units to climatic changes, to Allah’s will and

blessings; all of which are signs of The Creator.

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2.4.3.3.2 Semi Public Realm

Neighbors are the third layer of the society one is exposed to after his

immediate and extended family. They are an intermediate social group

linking the family to the rest of the society. Relations to neighbors are

typically strong.

The neighbors in front of us were shop keepers…so we had good relations with them. The neighbors in the back of the house, they were not really relatives, but relatives to my brother in law…good family relation. (PF2, personal communication, p. 34)

Neighbors are a link that both the religion and the culture brought close to

the family.

Narrated 'Aisha: The Prophet said "Gabriel continued to recommend me about treating the neighbors kindly and politely so much so that I thought he would order me to make them as my heirs. (Bukhari, web site)

Islam has set the tone for tight neighborhoods by emphasizing good

manners among neighbors.

Narrated Abu Huraira:

The Prophet said, "Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day should not hurt (trouble) his neighbor… (Bukhari, web site)

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That is also evident in the following hadith:

Narrated Abu Huraira: …forbade preventing one's neighbor from fixing a peg in (the wall of) one's house. (Bukhari, web site)

Prophet Mohammad made a clear connection of that tie to the physical

urban environment.

Narrated Al-Araj: Abu Huraira said, "Allah's Apostle said, 'No-one should prevent his neighbor from fixing a wooden peg in his wall." Abu Huraira said (to his companions), "Why do I find you averse to it? By Allah, I certainly will narrate it to you." (Bukhari, web site)

The street, outside the house, is the closest place with a similar practical

function to the courtyards; though it is culturally restricted to males. There

are religious conditions to socializing in the streets too.

Abu Sa'id Al-Khudri, may Allah be pleased with him, reported: Allah's Messenger (May peace be upon him) said: Avoid sitting on the roadsides. They (his Companions) said: Allah's Messenger, there is no other alternative (but to sit here) as this is where we hold our meetings and discuss matters. Thereupon Allah's Messenger (May peace be upon him) said: If you have to sit at all, then fulfill the rights of the road. They said: What are these rights? Thereupon he said: Keeping the eye downward (so that you may not stare at women), refraining from doing harm to others, exchanging mutual greetings (saying Al-Salamu 'Alaikum to one another) and commanding the good and forbidding the evil. (Muslim, web site)

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Gathering at the streets is shown as a cultural habit that was placed to

order by the religion. From the interviews, streets are where children play;

adults play cards or socialize with other neighbors or friends, and are the

most private, public place, in the urban fabric. The narrow local

neighborhood streets are semiprivate places that are treated as an

extension of the house space. Temporary furniture at the side of the street

sets the stage for a temporary semi private intimate behavior setting. This

setting has neighbors’ multi-shaped and multi-sized windows overlooking

the place of assembly. This is a similar setting to the courtyard’s setting

inside the home. The difference is that the social group overlooking the

place of assembly is from the next social concentric circle, the neighbors

but in a semi public place as opposed to the private house.

The whole street’s width is shared by cars, pedestrians and socializing

groups and occasionally weddings or funeral assemblies. Street light

fixtures attached on the house’s walls limited plants to hanging from the

windows or to trees cantilevering from inside the houses. This was

another method used to improve the local streets through innovative

solutions that will not crowd a limited place. That requires a strong bond

for the neighbors to extend the courtesy needed to manage all in such a

limited space and accessibility.

2.4.3.3.3 The Public Realm

After planting the sense of social connection to one’s family, and

neighbors, there comes the tie to the collective. It is a conditional

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connection. It is a connection to they who believe in a code of ethics and

beliefs.

Narrated An-Nu'man bin Bashir: Allah's Apostle said, "You see the believers as regards their being merciful among themselves and showing love among themselves and being kind, resembling one body, so that, if any part of the body is not well then the whole body shares the sleeplessness (insomnia) and fever with it." (Bukhari, web site)

As a result of the strong social sense propagated in members of the

society by the religion and the culture, the haves are motivated to extend

their wealth and care to the rest of the society in many forms. One form,

which was mentioned in the interview, is waqf. In the interview, waqfs

were not limited only to religious buildings, such as mosques and their

support system, but were also extended to municipal buildings. One was

mentioned in the interview. “We used to play cricket (on) a big field…some

people gave it as charity” (PM5, personal communication, p. 39). This

elevates social ties to a higher level where people are connecting to

others they don’t know personally to spread kindness and for rewards

from Allah. This elevation is what unites the collective into a single united

entity (i.e. an Ummah) All members of the Ummah have a responsibility to

each other.

Narrated Abu Musa: The Prophet said, "A believer to another believer is like a building whose different parts enforce each other." The Prophet then clasped his hands with the fingers interlaced” (Bukhari, web site)

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Social norms extend to some of the most public places, such as

occasional and permanent markets, schools, parks and mosques. These

places are affected by societal values and vice versa. As witnessed in the

interviews, it is the community that dictates land use, function and

dynamics, and then the community itself follows its regulatory decisions.

The concepts of occasional markets whether weekly or biannually, are

responses to societal shopping habits that are shaped by cultural and

religious events. The main idea is to optimize the use of valuable urban

space through multiplicity of use and function. All groups indicated that

such markets assembled on open grounds that are next to existing

permanent shops. Participants also indicated that weekly markets can

occur in a single settlement multiple of times per week, if the population

grew and demanded higher convening frequency.

The influence of the public was not limited to the locations or frequency of

a market, but also to the markets’ layouts. Shading devices and shaded

arcades are commonly used outside shops to shelter shoppers and goods

from the sun. Vendors are grouped according to specialty and are

arranged in lines, for comfort of the shoppers.

Mosques are other urban units that are shaped, physically, by the society,

for the sake of shaping the society’s spirituality. Mosques are built as a

house of the creator, Allah, for whom worshippers commence to glorify

and worship. In this day and age, mosques have lost their function as

societal decision-making centers.

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Mosques took many forms and were built in various scales to be in close

proximity to their constituencies. Besides central mosques, medium sized

local mosques and smaller corner mosques Zawiah’s are constructed

frequently around neighborhoods. These mosques exist as independent

structures. Smaller mosques sometimes exist as attached structures to a

public or a private institution. This hierarchy is reflected on the functions a

mosque offers, and thus on the architectural and spatial units forming the

mosque. Local mosques are small to moderate in size, depending on the

population of the neighborhood, and are simple in configuration and

decoration. They offer no less than a prayer hall and an ablutions area.

Central mosques, on the other hand, have more functions than just to

offer prayer and ablutions facilities for both genders. They are thus larger.

All mosques serve as places of worship, but larger mosques have

additional activities and places to help serve the community. Education,

Ramadan activities, accommodations for mosque personnel, worshippers

overflow grounds and waqf shops are all common in larger central

mosques. Mosques attached to governmental and private institutions are

much simpler in configuration than central mosques. They are similar to

Zawiah mosques.

So, small and medium sized mosques are present at a higher frequency

than central mosques. They basically answer the daily need for a prayer

place. Their size allows them to be fit into the dense existing urban fabric,

thus making them easily accessible to the public. They are places where

neighbors meet in a parallel, more public setting to homes and local

streets, forming a stronger bond with the wider circle of the community.

Large, central, mosques on the other hand, answer to larger

congregational prayers and religious educational needs, in addition to the

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five daily prayers. On Friday, mosques are where a wider circle of

socialization occurs.

Mosque hierarchy introduces community members to each other in a

hierarchical fashion. Cultural and societal influence on the urban

environment starts diminishing beyond these public places.

In schools, the only cultural and societal influences on are gender

segregation from the seventh grade to high school, and on local food

served in the schools’ cafeterias. Beyond that, almost all have Western

influences in layout design, education system and culture.

Clustering schools, which common pattern, makes them less spread-out,

and thus less easily accessible to students. Some students had forty-five

minute journeys to schools located within town, while universities are

traveled to from different towns and regions. The isolation from the local

social environments is pushing students towards individuality and

disconnection from the group, but at the same time is widening their social

horizons by connecting them to students from other regions.

University social life is very strong that informal social and education

activities dominated the interviews. Socially, the community there is

detached from previous social hierarchies. What is noted is that across

subgroups and across groups, socialization, on a university campus, took

place in the same traditional setting common to the core of the social unit,

the private garden/courtyard of the house. All elements that are highly

valued in the native social environments are present. Universities' open

spaces are enhanced aesthetically and practically by game courts and

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fields, well maintained shade trees, green open spaces, fragrant and

colorful flowers, furniture, fountains and sculptures, but most importantly a

group of companions that are of the same age group and share common

higher values.

The effect of society on the urban fabric diminishes as you progress into

the public realm.

Universities, which were mentioned quite frequently by all groups, had

modern layouts. They are large entities that are isolated from their

surroundings; all are walled or fenced with restricted entry policies. The

promenade-like setting and activities mentioned are signs of alien social

settings which generated social activities that are far different from the

extended-family settings or neighborhoods’. The isolation and the physical

setting of universities have yielded a unique social life different from the

house and neighborhood settings. Nonetheless, similarities with the house

configuration, namely the courtyard in the center of a dormitory, acted as

a catalyst in reserving aspects of social ties in the modern university

setting. Traditional elements, such as the courtyard with a typical Islamic

garden layout and materials in the modern styled university dorm along

with multi-use places and activities in the dorms, were parts of a university

life that added familiarity with the native urban fabric of the population.

From the university place categories, dorms and open green places

developed between universities, buildings function as alternative places

for private and semi-private open spaces at the private realm. These

places are definitely promoting and hosting higher levels of social ties

within the university setting.

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The next public place mentioned is parks. Larger scale parks are common

to city outskirts, while smaller urban parks are common to urban centers.

Nearby parks are where the larger scope of interaction occurs, thus better

interaction with the neighbors and friends. Interviewees from all three

groups agreed that their interaction with their immediate surrounding

urban places is, in general, much higher than distant places. One notices

the impact of such a reaction at the occupation of public places such as

open grounds and streets for playing cards or soccer, or even holding

wedding ceremonies across the groups interviewed.

The social relationships exhibited in the interviews appear to start from

the house. They expand in a concentric fashion to cover extended

family neighboring residences and immediate streets outside the house.

They then expand in a radial fashion to cover neighbors, schools, work,

local mosques, local parks and local shops. Then in repetitive rhythmic

fashion expands to occasional markets, Friday mosques, friends’

gathering places, and rural parks. (See figure 2.4.1)

The more intimate the physical context, the more adapted and

personalized it is. The reason, as shown in the interviews, is that its

inhabitants have more freedom customizing their living places to be

responsive to their needs. That is not the case with public places. They

are shaped, mostly, with minimally filtered adaptations of foreign

physical and socio-cultural ideas. The result is a public realm that is

minimally responsive to local life habits and environmental

requirements. This difference is attitude in shaping private versus public

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2.4.1 Social and Physical Interrelation in a Muslim Urban Fabric

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There is a movement towards individuality that surfaced in the interviews

with all groups. It is a late development that the current generation of the

interviewers started to witness. Lack of collaboration in family events was

shared while describing a wedding event. “That is a sign that relationships

are weakening “(MM4, personal communication, p. 118). That has

reflected on the nature of some members of the society, which is reflected

on the urban settings.

Nonetheless, strong social ties exhibited in the private and some times in

semiprivate realm are very reflected in the interview transcripts, which are

a reflection of the strong emphasis on the importance of the family and

immediate social surroundings. That is discussed in the following part of

this discussion.

2.4.3.4 Sacred Earth

For Muslims, Earth was created as a place of worship (a masjid) for

Prophet Mohammad, and subsequently to his followers. Earth is thus a

place for spirituality, a sacred place to which believers are stewards.

Fundamentals of Nature, such as plants and animals are elevated in value

as shown in the Holy Quran. Animals were elevated to the level of nations,

just like humans.

There is not an animal (that lives) on the earth, nor a being that flies on its wings, but (forms part of) communities like you. Nothing have we omitted from the book, and they, (all) shall be gathered to their lord in the end. (The Holy Quran, 6:38)

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In this verse, Allah is bridging the gap between humans and animals.

Although there is a sense of superiority of humans over animals, both

worship the Creator. “And We subjected the mountains and the birds to

glorify Our Praises along with Dâwûd (David). And it was We Who were

the doer (of all these things)” Quran, 21:79).

According to Quran, it is not only animals and mountains that are elevated

in status, but rather all components of our surrounding environment.

“Whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is on the earth glorifies

Allâh. His is the dominion, and to Him belong all the praises and thanks,

and He is Able to do all things” (Quran, Surah 64:1).

To a Muslim, glorification and praise dhikr of Allah, the creator, is

collectively continuous and never-ending. A 16th century Sufi’s story,

narrated in Schimmel’s book ‘Deciphering the Signs of God’, reflects the

impact of the above mentioned Quran verse on a Muslim psyche.

According to Schimmel, a Sufi master

sent his disciples to bring flowers to the convent. While all of them returned with fine bouquet one of them…offered the master only a little withered flower, for, he said ‘all the others were engaged in the praise of God and I did not want to disturb them; this one, however, had just finished its dhikr (recitation of prayers), and so I brought it’ It was he who became the master’s successor.” (Schimmel, 1994, p. 21)

Attention to the value of natural resources were addressed directly in

several hadiths of Prophet Mohammad.

Narrated Anas bin Malik: Allah's Apostle said, "There is none amongst the Muslims who plants a tree or sows seeds, and then a bird, or a

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person or an animal eats from it, but is regarded as a charitable gift for him (Bukhari, web site)

In another hadith,

Narrated Abu Huraira: The people asked, "O Allah's Apostle! Is there a reward for us in serving (the) animals?" He replied, "Yes, there is a reward for serving any animal (Bukhari, web site)

Such texts bring nature closer to humans by rewarding good deeds. This

has left a strong impact on Muslim cultures involved in this study.

It materialized in a strong connection to nature. This connection was

extended to rural and urban landscapes during the interviews. Memories

of natural elements covered: villages, cities, open and closed spaces,

plants, water bodies, climate, agricultural crops, wildlife, earth and the

skies.

In the following I will illustrate this strong connection as contextualized by

the participants

Appreciation of nature was extended to agricultural rural settings in the

interviews. In one incident, a clear sense of seasons, triggered by

association with change of seasonal crops, was a clear sign of ties

between inhabitants and their surrounding environment. These ties are

gravitating inhabitants to experience their surroundings not only from a

distance, but also from within.

Wherever you go you will see a different kind of crop, and if it was an old crop you will see the crop grow up, and in the next season you will see another crop, and you’ll see all kinds of animals……bicycling on the sides of the fields,

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and then you go to the canal,… (PM3, personal Communication, p. 36)

Sleeping on house roofs is another common practice through which the

inhabitants expose themselves amid their surrounding natural

environment. That practice is common during summer, when the weather

permits. Elements and representation of natural are enjoyed from a

distance. They are brought into homes; as a courtyard, a garden, a porch,

or a room. To bridge the gap between the indoor and the outdoors, art

work and plants were used for indoor places. To achieve that, people

used artistic framed needle work and paintings of natural picturesque

landscapes along with live plants. They are borrowed elements of nature

that are used to strengthen the links between the indoor and the outdoor.

But the most evident aspect of nature that was brought into a house is

spaciousness.

Desire for open spaces and nature are translated as spaciousness and

airiness in urban form. The appreciation of spaciousness is reflected in

Muslim religious texts. A spacious home is named one of four aspects of

happiness in Hadith. “Of happiness a good wife, a spacious home, a good

neighbor and a good mount” (Al-Qaradawi, web site).

The lines between buildings that are shaped by societal and cultural

norms, on one hand, and natural open places on the other, are blurred.

Although not evident from the outside, there are transitional elements

softening the change between the indoors and the outdoors.

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Within a home, there are indoor and outdoor places. The indoor places

within a home are also shaped to reflect spaciousness. Rooms commonly

have high ceilings and relatively large floor areas in all three regions. But

even those with smaller floor areas were described as “airy” due to the

transition elements between the homes’ indoor and the outdoor places.

The outdoor places are courtyards and flat house roofs, which are places

that have a direct connection to nature and spaciousness. As a participant

described them, they are places where “everyone has his own piece of

sky” (MM4, personal communication, p. 101).

The transitions between courtyards and surrounding rooms extend the

outdoor relative openness to adjacent indoors through plenty of large

door-size windows and doors. There will be a raised porch with an arcade

between the indoor and the outdoor, acting as a semi-open/semi-closed

extension of the both the indoor and the outdoor. "It had wind catchers on

top, and, you know, in old style houses you have many doors in every

room…" (PM3, personal communication, p. 50).

Openness and spaciousness was introduced in the houses at the historic

city of Sawakin, in Sudan. They were described as punctured with plenty

of large sized windows. And in Morocco, it is common for rooms on the

courtyards to have plenty of windows set in a symmetric manner. And all

regions have high ceilings for better ventilation. And to feel spaciousness,

seating arrangements are elevated above normal. With the high seats, the

high ceilings and the large open doors and windows, the boundaries

between the indoor and the outdoor blur.

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2.4.3.5 Breakdown of the Islamic City

2.4.3.5.1 Colonial Influence in Public Buildings

Western-originated urban units were introduced during and after colonial

times to the indigenous urban fabric. Urbanism is reflective of

contemporary sociopolitical policies of the time. Currently, structures

erected during the colonial eras are relatively modernized and utilized for

contemporary uses. An example of that is the stadium in Pakistan, port

administrative buildings and schools in Sudan and whole new cities in

Morocco. The colonial influence is present in the forms of whole cities,

public administrative buildings, civil buildings, sports’ playgrounds, school

complexes, houses and home decorations.

Cities, government administrative buildings, and houses, built during the

colonial period, are built in classic European architectural styles. They are

a reflection of the presence of the colonial government and its roots. They

also have had an imposing image needed to express the power of the

conqueror. It has affected social and physical aspects of local societies.

Universities, civil buildings, streets, homes and even rooms in Morocco,

Pakistan and Sudan, resembled British, Spanish and French heritage.

Most of the time they are copied and imposed on the native urban fabric.

This led to visually, functionally and stylistically isolating portions of the

urban fabric from the societies and the native urban fabric. With regards to

the situation in Pakistan, Ahmed, K. states that “the alienation from the

masses has been further accentuated by our desire to try to play the role

of the architect in the West, which is out of context in Pakistan” (Ahmad,

1986, personal communication, p. 152). Group members from all three

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regions involved in this study have expressed massive social and physical

change to their urban fabric, alienating the society from its native

environment. Change was so rapid and drastic that some subjects of this

research experiments did not recognize their own districts or homes.

2.4.3.5.2 Lack of Adaptive Assimilation

Adaptive assimilation was a common practice during the Islamic culture

classic period. During that practice, the Muslim culture would examine

foreign and pre Islam local urban and social elements and practices,

asses their compatibility to the culture, and then decide to adapt them or

not. Early in Islam, elements such as the Imam’s niche in the mihrab's wall

(the Qibla) and the minaret were adopted from non Muslim cultures. They

were adopted to serve different practical functions than the ones they

were originally used for to improve the Muslim Inhabitants’ social life. The

Muslim cultures of this time, as evident from the place categories listed

above, are far from this practice. They are hasty in adapting urban

structures and social practices with minimal adaptive assimilation to fit

local cultural practices and needs. Local culture and building techniques

and layouts are hardly, if ever, employed. When employed, they are used

to ornament a place or a structure, which limit the elements to aesthetic

purposes. Except for a few rare examples, such as the courtyard in the

center of the girls’ dormitory in Pakistan, it was evident in all regions

involved in this study that larger, public, schemes of developments are,

typically, negligibly adapted to the cultural and societal practices and

forms than smaller, private, developments.

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New developments are unique visually, structurally and functionally. All

new large projects were marked with walls of different fashions separating

them from their surroundings. There are no transitions adapting the new

places to their surrounding fabrics, resulting in the fragmentation of the

overall urban fabric. New zoning concepts that lack overlapping of

functions have exaggerated this effect to the scale of districts and cities.

Whole residential districts are dedicated as residential, such as in the

Moroccan, and the Pakistani sample. A wider scale example of that

segregation of zones is in the case of Om Dorman City in Sudan, the

whole city is basically residential while businesses are in Khartoum.

As was discussed in the interviews, all of these large projects and

planning schemes are commissioned by colonial and post-colonial

governments. Colonial regimes have utilized their own heritage to

develop, and further assimilate, colonized regions. Post colonial regimes

carried on the traditions and heritage introduced to the regions by the

colonialists, because of the cultural, administrative, and educational ties

enforced by the colonial powers that ruled the region.

Therefore, it is required from the Islamic culture to have a self-assured

development of adaptive assimilation; much needed for the urban fabric

not to be punctured by urban units the residence of which do not relate

and thus disintegrate the urban fabric. (Ismail Sirageldin, 2001)

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2.4.4 Conclusion

The place categories were reflective of the dissimilar backgrounds of this

study’s participating subjects. Places illustrated were very interesting, but

did not develop into the themes, because they did not develop a pattern

that could constitute a theme.

As was predicted, there was a lot of data versatility accumulated from this

experiment. Data collected has the potential to provide abundant raw data

for future studies concerned with social and physical aspects of the

Muslim urban culture/subculture.

The place categories and the themes have reflected that Islam has had a

clear influence on all three regions examined in this study; though non-

Islamic and secular influences are also present. Images of private realm

shared by the participants were shaped by the culture for the society itself

to live in, thus, reflective of local cultures, socio-economies and

environments.

The respective regional styles of Islamic architecture are not necessarily linked by formal resemblances, but they show inner affinities which are clearly based on related customs, patterns of use, and corresponding structuring principals…common denominator. (Bianca, 2000, p. 9)

It is true what Bianca said about daily life and conduct being driven by the

ritualized Islamic pattern of human behavior in the Muslim society. This is

currently diminishing and being restricted to the most private parts of the

Muslim urban environments. Images of the house and its surroundings,

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along with places that are deeply rooted in the cultures, namely, mosques,

and markets are the most reflective of the Muslim societies.

A reason of the divide between the private and public realm is the

industrialization and modernization shock Muslim cities endured under

and post colonial era; parallels of which are visible in the current age of

globalization. The public realm has been fragmented in a fast pace, while

the private realm is comparatively (for now) intact.

Fragmentation of the urban environment has touched Muslim cities at the

social level. Mentioning of contemporary social behaviors that were in

contradiction to Islamic teachings such as cross-gender secretive

communications and relations, and materialistic exhibitions in universities’

walks and disintegrating family ties were all expressed as present across

groups.

To improve the future understanding of current traditional urban

morphologies, there is a need to investigate modern historic preservation

schools for better preservation methods and techniques. In the next

chapter I will investigate historic preservation in the United States of

America, France, Britain and some techniques used in the Arab world.