Towards a Transcendent Architecture: Isfahan and Its Architectural Legacy

Home , Bazaar, Laleh Bakhtiar, Shah Mosque (Isfahan), Sussan Babaie

By Fatemeh Nasrollahi

Bachelor of Architecture, March 2010, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran Master of Architecture, June 2012, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada

A Thesis submitted to

The Faculty of The Colombian College of Arts and Sciences of the George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Art

May 15, 2016

Thesis directed by

Seyyed Hossein Nasr University Professor in Islamic Studies

Abstract

Towards a Transcendent Architecture: Isfahan and Its Architectural Legacy

This thesis focuses on the architectural factors responsible for the Islamic ideal city to emerge, develop and be sustained. The research specifically examines the spatial and architectonic features of Safavid Isfahan from its genesis to its culmination as the ideal of the capital of the Islamic state. It explores the ideal city as a concept and reality, and analyzes its effects on the built environment, culture and spiritual life.

Keywords: Islamic Ideal City, Islamic Architecture, Safavid Isfahan

ii Table of Content

Abstract ...... ii

Introduction ...... 1

1. Ideal Islamic City ...... 2

2. Safavid Isfahan ...... 6

2.1. Historic Form: The City of Isfahan, Urban Fabric and the Conception of Paradise . 9

2.2. Architectural Analysis ...... 20

2.2.1. The Imam Mosque of Isfahan ...... 27

2.2.2. Bazaar ...... 37

2.2.3. Madrasa Chahārbāgh ...... 41

3. Future Actions ...... 47

Conclusion ...... 50

Bibliography ...... 52

iii List of Figures

Figure 1. Hierarchy of Being and man’s journey between microcosm and macrocosm ..... 3

Figure 2. Isfahan to the north side by Eugène Flandin, 1840 ...... 7

Figure 3. Urban Fabric of Isfahan ...... 9

Figure 4. Historical map of Isfahan with its fortifications under the Buyids, Kakuyids, and

Safavids. After Šafaqi ...... 11

Figure 5. The maximum extent of the Safavid Empire under Shah ᶜAbbās I ...... 13

Figure 6. City plan of Isfahan during the Persian Safavid Empire era ...... 14

Figure 7. Three main axes of Safavid Isfahan: the Maidan-i Naghsh-i-Jahan, the

Chahārbāgh main artery, and the Zāyandehrūd, the river ...... 25

Figure 8. Isfahan and the Image of Paradise by Eugène Flandin, 1840 ...... 18

Figure 9. Isfahan and its urban fabric, Jāmi Mosque and bazaar ...... 19

Figure 10. Safavid Isfahan and Chahārbāgh Pattern ...... 21

Figure 11. City Structure before Islam (left)- City Structure In 11 A.D Century- Seljuk

(middle) – City Structure in 17 A.D Century- Safavid (right) ...... 23

Figure 12. Maidan-i Naghsh-i Jahan ...... 25

Figure 13. The public “sense of place” in Maidan-i Naghsh-i Jahan ...... 26

Figure 14. Four prominent structures in Maidan-i Naghsh-i Jahan, ...... 27

Figure 15: Imam Mosque of Isfahan ...... 28

Figure 16. Courtyard, Imam Mosque Source: Henri Sterlin. Ispahan ...... 29

iv Figure 17. Pythagorean Theorem and mathematical relationships in the courtyard, The

Imam Mosque ...... 30

Figure 18. Acoustical features and proportions of the dome ...... 32

Figure 19. Portal Muqarnas of the Shah Mosque ...... 35

Figure 20 & 21. Main Portal and Muqarnas of Imam Mosque ...... 36

Figure 22. Qayṡarieh gateway ...... 39

Figure 23. The linear structure of bazaar ...... 39

Figure 24. Intertwining of 3 conflicting systems: religious, city grid and bazaar ...... 40

Figure 25. Left: Covered bazaar street: Cupolas, Right: Bazaar aggregation ...... 40

Figure 26. Solṭānī or Chahārbāgh Madrasa by Eugène Flandin, 1840 ...... 42

Figure 27. Interior garden of college of Shah Solṭān-Ḥosayn by Eugène Flandin ...... 45

Introduction

This research investigates the principles and manifestations of the ideal of the

Islamic city in Safavid Isfahan. The goal is to demonstrate architectural and urban systems in Islamic architecture of Isfahan not only as theorized by particular scholars, but as practiced by Islamic designers. Further, this study reflects the profound symbolism and cosmology of the Islamic architecture of the Safavid period as means of expressing Islamic values. Through architectural and geometrical analysis, the thesis considers design attributes of traditional Islamic architecture. A close examination of prominent Persian mosques, madrasas and bazaars in Safavid Isfahan, highlights the presence of an ideal vision in the overall structure of the city. It also alludes to the intricacy of geometric and proportional design in Islamic architecture. The findings support the argument that principles of the ideal of Islamic city were discovered and applied by the Islamic culture of the Safavids, constituting one of the most inspiring architectural languages in the history of design.

Questions:

1. What is an ideal Islamic city?

2. Why the research focuses on Safavid Isfahan? (why this specific period and

location)

3. Why we have chosen the urban planning (and architecture) of Isfahan as a

central architectural reality to deal with? (thesis statement)

4. What types of (ideal) actions are to be taken for the future? (findings and

conclusion)

1. Ideal Islamic City

Within the consistent perspective of the traditional society, man journeys between his macrocosmic understanding of the universe and his microcosmic vision of himself. His conception of “city” stands in between these two ends, integrating “the symbolic principles of both views”1 (Figure 1). In this respect, Ardalan, an acclaimed international architect, in The Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Persian

Architecture, states

In the hierarchy of spatial conception or definition, the city is a positive shape set within the basic coordinate system of space. Insofar as the cosmos is defined, so the city is defined, and so man is defined. All three scales are viewed separately and together as determined, persistent, complete, and perfect in their archetypical existence.2

Accordingly, the phenomenon of the “ideal city” has haunted many civilizations including Islam. One of the oldest yet most controversial concepts in the study of

Islamic history and culture is that of the Islamic City. Islam is, in essence, an urban religion. Cities, in the Islamic civilization, “evolved from concepts which maintained the city walls that defined the cities’ positive shapes in space and their correspondence to cosmic laws.”3 This evolution is due to our intimate connection with nature and the fact that our inner state is reflected in the external order. Consequently, “cities and buildings, analogous to the forms of nature, appear complete and beautiful at every stage of their growth. As vital forms, they have within them the heritage of their past

1 Nader Ardalan, Laleh Bakhtiar. The Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Persian Architecture, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1975), p.79 2 Ibid 3 Ibid, p.89

2 and the seeds of their potential future.”4 Likewise is the system in which the city is an emulation of the human anatomy as well as the cosmic laws. Burkhardt, of the

“traditionalist” or “perennialist” 20th century school of thought, devoting his life to the study of wisdom and tradition, elaborates on this analogy and clarifies that

the Moslem artist [architect], by his very Islam, his ‘surrender’ to the Divine Law, is always aware of the fact that it is not he who produces or invents beauty, but that a work of art [architecture] is beautiful to the degree that it obeys the cosmic order and therefore reflects universal beauty… For the Moslem mind, art [architecture] reminds man of God when it is as impersonal as the laws that govern the movement of the heavenly spheres.5

Macrocosm Spiritual Needs cālam-i-hāhūt Divine Essence

the

cālam-i-mithāl Building The World of Imagination

Imagination

Physical Needs

c ālam-i-t abī at The World of Nature

Sense

the

Building

Microcosm

Figure 1. Hierarchy of Being and man’s journey between microcosm and macrocosm

4 Nader Ardalan, Laleh Bakhtiar, p.89 5 Titus Burckhardt, Mirror of the Intellect, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), p. 211

In the Islamic culture, sharia is added as an example of a normative element with regards to the evaluation of an ideal city. Sharia complies with the Quran, the prophetic tradition, an analytical expansion of these data and a consensus of the Islamic community (umma). Both as a religion and as a way of life, Islam was initially structured in a city, al-Medina. That original prototype was replaced by a series of models that were either taken on from the different cultures which Muslims learnt about or developed in response to the dynamic cultural, environmental, and social conditions.

But the idea of al-Medina seems never to have lost its paradigmatic demand, mainly in the writing of utopian jurists and philosophers until today. Medieval historians and geographers, on the other hand, established a formal and descriptive attitude that documented the changes they observed in the cities, although they hardly tried to explain these changes or to contextualize them. When they did, they were more concerned with the historical, sociological, and ecological analyses, and seldom religious or idealist interpretations.6

Modern historians and social scientists up until the 1970s in some manner changed that approach. Informed by Max Web’s construct of the ideal-type, “they suggested a rather essentialist Islamic City concept based on a set of morphological and legal criteria they attributed to Islam which seem to transcend the movement of history.” 7 They then attempted to authenticate the ideal-type idea by looking for evidence in a tiny sample of pre-modern cities in North Africa and Syria.

6 Nasser Rabbat, Lecture on Issues in Islamic Urbanism: The Islamic City: Historicity and Abstraction, MIT, Department of Architecture, Fall 2015 7 Ibid

In general, an ideal Islamic city is the one whose architectural styles and characteristics are inspired by full adherence to the norms and values of Islam. It is a city whose morphology, design and functions are imbued predominantly by Islam, are infused with the Islamic spirit, and stand for the embodiment of Islamic principles and values. It facilitates, fosters and stimulates a Muslim’s constant worship activities entrusted to him by Allah, helping him thus to elevate his status over that of the angels or higher and honorably live up to his reputation as God’s vicegerent on earth.

Drawing from an in-depth urban and architectural analysis of the Safavid

Isfahan, as an ideal architectural expression, this research looks at typical architectural forms of the Islamic city in Isfahan which reflect the social and cultural characteristics of Islamic community. It is important to understand the impact upon the Islamic city and its Muslim inhabitants of the cultural invasion by modern Western, i.e. industrial and post-industrial, practices in urban design. The modern Islamic cities are no longer the unity or totality encompassing the family, the district, the natural environment, unifying action with the spiritual, the functional with the beautiful, the private secluded space for family residence with access to public space for communal, collective activities.

Therefore, the question is:

How did spiritual, transcendental, moral and cultural enrichment of Safavid architecture result in an architecture in which the collective energies of citizens were harnessed and meaningful paths for the future were created? (How did these visions enhance the qualities of citizenship and lead to an everlasting architecture?)

The research also analyzes the geometry, symbolism and cosmology that constitute sacred spaces of Isfahan in the Safavid period. There is a focus on examples from Islamic architectural traditions, specifically mosques, bazaar and madrasa that illustrate how principles of Islamic architecture such as sacred geometry reflect universal harmony, Islamic symbolism and cosmological notions. The analysis begins with the Imam mosque of Isfahan before moving on to the bazaar and madrasa

Chahārbāgh. Ultimately, this analysis looks to show how the architecture and urban design of the Safavid Isfahan embraces the ubiquitous harmony of the natural world, represented through the symbolic language of sacred geometry.

2. Safavid Isfahan

Isfahan, the capital of the Safavid dynasty from 1590-1722, was a celebrated city in early modern era, a metropolis of monuments and gardens, political magnificence and architectural beauty. Isfahan was conquered by the Muslims in the seventh century and from then on the city has accumulated many outstanding examples of Islamic architecture. Isfahan enjoyed its height of prosperity during the reign of the

Safavid dynasty. The Safavid period brought a great deal of change into political, social and religious structures. Incident to these changes was a strengthened economy and political stability that facilitated a resurgent interest in theological sciences, philosophy, art, and architectural expressions. These changes that continue to this day, following the rise of modernism in Iran, provide a framework to characterize cultural changes and their influence on architecture. Additionally, historians credit the Safavids with being

6 the first rulers in the Islamic period to lay a foundation for national consciousness in

Iran, a land populated by diverse ethnic and linguistic groups.

The Safavids established Shiite Islam as the state religion, promoted Sufism, and instituted state capitalism to support wide-ranging political and social goals.

Commerce has always been central to the growth of Isfahan, to the extent that its most powerful dynast, Shah ᶜAbbās I (reign 1588-1629), effectively re-routed the Silk Road through Isfahan so that his empire would enjoy a trading monopoly. By the seventeenth century, Isfahan attracted not only European merchants but also missionaries and mercenaries, as it became an accepting center of mercantile and diplomatic activity

(Figure 2). The city fabric is significant as an embodiment of this religious, commercial, and political unity, and was exceptional in the early modern Islamic world.

Figure 2. Isfahan to the north side by Eugène Flandin, 1840

This notion is perhaps best explained by Ardalan in the passage below

Isfahan of the sixteenth century provides a time-space synthesis. Diverse movement systems, generating their respective fields of gravity and consequently their own harmonic orders, are woven together in an overall pattern the complexity of which can only be compared to the great garden carpets of the same period. Distinct primary, secondary, and tertiary systems are discernible, while the points of intersection produce great urban “blossoms” at city, community, and neighborhood levels. A close examination will reveal the means by which these simultaneous movement systems and their interactions resulted in a complex unity that marks Safavid Isfahan as the outstanding example of harmonic order.8

In Safavid Isfahan the constituting principles and values of the Islamic city were thoroughly preserved -the distinction between public and private space, the dynamic interaction of public space and the volumetric expression of space-. The functional structures of the Safavid period are remarkable architectural expressions that have survived over hundreds of years and still serve their original function. Despite an evident functional differentiation, the city modulates an extremely coherent spatial unity owing to the morphological affinities of its architectural elements. The unity that emerges from particular variations on certain collective forms is obvious and “is beyond words;” and is inspired by the essence of at-tawhīd that “reveals itself in the

Koran by sudden and discontinuous flashes. Striking the plane of the visual imagination, these flashes congeal into crystalline forms, and it is these forms in their turn that constitute the essence of Islamic art.”9 The fabric of the city appears as a crystallization of the internal forces that regulate society, transposed into architectural patterns. This evocative, signifying, even symbolic force is one of the greatest qualities

8 Nader Ardalan, Laleh Bakhtiar, pp. 96-97 9 Titus Burckhardt, Mirror of the Intellect, p. 229

8 of the urban fabric of Isfahan. Because of it, Isfahan can be regarded as a model Islamic city (Figure3).

Figure 3. Urban Fabric of Isfahan Source: Jasem Ghazban Poor, From the Sky of Iran, Tehran, 2000

2.1. Historic Form: The City of Isfahan, Urban Fabric and the Conception of Paradise

Principally, architecture in Persia has a long continuous history and is distributed widely over a vast area, accustomed to embracing a wide variety of typologies, morphologies, forms and technologies as well as ideologies, philosophies, and reflective thoughts. More than two hundred years of this history occurs in the

Safavid dynasty which ruled from 1501 to 1722. With the rise of the Safavids, a new age in Iranian architecture commenced. The magnificence of the Safavid age emerges not only in its art and architecture but in its economy, culture and philosophy.

Isfahan has been a significant urban center since its origins as a military camp during Sassanian rule. Its enduring geo-strategic location, its agricultural advantages,

9 and its abundant supply of water from the Zāyandehrūd, (meaning the life-giving, the reviving, as well as the revived), enabled the city to develop into a leading metropolis.

As a result, Isfahan’s strategic location at the heart of the commercial transit routes from China to the Ottoman empire and Europe, and the Persian Gulf to Russia, as well as the dual base of both agriculture and commerce, provided the substantial supports for its survival as urban center. This position governed “the recurrence of a historical cycle of decline and prosperity, its repeated rise and fall from imperial to provincial capital.”10

Isfahan as a major city in Iranian plateau has had various development phases in its history from the very first centuries of its existence up until present time. Along the city development, numerous outstanding structures and ensembles formed within the boundaries of the city. Historically and architecturally Isfahan is most closely identified with the Safavids, but it had also been the political center of operations of the

Būyīds in the 10th and early 11th century, whose leadership, in spite of unstable political leadership, characterized a period of prosperity for the city (Figure 4).11

Isfahan continued as the center and political capital for most of Seljuk rule and recaptured this position five centuries later under the Safavids. The borders which drew the domains of the Great Seljuks positioned Isfahan at the core of their empire’s territories. Seljuk Isfahan’s commercial and cultural richness reached its apogee during the reign of Malik Shah (1072-1092), when Isfahan also arose as a prominent center of

10 Heidi A. Walcher, “Between Paradise and Political Capital: The Semiotics of Safavid Isfahan,” Middle Eastern Natural Environment, Yale F&ES Bulletin, p. 335 11 Ibid, p.336 10

Sunni theology. It was a period of internal architectural activity,12 which produced several great royal gardens including the Bagh-i Falasan, the Bagh-i Bakr, the Bagh-i

Ahmad Siyah, the Bagh-i Dasht-i Gur (Garden of the Wild Donkey’s Plain).13

Figure 4. Historical map of Isfahan with its fortifications under the Buyids, Kakuyids, and Safavids. After Šafaqi, Xavier de Planhol, Encyclopedia Iranica, Vol. XIII, Fasc. 6, pp. 617-622

12 Malik Shah’s vizier Nizam al-Mulk founded the famous Nīżāmiyya in the area of Dardasht. Many official and private buildings, mosques and gardens were built, including the Bait al Ma‘ (Water House), the Qaleh- yi Shahr, and the Qaleh-yi Diz Kuh, the Masjid-i Jāmi͑ and the Seljuk maidan, which after it was relocated by the Safavid city at the turn of the 16th century, became known as the Maidan-i Kuhneh. 13 Heidi A. Walcher, p.336

The presence of the Seljuk government depended on the economic and cultural prosperity of the city and many of the paradigms of Isfahan as a unique city, its geographical advantages, its fertility, its beauty, its sophistication, its tradition as a leading center of learning, culture and trade. Its well-known epithet nisf-i jahan, meaning half the world, date to its position and aspirations as capital under Seljuk rule.

During Mongol rule Isfahan stayed an effective city and commercial center, but it regained its political pre-eminence only with the Safavids. In the 17th century, at the height of Safavid territorial domination, the empire expanded from Mesopotamia,

Gorjestan and Daghestan along the Qaraqum desert to the Sulaymaniya Mountains in the east. Its territory simulated the geopolitical order of the Seljuks, again placing

Isfahan at the center of the empire’s junctions (Figure 5).14

By moving his court and the seat of government from Qazvin to Isfahan in

1597–98 Shah ᶜAbbās I (1587–1629) reinforced Isfahan’s geographical advantages and its commercial prominence by making it the political capital of his empire. The extent of historical memory and presence of Seljuk accounts at the time of the Safavids has not been adequately recorded; however, it is clear that there is some association with the historical precedence and the role of Seljuk Isfahan in the 12th century. Iskandar

Beg Munshī cited Kamal al-Dīn’s eulogy of the Seljuk capital in praise of the architectural achievements of ᶜAbbās the Great in the early 17th century: “Isfahan is flourishing and the people happy, nobody has a recollection of an epoch like this.”15

14 Heidi A. Walcher, p.336 15 Isfahan huram ast va mardum shad In chinin ‘ahd kasi nadarad yad. Munshi, Tarikh, p. 545.

Figure 5. The maximum extent of the Safavid Empire under Shah ᶜAbbās I

Shah ᶜAbbās I himself engaged in the design and plan of the new city, south of the old Seljuk center, laying the new bazaar and royal quarter on the existing urban and suburban landscape (Figure 6). There is only vague information about the landscape of pre-Safavid Isfahan, but earlier gardens had existed outside the central Seljuk city and the palace grounds of the Bagh-i Naqsh-i Jahan and a dawlatkhāneh located there were known since the 15th century.16 In spite of a certain dichotomy between the old and the new city, by the late 17th century, the Safavid quarter seemed to have picked the old city physically as well as economically and politically. The Safavid city both surrounded the historic Seljuk district and through the intersection of the bazaar and the

16 Heidi A. Walcher, p.336. Walcher further explains “The Venetian traveler Michelle Membré in the autumn of 1540 noted the beauty, the fine drinking water, and “many waters and gardens” outside the city, which he had still found enclosed by a mud wall. Membré, Michelle: Mission to the Lord Sophy of Persia, 1539-1542, transl. by A.H. Morton, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1993, p. 47.”

Maidan-i Naqsh-i-Jahān linked the new commercial and political center. The rapid growth of the city, the influx of human resources and money, the architectural expansion, along with the introduction of artistic and political culture under Safavid rule comprehensively transformed the urban landscape.

Shah ᶜAbbās ’ monumental design of Isfahan, its architectural visage with his and his successors’ palaces, mosques, bazaars, and extensive gardens inside and outside of the city defined the physical and architectural layout by which Isfahan still lasts to be recognized at the beginning of the 21st century. Isfahan has attained the title of

‘Safavid city’ and “anything that was to survive,” as phrased by Bagher Shirazi, “was

Figure 6. City plan of Isfahan during the Persian Safavid Empire era Source:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sch%C3%A9ma _isfahan_safavides.svg

14 covered by Safavid color and forms.”17 As he points out, the Arabs, Būyīds and Seljuks who successively ruled the city had done the same, but none of their building and restructuring of Isfahan was as profound as that of the Safavids.

The new Safavid layout consists of two foci: the great public square, the

Maidan-i Naghsh-i-Jahan (Shah Square), enclosed by mosques, palaces, shops and a linear walkway, and the Chahārbāgh (literally four gardens), sided by gardens and pavilions. The distinction between the structure of the bazaars and residential quarters

Zāyandehrūd River

Figure 7. Three main axes of Safavid Isfahan: the Maidan-i Naghsh-i-Jahan, the Chahārbāgh main artery, and the Zāyandehrūd, the river

17 Bagher Shirazi “Isfahan, the Old: Isfahan the New,” Iranian Studies, vol. 7, part II, no. 3-4, 1974, p. 589.

15 of the old town, with their density, bustle and noise, and the tranquil, clear, symmetries of the Chahārbāgh gardens was the most magnificent theme of Isfahan’s urban pattern in the 16th century. As a result, three main axes marked boundaries and pattern of the new gardens: the Maidan-i Naghsh-i-Jahan, the Chahārbāgh main artery, and the

Zāyandehrūd, the river (Figure 7).

To elaborate, the physical evidence of Isfahan is an especially clear record of highly articulated historical and cultural development. The city is located in the lush plain of the Zāyandehrūd River, at the foothills of the Zagros mountain range, which served not only as a crossroad of trade routes, but more importantly as the fertile receptor of natural watercourses. Ardalan considers the climatic and geographic conditions of Isfahan when he mentions

Subterranean water channels from these mountains supplement the river, bringing water from catchment areas at times more than ten miles away. Surfacing in the vicinity of the city, some channels supply a network of wadis that traverse the city in both east-west and north-south directions, while others move below grade, feeding vaulted underground water cisterns, bath houses, and large gardens. The intersections of these channels with other systems are significant points of encounter.18

While, in Isfahan, city planning and building necessarily responded to local conditions, there are typical architectural features by which the city is distinguished.

The most important of these is the congregational mosques, built to express and focus the religious commitment of the Muslim community and its solidarity. The commercial and administrative activities and associated buildings grew around this central symbol

18 Nader Ardalan, Laleh Bakhtiar, p.102

16 of the city. Additionally, a closer investigation of the layout of Safavid Isfahan demonstrates “an internal order, which is structured along the axial quadripartite pattern of the Chahārbāgh formed by the axes of the river Zāyandehrūd and the royal avenue of Chahārbāgh.”19 Garden and paradise are two themes which are intricately “attached to Isfahan and recur in associative descriptions as well as taxonomic distinctions.”20

In regard to the interactive patterns between the religio-political system and the iconography of a garden on the scale of a city, the traditional metaphorical interpretation of the Quranic or Islamic paradise drives the concept behind the Persian gardens. However, the splendid, almost monumental layout of the new city suggests that it was not a coincidental pattern but deliberately planned by its founder Shah

ᶜAbbās I (1587-1629). This notion is elaborated in the following passage

Poets and writers consciously chose the metaphor of paradise to celebrate Isfahan’s beauty and eulogize its pre-eminence as imperial city. The ubiquitous contemporary insinuations and poetic allusions of Safavid gardens to the Garden of Eden as well as the literary comparisons of Isfahan as khuld-i barin, the eighth level and uppermost tier of paradise, keep them explicitly tied to the idea of paradise. The implicit figurative connotation of Safavid Isfahan’s quadripartite division along the four garden or Chahārbāgh model cannot be wholly separated from common religious notions of paradise either. Yet they reach beyond the allegoric interpretation of religious or mystical references to Islamic paradise, and bear a distinct political idiom. The textual and iconographic hermeneutics of royal Safavid gardens, and of Isfahan specifically, ultimately lead to a synthesis between the paradise paradigm applied by traditional interpretations of Islamic gardens and the political intentions of Safavid architectural and urban representation.21

19 Heidi A. Walcher, p.331 20 Ibid 21 Ibid

The prosperous green visage of Isfahan has appointed it the title “city garden,” which has marked the city with an idealistic sense (Figure 8).

Figure 8. Isfahan and the Image of Paradise by Eugène Flandin, 1840

In specific visual descriptions, Safavid and Qajar Isfahan have been recognized with the “profusion of gardens.” Sir Thomas Herbert, who sojourned in the city at the end of Shah ᶜAbbās I’s rule, described Isfahan as “the metropolis of the Persian monarchy.

Yea, the greatest and best built City throughout the Orient.” He found that the city’s gardens “challenge our attention; than for which grandeur and fragor, no City in Asia out-vies her. It incloses so many that at some distance from the city, you would judge it a Forest; so sweet you would call it a Paradize.”22

More importantly, the general proportion and linear geometric patterns of

Islamic and Persian gardens have often been in contrast with the “organic” formation of the Islamic city. One might say although the ecological and political interaction of

Islamic gardens and cities has been identified, the architectural principles and functions

22 Thomas Herbert. Some years of travels into diverse parts of Asia and Afrique, London: Jacob Blane and Richard Bishop. 1638, pp. 153 and 158-9

18 of the Islamic city and garden have conventionally been contrasted (Figure 9). To supplement these idea,

the underlying formal structure of Safavid Isfahan incorporated an intentional quadripartite division with an inherent relation to the external urban expression of the city. The building of the new Safavid palace quarter created a dialectic affiliation between the old urban and new palatial center. Yet the development and expansion of the city, without the strict separation of the suburban gardens and the districts of the old center by a compact city wall, facilitated their gradual convergence.23

Figure 9. Isfahan and its urban fabric, Jāmi͑ Mosque and bazaar Source: Jasem Ghazban Poor, From the Sky of Iran, Tehran, 2000

Shah ᶜAbbās I’s design of Isfahan was a pragmatic scheme, which aimed at a calculated synthesis of the practical and symbolic concept of garden and city and carried an implicit political dimension. The theme of garden was an essential exponent of

23 Heidi A. Walcher, p.335

Isfahan’s Safavid morphology and internal rationale, which in its symbolic and political expression went beyond the phenotypical appearance. The profound symbolic aspect of the Islamic garden in the urban fabric of the city of Isfahan is best explained in the passage below

Traditional metaphorical interpretations of Persian or Islamic gardens have correlated the general orthogonal symmetry to God’s perfection and transcendent purity. The straight lines have been seen to represent tawhid, divine unity, and sacred order between man and nature, in which order and harmony were expressed in mathematical regularity and unambiguous geometric patterns. The figure of the Chahārbāgh has been interpreted to denote the four quarters or directions of the universe.24

The golden age of the Safavids, with the dominance of the faith of Shi’ites and their images of Paradise described by Twelver mystics, resulted in the pursuit of highest aspirations. This spiritual journey is a brilliant source of inspiration for the whole nation, giving tangible meaning to architecture and physical forms.

2.2. Architectural Analysis

In the late 16th century the Safavid Shah ᶜAbbās I founded Isfahan as the capital of his empire. He proposed a plan on a monumental scale in the garden fields south of the old Seljuk center, which blended the river Zāyandehrūd into the establishment of the new palatial city. The orthogonal intersection of the Chahārbāgh Avenue and the river created a Chahārbāgh (four gardens) pattern on the scale of a city, which formed a synthesis between Persian and Islamic concepts of paradise, and the principle of a

24 Heidi A. Walcher, p.331

20 royal capital city. As previously mentioned, the symbolism and metaphor of Isfahan within the structure of a Chahārbāgh cannot be completely separated from traditional concepts of garden and paradise. In addition to the allegoric interpretation of religious or mystical references to Islamic paradise, the formation of a Chahārbāgh in Isfahan bears distinct iconographic and deliberate political connotations of empire (Figure 10).

Have you seen Isfahan, that city like Paradise,

That holy cypress, that soul nourishing Eden;

That palace of the nation and that throne of government

That face of the seven spheres, that eye of the seven lands.25

Figure 10. Safavid Isfahan and Chahārbāgh Pattern

25 Jamal al-Din Isfahani: Divan-i Kamil, ed. Vahid Dastgirdi, Tehran, 1320, p. 410.

The goal here is to explain the urban context, the architectural means, and the ceremonial conduct that made Isfahan so remarkable a city for the foundation of political authority in Twelver Shi’ism and that made the Safavids so vital a dynasty within the competitive field of commerce and politics of the early modern period.26

The Safavid “scenario” of power found its statements in the rhythms of daily life of the court and the city and in the recurring performances of royal rituals for the conduct of which special urban spaces and architectural forms were created. As a result, the overall structures of the buildings, specifically mosques, demonstrate particular and distinguishing features which integrate their space into the urban fabric, weave it with the city’s life and activities and blur the spatial boundaries that exist between the city fabric and the buildings.

The visual image of Isfahan has been inextricably shaped both by its architecture and its royal palace gardens. The city is acclaimed for the magnificence and splendor of its architecture, triumphant remainders of the Seljuk and Safavid empires. The architectural expressions of enrichment at points of intersection have produced the memorable city nodes of Isfahan. The Maidan-i Naghsh-i Jahan, the two bridges over the Zāyandehrūd River, and the Madrasa Madar Shah complex are all prime examples of the emphasis of urban encounters. Secondary encounter points occur periodically at the chāhār sū or crossroads of the bazaar.

26 Susan Babaei, Safavid palaces at Isfahan: Continuity and Change (1590-1666), New York: New York University, 1994, p.8

Isfahan’s origins rest in the twin cities of Yahūdīyya and Jayy, at a short distance from one another on the plain north of the Zāyandehrūd River (Figure 11). The Jewish town of Yahūdīyya flourished in the first centuries of Islam and became the hub of

Isfahan. Jayy was established to the southeast of Yahūdīyya as an administrative center.

Jayy was a fortified site that may have functioned as the center of government, whereas

Yahūdīyya was the commercial center. Existing plans of the ancient city show that the bazaar was situated between Yahūdīyya and Jayy. After the Muslim conquest of Iran, the Arabs built their first Jāmi͑ Mosque in the region of Isfahan in Jayy. By the next period, the bazaar was constructed in the direction of Yahūdīyya. The city could then be described as having the Jāmi͑ Mosque in the center of the bustling bazaar, which was visited daily by large crowds of people with wares from kingdoms both near and far.

Yahoodi

Jay

Figure 11. City Structure before Islam (left)- City Structure In 11 A.D Century- Seljuk (middle) – City Structure in 17 A.D Century- Safavid (right) The nucleus of Safavid planning was once again a square since this was the ideal layout to unify the most important functions of the city as the administrative, religious, intellectual, and economic center of the region. “The dynamic quality of the

Maidan-i Naghsh-i Jahan is as much determined by the judicious juxtaposition of three

23 activity systems as by the merits of its architectural solutions.”27 However, what had been developed at the old square in the course of centuries was recreated in a planned way. Behind the arcades running around the square, bazaar lines with shops and workshops to the east, west and south. The northern edge of the square was lined with coffee houses, whose upper floors were used as hotels and brothels.

The primary system of the bazaar, intersecting an important easterly water movement near the point of entry into the palace precincts, establishes a set of powerful conditions, the exaltation of which has resulted in this unique civic place. Similarly, the points of entry into the city of Isfahan across the Zāyandah River are used as intersections invested with special potency. The Khwājū Bridge celebrates the city entrance, the river-crossing, and, as previously mentioned, the commencement of the bazaar, while focusing movement towards the distant dome of the Masjid-i-Shah and the next encounter-space awaiting the traveler.28

As one passes through the portal arch of the bazaar, the space of the Maidan-i

Naghsh-i Jahan, one of the largest open squares in the world, unfolds and reveals itself

(Figure 12).

The space is rectangular, 165 meters wide by 510 meters long, defined by a continuous wall of double arcades of buff brick, the top tier of which contains recessed blind niches of white plaster. The rhythm of the walls is serial, combining with a circular order at each major fenestration. A stone water channel lined with trees, set 20 meters in from the periphery, originally bordered the space.29

There is a strong “sense of place” and a vast experience of the space “achieved through many levels of activities and movements that are individually and cumulatively experienced.”30 These dynamics develop into an inherent public “sense of place” which orients the city’s populace in space and satisfies the urban need of identity (Figure 13).

27 Nader Ardalan, Laleh Bakhtiar, p.102 28 Ibid 29 Ibid, p.120 30 Ibid, 123

The square actively participates in the enrichment of the encounter of primary, secondary, and tertiary movement systems. It serves as the major node of religious, governmental, commercial, and social activities. Four prominent events occur within these boundary conditions: to the south, the Imam Mosque; to the west, the ͑Ali Qāpū gateway leading to the royal precincts; to the east, the Shaykh Luṫfullāh mosque; and to the north, the gateway to the bazaar (Figure 14).

These architectures are created by architects who are not only “builders” with profound knowledge of mathematics and geometry, but also “believers” with established virtues and spirituality. To put it in Critchlow’s words: “…Islamic artist

[architect] was not only versed in mathematics in the geometrical sense, but that mathematics was integral to his art as it was a ‘universal’ structure supporting the intuitive insights that characterize all true art.” The great masters of Islamic architecture were inspired by “spiritual disciplines” that constituted the “content and meaning” of their arts, serving to raise the viewers’ “spiritual understanding.”31

31 Keith Critchlow. Islamic Patterns: An Analytical and Cosmological Approach. (New York: Schocken Books, 1976), p.8.

Figure 12. Maidan-i Naghsh-i Jahan

Figure 13. The public “sense of place” in Maidan-i Naghsh-i Jahan

The Imam Mosque of Isfahan, also known as Shah Mosque, is located on the south side of the Naghsh-e Jahān Square. The following section examines the integration and execution of geometry, as a means of expressing symbolism and cosmology in Islamic architecture, in the design, proportions and construction of the courtyard, the dome and the portal muqarnas of the Imam mosque in Isfahan.

Figure 14. Four prominent structures in Maidan-i Naghsh-i Jahan

2.2.1. The Imam Mosque of Isfahan

The complex was completed in 1629, after Shah ᶜAbbās moved the capital of the Safavid dynasty to Isfahan in 1597. One of the most impressive features of the mosque is its subtle orientation toward Makkah. In the entire structure of the mosque, only the vestibule follows the exact orientation of the square (north-south). The rest of the mosque, rectangular in shape (100 by 130 meters), is rotated, skillfully, at 45 degrees to orient it toward the qībla. Titus Burckhardt describes beautifully this orientation and states: “the architect, faced by this change of direction imposed by circumstances, knew how to make the most of it; he used to express the transition from

27 the outward to the inward world, a swift reorientation of the soul.”32 To accomplish this direction toward Makkah, the main portal, decorated with a remarkable and unique muqarnas, is linked to a triangular vestibule, which connects it to the mosque’s courtyard through the space behind the northeast īwān (Figure 15).

Figure 15: Imam Mosque of Isfahan. Source: Left: Jasem Ghazban Poor, From the Sky of Iran, Tehran, 2000 Right: M. Karim Pirnia, Sabk Shenāsī Memarī Irānī, Tehran: Saadī Publication, 1383, p. 294 The courtyard is a highly geometric space in perfect harmony with the architectural elements surrounding it, a microcosm within a microcosm. In Nasr’s words, the “inner courtyard with its serenity and interiority reflects the peace and harmony that resides at the centre of man's being.”33 Generally, the overall structure of a typical Persian mosque consists of a central courtyard which is the heart and the depth

32 Titus Burckhardt. Art of Islam: Language and Meaning, Commemorative Edition. Bloomington. (Indiana: World Wisdom, 2009), p. 184 33 S. H. Nasr. Islamic Art and Spirituality. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987). p. 78

28 of the building and has an ablution pool in the middle, reflective of all the vertical movements around it. This spacious element, which opens up into the sky and is embraced by the Divine dome, is a cosmic gate to ᶜālam al-malakūt and transports the soul of the believer into the realm of archetypes. That is to say, the “courtyard is a symbolic generic form, capable of many means of physical realization.” 34 The fundamental role of the water in the heart of the courtyard marks a new definition of the space in a mosque, a pristine surface in which earthly and heavenly domains meet.

Ardalan considers the climatic conditions of Iran when he mentions “water plays a vital role in attracting forms of life and people around it, thereby becoming like a magnet which polarizes space.”35 Altogether “the courtyard with a fountain in the middle is made in the likeness of Paradise” which resemble the innermost soul (Figure 16).36

Figure 16. Courtyard, Imam Mosque Source: Henri Sterlin. Ispahan, image du paradis. (Paris: La Bibliothèque des arts, 1976), pp. 98-99

34 Nader Ardalan, Laleh Bakhtiar. p. 35 35 Ibid. p.59 36 Titus Burckhardt. The Essential Titus Burckhardt: Reflection on Sacred Art, Faiths, and Civilizations, Edited by William Stoddart, (Indiana: World Wisdom, 2003), p. 151

The remarkable space of the courtyard in the Imam Mosque of Isfahan is a cosmic place whose ceiling is the heavenly dome of the entire universe. Outwardly, it is a defined geometric space with precise mathematical proportions. Inwardly, it is the departure point of a journey towards the Divine, which is made possible by relating the physical form to a sacred science that is mathematics. Its major dimensions are proportioned based on the Pythagorean Theorem. Accordingly, the fountain in the middle is generated from the intersections of the semicircles that are radiated from the four facades facing the courtyard (Figure 17). The above mentioned integration of traditional mathematics in Islamic architecture is due to the union of Pythagorean sources and Islamic esotericism. 37 Critchlow considers this ingenious use of mathematics and geometric form as “the crystallization stage, both of the intelligence

Figure 17. Pythagorean Theorem and mathematical relationships in the courtyard, The Imam Mosque Source: Henri Sterlin, p. 77

37 S. H. Nasr, Islamic Art and Spirituality, p. 48

30 inherent in manifest form and as a moment of suspended animation of the effusion of content through form.”38

There are four īwāns facing each other two by two on the main axes of the courtyard. These īwāns, recessing from the main façades of the courtyard, altogether define a cross structure in the courtyard. The underlying geometric axis of this mosque is, thus, influenced by an accurate dual-axes and their intersection at the heart of the courtyard. The south īwān, larger than the other three, is a unique structure, incomparable to any other īwān in the whole of Persia not only for its design, proportionality and intricate embellishment, but also for preceding the domed sanctuary. The dome is vast in scale (25 meters across by 52 meters high), and consists of two shells, the exposed bulbous dome being fourteen meters higher than the interior dome. Similar to Jāmi͑ Mosque of Isfahan, the dome rises on a high drum and a sixteen- sided transitional zone. The most noteworthy quality of the dome is its highly mathematical design and dimension which led to acquiring unique acoustic properties and sound reflections at the central point under the dome. The ingenuity of the architect, when creating the dome, enabled the mosque to speak with a subdued voice that still can be heard clearly inside the building.

Additionally, the Dome of the Imam mosque relies on mathematical laws and geometric patterns as an effective means of exalting matter. The embodiment of “this possibility within the intellectual universe of Islam”, resulted in the emergence of “a

38 Keith Critchlow, p.8

31 philosophy of mathematics akin to the Pythagorean-Platonic tradition” 39 The remarkable acoustic feature of the Gunbad-khāneh of the Imam Mosque is the result of extensive knowledge of mathematics and acoustics. The height and the inner diameter of the dome are proportioned on the basis of the laws of hyperbolic figures in such a way that the ears of a standing human being are positioned in the focal point of the inverse hyperbolic, inner vault. Thus, sound is reinforced and centralized exactly underneath the dome apex (Figure 18). The larger the dome, the more reinforced and centralized the sound is. Interestingly enough, this rule is applicable not only to the sound waves but to any forms of energy.40

Figure 18. Acoustical features and proportions of the dome Source: Henri Sterlin, pp. 135-136

39 S. H. Nasr, Foreword to Islamic Pattern: An Analytical and Cosmological Approach by Keith Critchlow, p. 6 40 M. Karim Pirnia, Sabk Shenāsī Memarī Irānī, edited by GholamHossein Memarian, (Tehran: Saadī Publication, 1383), p. 294

There is also the symbolic aspect of the geometric forms in the structure of the dome, which manifests a meaning beyond their applications in the physical world and corresponds to a higher reality. In this sense, geometry bonds conception and perception and is a vehicle through which an intangible idea is transformed into a tangible form.41 Seyyed Hossein Nasr echoes the symbolic language of geometry in the structure of a dome when he writes:

…the specific symbolism of various geometric forms associated with Islamic architecture relates outward forms to inner meaning and architectural utility to spiritual significance. The dome, while creating a ceiling which protects from both heat and cold, is also the symbol of the heavenly vault and its centre the axis mundi which relates all levels of cosmic existence to the One. The octagonal base of the dome symbolizes the Throne and Pedestal and also the angelic world, the square or rectangular base the corporeal world on the earth. The stalactite or muqarnas structures represent reflection here below of the supernal archetypes, the descent of the heavenly abode towards the earth and the crystallization of the celestial substance or ether in terrestrial forms.42

Extending this theory, we see that the Gunbad-khāneh in its geometric layout and intricate patterns illustrate a unique relationship between structure and ornamentation.

While in one instance, geometry generates a two-dimensional surface pattern, in another instance, it creates a space by extruding a surface into a three-dimensional structure.

In addition to the elaborate harmony and exact geometric proportions of the

Imam Mosque courtyard and dome, the portal muqarnas represents an exceptional masterpiece. Muqarnas is an architectural manifestation of a precise Islamic concept

41 M. Karim Pirnia, p. 480 42 S. H. Nasr. Islamic Art and Spirituality. pp. 49-50

33 symbolizing “the descent of light into the world of material forms.”43 It also represents an image of the sky in Islamic architecture with reference to some Quranic verses such as: “God is He who raised up the heavens without pillars” (the Quran: 13:2) and “By the sky full of adornment (with stars)” (the Quran: 51:7). Beside its symbolic language, muqarnas is an extensive geometric element in Islamic architecture whose components are in perfect harmony and proportions.

In this respect, the portal muqarnas of the Imam Mosque is a remarkable structure of the edifice, characterizing a combination of relationships between the geometry, function, and the nature of the space decorated with its vaulting. There is a geometric system of conformity in the plan, which determines the relations between its components and provides an evident musicality in its structure. As a result, the structure of the muqarnas consists of pointed niche-like elements arranged in tiers with rhythmic modularity and infinite compositions. The horizontal elements (known as takht) of the muqarnas are the focal points of its geometry and have significant impact on its design and arrangement of the stalactite niches. More importantly, there are defined geometric axes, radial and orbital, according to which primary elements are arrayed. The magnificence of the muqarnas lays in its three dimensional complexity, executed in a two dimensional drawing (Figure 19).

43 S. H. Nasr. Islamic Art and Spirituality, p. 53

Figure 19. Portal Muqarnas of the Shah Mosque

Further, this muqarnas is a rich illustration of two dimensional geometric patterns in highly sophisticated three dimensional configurations. These patterns are different ways of expressing polygons in flowing rhythms based on the primary and secondary decisions of the master-designer.44 Structurally, this muqarnas is composed of two stalactite systems which are perfectly and skillfully attached together and provide one single entity. This combination of patterns leads to a totality in which “any of the shapes in the macro-scale…contain a particular number of shapes of the micro- scale.”45 The splendid portal muqarnas, with its interwoven elements and elaborate

44 Keith Critchlow, pp. 94-95 45 Ibid, p. 92

35 compositions, is therefore the consequence of extensive mathematical and geometric knowledge and effort (Figure 20 & 21).

Figure 20 & 21. Main Portal and Muqarnas of Imam Mosque

The Imam Mosque is a perennial and transcendent form of architecture in the heart of Isfahan, a great structure “where delicacy of modeling is combined with

36 geometrical precision.”46 It is a thorough example of the harmonics in which we recognize the center where heart and reason join, leading to “some inseparable wholeness in the depths of our unconscious and subconscious out of whose measure and value that “wonderful thing” –beauty- springs forth in reference to the arts primarily as the value-form of “proportioning.”” The specific structure of the dome represents “the proportions of acoustical numbers, the prototype for the possibility of harmonical analysis” The idea of harmonical proportions in the entire complex is not restricted only to its musical sense, but rather is used in its broader meaning, portraying

“right measure.”47

2.2.2. Bazaar

Urban sociologists, urban planners, and urban designers generally depict bazaar as the heart of an Iranian city. On a socio-economic level, bazaar is only partially a retail cluster, although its main part is composed of retail. There is always “reorientation” and “re-organization” of the city towards a moving point that introduced

“a more vital planning concept.”48 Ardalan reflects these ideas when he writes

The bazaar traditionally begins at the palace precincts, which symbolize the spiritual head of the body, and grow cellularly in an apparent natural pattern in the direction of its symbolic heart –the Masjid-i- Jāmi͑ - going on, then, to the opening of one of the city gates. As the bazaar grows, the vital backbone of the city evolves, and the pedestrian streets leading into the city’s body proper insert themselves as ribs. Within this structure and in proximity to the skeletal center, the vital organs of the city develop: bath houses, schools, caravanserais, granaries, bakeries, water cisterns, tea houses, and the numerous stores of the merchants and craftsmen. This

46 Titus Burckhardt, Art of Islam: Language and Meaning, p. 181 47 Hans Kayser, Akróasis, Translated by Robert Lilienfeld. (Massachusetts: Plowshare Press, 1970), p.75 48 Nader Ardalan, Laleh Bakhtiar , p. 89

structural form represents the religious, political, financial, and social integration of the traditional city.49

On the north side of the Naghsh-i Jahān Square in Isfahan lies the bazaar which is entered by the huge Qayṡarieh gateway (Figure 22). The Isfahan bazaar is a unified, self-contained building complex of shops, passageways, and caravanserais, interspersed with a square, religious buildings, bathhouses (ḣammam), and other public institutions. A spatial structural analysis of the Isfahan bazaar and its transformation through time shows that it has a linear structure, and many of its spatial elements are formed around the central axis (Figure 23). Here alleyways full with activity form a labyrinth, while in adjacent to it are the silent public and religious spaces. The covered ways themselves are usually two storeys high, 8 m wide, roofed by a series of domes with circular openings allowing regular shafts of natural light to penetrate.

The bazaar of Isfahan is the primary movement system of the city

commencing at the North Gate and moving south towards the Seljuq Maydan-i- Qadīm (old square), the bazaar serves as the western boundary of what had been a great square that stretched from the existing Masjid-i- Jāmi͑ to the also existing Masjid-i-Ali to the southwest and was bounded on the southeast by a royal palace.50

Among all the main buildings around the bazaar, the Atīq mosque and Naghsh-i Jahān square are the more important places at the beginning and end of the bazaar axis. The former is a symbol of religious affairs, whereas the other is a symbol of worldly affairs.

Both structures have been characterized as symbols of the city’s power and majesty at

49 Nader Ardalan, Laleh Bakhtiar , p. 89 50 Ibid , p.97

38 a particular stage of the city’s boom. In Isfahan there are still many examples of arcaded street markets, public open spaces and religious buildings, all interlinked in a continuous pattern (Figure 24)

Moving out from the southeast portal of the [Jāmi͑ ] mosque into a small square, one is drawn into the primary movement system of the bazaar route. The bazaar space is a modular matrix of a domed central circulation space parallel to which are located the dependent spaces of shops; the connection to nodal spaces such as the bath houses, caravanserais, colleges, shrines and mosques; and the beginning of the secondary movement system of the residential paths.51

Figure 22. Qayṡarieh gateway

Figure 23. The linear structure of bazaar

` 51 Nader Ardalan, Laleh Bakhtiar. p.113

The vernacular city fabric of Isfahan is formed by collision, juxtaposition, and intertwining of 3 conflicting systems: religious structures, original orthogonal city fabric including the space of power and courtyards, and bazaar as a space of the citizens including narrow streets covered by cupollas (Figure 24).

Figure 24. Intertwining of 3 conflicting systems: religious, city grid and bazaar

The street plans reveal large straight avenues and small streets acting like an irrigation system. The courtyards plan shows the different scales of courtyards from the religious/

Figure 25. Left: Covered bazaar street: Cupolas, Right: Bazaar aggregation

40 formal/ informal systems; one can also start to see that these 3 systems are not so distinct and marked and crossovers occur (Figure 25).

2.2.3. Madrasa

There was a live tradition of building madrasas, mosques, and other religious institutions, particularly in the later decades of the rule of the Safavids. A great number of madrasas were erected during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, although their exact number is dubious. These dynamics were due to the Safavid rulers’ religious policies and their patronage of educational institutions and the placement of religious scholars in charge of developing a Shi‘ite legal system.

In Isfahan initially, as elsewhere in Iran, the earliest madrasas were founded with the purpose of disseminating and solidifying Sunni belief. However, Isfahan is especially significant for it was the place in which the royal patronage of the madrasas as institutions of learning and declaration of Twelver Shiʿism orthodoxy arose for the first time in the Islamic history of Iran. The first living madrasa in Isfahan is the

725/1325 Emāmi Madrasa.52 As in Persian mosque type, this madrasa and most other madrasas in Iran follow the four-īwān courtyard-centered plan model which is essentially inherited from the pre-Islamic period of Iran. In fact, it has been assumed, although still debated, that the four-īwān plan of Persian mosques may itself derive from the configuration of the needs of a madrasa.53 The madrasa, thus, dispenses “with

52 Sussan Babaie, Robert Haug. “Isfahan, Monuments, Madrasas”, Encyclopedia Iranica, Vol. XIV, Fasc. 1, 2007, p.33 53 Ibid

īwāns and with prayer chambers, presumably because both features were readily at hand in the mosque proper.”54 However, at madrasa buildings, rows of residential units are located at the periphery of the courtyard, “exploiting the available space to the full for student cells;”55 rather, in a mosque, rows of arcades (rīwaq) are dominant. These habitat chambers served as student cells, as lodging and occasionally, as classrooms for both the teachers and their young male students. The self-sufficiency of the madrasa as a religious and educational institution is also illustrated by the fact that, like other religious foundations, it derived its operating funds from the proceeds of pious endowments (waqf).

Although adequately designed to serve the residents for daily prayers, madrasas were often affixed to mosques. Such is the prominent example of the Imam Mosque in

Figure 26. Solṭānī or Chahārbāgh Madrasa by Eugène Flandin, 1840

54 Robert Hillenbrand, p. 234 55 Ibid

42 which the madrasa and the mosque were interwoven into a single integrated structure.

There, the motivating factor for raising such an exceptional monument at the apex of the Naqsh-i Jahān Square was the political and religious primacy of enunciating the

Twelver Shiʿite creed of the Safavid Empire. Notwithstanding the symbolic and ritual significance of this madrasa, the most famous madrasa of Isfahan is the unparalleled

Solṭānī Madrasa (Figure 26).

This vast and magnificently decorated madrasa is variously known as the

Madrasa-ye Mādar-e Shāh (Mother of the Shah) and the Chahārbāgh Madrasa for its location on the Chahārbāgh Promenade. 56 Madrasa-ye Solṭānī was the crowning achievement of the reign of the last Safavid Shah Solṭān-Ḥosayn. The

complex creates a localized encounter point at the intersection of the main ceremonial avenue, the Chahārbāgh, and the tertiary movement of one of the wadis. Here water passes under the Chahārbāgh, through the courtyard of the school, and into the caravanserai, stitching the three elements together. Parallel to the caravanserai is a small bazaar which allows merchants staying in the caravanserai to display their goods. Both caravanserai and bazaar came into being as endowments for the perpetuation of the school.57

With its dependencies, namely a caravanserai and a bazaar, it was a monumental project to have been carried out inside the capital city in this period along with other outstanding monuments of the Safavids. Altogether, these architectural productions provided Isfahan, as the capital of Safavid dynasty, with the utopian ideals and patterns of a city.

56 Sussan Babaie, Robert Haug, p.34 57 Nader Ardalan, Laleh Bakhtiar, p.102

Built largely between 1704 and 1707, the madrasa was not finished and formally inaugurated until 1710. 58 Measuring about 300 by 200 yards in area, the Solṭānī

Madrasa appropriated a garden site in the royal division that was located just south of the Bāgh-e Bolbol, at the center of which stood the Hasht Behesht Palace. The rigid symmetry of the cross-axial placement of the four iwāns, and the cell-blocks of one hundred and fifty rooms tucked into the intervening corners dominates and determines the composition of the madrasa. The south-westerly-facing miḥrāb in the principal iwān-domed-chamber is carved into one of the side pillars rather than occupying the central position as in other example. In short, the primacy in this structure is given to the uncompromising regularity of the relationship between the madrasa and its urban skeleton of the Chahārbāgh.

The large rectangular courtyard is lined with flowing water channel of the

Farshādī Canal that also runs through the adjacent Solṭānī Caravanserai. Tiled extensively in all its principal façades, the courtyard space of the madrasa, with its stately trees and beds of flowers, provides a scholarly retreat worthy of royal patronage.

In fact, royal treasury had provided the library with one of the most impressive collections of books on law, philosophy, and religion. The book collections, however, were eventually destroyed after the Afghan invasion, due to the lack of proper maintenance. A special room decorated in gold and located north of the portal was prepared for the personal use of Shah Solṭān-Ḥosayn, to which he could retreat, thus

58 Nader Ardalan, Laleh Bakhtiar, p. 35

44 enunciating, as it were, the Shah’s personal piety and devotion to religious studies

(Figure 27).59

Figure 27. Interior garden of college of Shah Solṭān-Ḥosayn by Eugène Flandin

The emphases on royal patronage and religious piety are further braided through

Quranic and Hadith quotations and Persian poetic texts across the entire epigraphic program of the madrasa. The main portal opens onto the Chahārbāgh Promenade. Not only is the fact of its opening onto the main thoroughfare of the imperial capital an exceptional privilege, the Solṭānī Madrasa royal precedent under Shah ᶜAbbās the Great is also prominently displayed. In the rising profile of a principal dome and the paired minarets of its pishṭāq-iwān, the Madrasa recalls the composition that culminates the stacked architectural elements at the Shah Mosque in the Naqsh-i Jahān Square.

Equally deliberate in drawing parallels with the Safavid congregational mosque, it appears, is the choice of a pair of silver doors for the tall and prominent principal portal

59 Sussan Babaie, Robert Haug, p.35

45 on the Chahārbāgh.60 As in the pair added by Shah Ṣafī I to the portal of the New

ᶜAbbāsi Mosque, Shah Solṭān-Ḥosayn ordered ᶜAbd-al-Laṫif of Tabriz, the goldsmith of the royal household, to create the door.61

Extreme religiosity was never a prerequisite for the founding of madrasas, but this institution most eloquently represents the dominant role of the clergy during the reign of Shah Solṭān-Ḥosayn. The Solṭānī Madrasa was built for Mir Moḥammad-

Bāqer Ḵātunābādi, the first mollā-bāshi (chief clergy) of Isfahan who was also closely associated with the shah.62 Although the madrasa seems to have been part of a larger urban project—the Solṭānī Caravanserai or Kāravānsarā-ye Mādar-e Shāh to the east of the madrasa and a single-alley bazaar of a thousand shops to its north—the entire complex was intended to serve the fiscal needs of the madrasa. Moreover, the supervision of the madrasa constructions was entrusted with Āqā Kamāl, the eunuch- gholām royal treasurer.63 Together, the evidence points, as it does in most aspects of

Shah Solṭān-Ḥosayn’s reign, to the complete submersion of royal affairs into the politico-religious sphere of influence of the ᶜulamā.

The Solṭānī Madrasa ensemble happened to be the last monumental construction project in Isfahan until the 20th century, and, given the unraveling of Safavid society at the turn of the 18th century, it becomes a befitting testimonial, in the guise of patronage, production, and consumption of architecture, of the compromising

60 Sussan Babaie, Robert Haug, p.35 61 Ibid 62 Ibid 63 Ibid

46 conditions presented by the two principal pillars of authority and power in the last decades of Safavid empire.

3. Future Actions

This thesis focused on the form of the city of Isfahan as a symbolic prototype and as an expression of the Islamic urban ideal. The city’s essential building types and spaces and the many later additions address the need for an architectural discourse that speaks to the modern Islamic world. To the modern Iranian architects, the attempt to reintegrate traditional values into contemporary Isfahan, no less than the historic lessons of the city, appear as a matter of primary symbolic significance.

In the latter half of the 20th century the pressure for industrialization in Iran created new concerns, and the development of urban centers brought renewed attention to Isfahan. The acceleration of urban growth and modernization programs under the aegis of the White Revolution, the Shah’s 1960 land reform and industrialization program, generated studies on urban development, city planning, road construction, municipal infrastructure, water supply, sewage treatment, and the preservation of historical architecture. New demands are being made on Isfahan by growth of population, industrial development and demolition of areas to accommodate vehicular traffic. Although there are conservation plans for the many individual monuments, there is also an urgent need to promote policies for the urban fabric of Isfahan with its characteristic housing patterns and the important bazaar. Meanwhile, it is important to notice that

in the historic development of Isfahan, space is also conceptually noteworthy, as the city is the supreme example of positive space continuity. It was built on open land about two miles south of the old city. The [new] square attracted growth towards it by tension and growth from it by extension.64 Practically speaking, architects and town planners, as well as decision makers in the government, confronted with the demands of a fast developing world, have paid less and less attention to the problems of conservation. As a consequence, they are considerably liable for the distortion of the urban landscape and, indirectly, for the current decline of the quality of life in the Islamic cities. The essentially Western approach utilized by most architects and planners in Islamic countries is the most incompatible to the structure of Islamic cities and to the existing cultural and social character of its inhabitants.

However, architects and planners, condemning the break with traditions which has resulted from the quest of technical functionalism and the acceptance of westernized values induced by modernization and economic growth, are gradually beginning to understand and acknowledge the necessity of maintaining a sense of traditional continuity and are returning to the study of the values of the past in order to apply them when building for the future. Hence, the conservation of the specific historical environment in traditional Islamic cities is coming to be considered as a means of avoiding cultural disruptions, preserving cultural identity, and establishing an organic link between the past, the present and the future.

Experience has shown that individual monuments should not be isolated from the urban context in which they are situated. This is particularly true in the case of

64 Nader Ardalan, Laleh Bakhtiar, p.123

Isfahan where each single element is usually integrated with larger units of the urban fabric in such a way as to form a complex, closely knit architectural cluster. The conservation of the historic monuments of the city of Isfahan therefore also indicates the protection of the urban pattern as a whole. Such a policy does not necessarily imply the transformation of large urban areas into an open-air museum, since urban upgrading and renewal should be encouraged in order to maintain the historic quarters as living entities.

Similarly, the need to combine the city’s historical corporeality with modern urban development has directed the interests of historical research and archeological investigations toward the background and development of individual palaces, mosques, shrines and palatial gardens, with less emphasis on their wider urban context or the historical and environmental morphogenesis of the Safavid city. The strategic location, abundant water supply and fertile land facilitated the expansion and development of

Isfahan in the 17th century on an unprecedented scale. As Safavid capital, Isfahan provided a synthesis between the complex relations of cultural perceptions of land, political expressions of territoriality and royal self-representation which were articulated by the symbolic language of its gardens and buildings.

The most important issue in the urban development of Isfahan is to look at it as a gradual and selective process; it should be undertaken according to certain conservation norms and rules which do not jeopardize existing traditional structures. It is in this search for architectural relevance, among the socially disoriented urban environment of present-day Islamic cities including Isfahan, that a more in-depth study

49 can play a role in reviving interest in the Islamic architectural and urban heritage and in offering guidelines for consideration by architects and town planners.

Conclusion

The construction solutions of Islamic architecture, although individually distinct, collectively convey many of the same original ideas and geometric principles.

As illustrated with the Imam Mosque, Qayṡarrieh Bazaar and Chahārbāgh School of

Isfahan, similar elements— Islamic principles such as unity, geometry, interweaving with fluid overlapping and underpassing strapwork, a skillful use and harmony of color and tone values—are at play in the design and structure of the building. The architecture of Isfahan thus embodies sacred art. In mosques’ domes, courtyards, and muqarnas, geometry becomes an instrument for depicting physical forms of the spiritual. Inspired by the Pythagorean idea of space and religious ideals, Muslim architects attempt to emulate divine creation.

In Isfahan of the Safavid period, there are diverse elements physically related and there is unity within multiplicity carved out. The primary endurance results from the concept of positive space glorified through the profound use of symmetry and rhythm. Within the positive shape of the total city, viewed as a three-dimensional mass, and following the previously described pattern of anatomical disposition, positive space achieves a hierarchy of negative, geometric volumes through which man moves.

Architectural manifestations of Isfahan are primarily symbolic; they are the visual manifestations of the cosmology that underlies Islamic principles. Mosques are

50 cosmic repositories of symbolism, employing architecture and geometry as mediums of representing symbols. Similarly in the architecture of madrasa, caravanserai, bazaar, etc., through language of symbolism, an inner meaning is maintained and a profound and precise understanding of universal laws is imparted.

In fact, proportionality and musicality are highly manifested in various scales of the Islamic city, ranging from an engraved wooden door of a house to an ornate ceiling of a palace, from a splendid structure of a mosque to the interrelated fabric of an Islamic city. There exists a prominent spatial cohesion in Islamic architecture in which buildings are intertwined into the very fabric of the city. This creates a consecutive set of movements in the skylines of Islamic cities, as well as in the spatial relation between buildings. The overall resultant system is a geometry in which God is manifest and present.

To put it in Henri Stierlin’s words

The golden age of the Safavids, between the 16th and early 18th centuries, was one of unity between all the components of nationhood –one people (the Persians), one land (Persia), one language (Persian), one faith (Shia Islam), and one central source of power (the reign of Shah Abbas). This was an ideal that became a political agenda. It was also a time when human dreams could be transformed into concrete realities. The faith of the Shi’ites, fired by the images of Paradise described by Twelver mystics, underlay the pursuit of the highest aspirations. This spiritual journey inspired the nation…nourished the mysticism to which the masterpieces of Persian art were inextricably linked.65

65 Henri Sterlin. Ispahan, image du paradis. (Paris: La Bibliothèque des arts, 1976), p. 130 51

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