• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

The Sacred Direction and City Structure: A Preliminary Analysis of the Islamic Cities of Morocco Author(s): Michael E. Bonine Source: Muqarnas , 1990, Vol. 7 (1990), pp. 50-72 Published by: Brill Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/1523121 REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: http://www.jstor.com/stable/1523121?seq=1&cid=pdf- reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Brill is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Muqarnas This content downloaded from 196.12.203.5 on Mon, 14 Sep 2020 14:01:20 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms MICHAEL E. BONINE THE SACRED DIRECTION AND CITY STRUCTURE: A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF THE ISLAMIC CITIES OF MOROCCO Turn your face toward the Sacred Mosque [the Ka'ba in Mecca]; wherever you may be, turn your faces toward it. Qur'an 2:144. City planning in Islam appears to have been rather King,2 for instance, based on an analysis of Arabic rudimentary compared to planning in the cities of an- historical, legal, and astronomical texts, has shown evi- cient Greece and Rome; public space and buildings dence that the qibla was actually determined in several were less common, and the strict grid pattern of the ways and consequently the qibla in a given location classical city was unknown. Yet in most pre-modern could end up being a number of possible different direc- cities of the Islamic Middle East a clearly orthogonal tions. Acceptable ways of determining the qibla in- structure of housing and streets is manifest. In an earli- cluded some based on astronomical sighting, such as er analysis of Iranian cities I demonstrated that their the rising or setting of the sun or the rising of the star orthogonal morphology resulted principally from the Canopus, and on the prevailing winds. The method of rectangular irrigation and field systems into which determining the qibla could also change over time at housing spread and that slope characteristics played the any particularly location, leading to rather different predominant role in the orientation of those systems.' directions for the qibla even within the same city. One factor which was investigated as a possible influ- Both approximate and exact mathematical methods ence on the orientation of Iranian cities was the (based on latitude and estimates of longitudes) for find- mosque. In Islam, Muslims pray toward the Ka ing 'ba the in qibla were widely known in the medieval Islam- Mecca, the sacred direction, or qibla. The mosque ic world had from the ninth century onward. Astronomical then to have a qibla wall where the mihrab or niche handbooks was (zijes) usually included chapters on the de- located that faced toward Mecca, and this almost termination al- of the qibla by such mathematical means, ways rectangular building also ought to have hadtables rec- for latitude and longitude, and sometimes qiblas tangular streets around it, which would also be orthogo-for important cities.3 Yet even using these medieval nal to the qibla. If the mosque were built first, as mathematical it often calculations, many, if not most, medieval was in newly established Islamic cities, then the mosquesstreet are not properly aligned toward Mecca. As pattern could be expected to evolve around and King from has noted: the mosque. In Iran, however, no such correlation be- tween the qibla direction and the street pattern could The be earliest qibla determinations were, in fact, associated established; in those few cities that were oriented to with the the risings and settings of the sun and fixed stars, and mosque orientations in the seventh and eighth centu- qibla the relation appeared to be a coincidence of ries,slope and even thereafter, were made by astronomical and direction to Mecca. Possibly this was because alignments.most Thus, for example, some of the earliest Iranian cities existed before Islam, and so the basic mosquescity in Egypt and Andalusia faced the rising sun at structure and orientation were established before the midwinter, and some of the earliest mosques in Iraq, Islamic period. Iran, and Transoxania (Central Asia) faced the setting sun at midwinter. Directions perpendicular to the solsti- Some relatively recent scholarship provides new in- tial directions were also used. Cardinal orientations were sight into the orientation problem. Work by David popular as well, even where they were really quite inap- This content downloaded from 196.12.203.5 on Mon, 14 Sep 2020 14:01:20 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms SACRED DIRECTION AND CITY STRUCTURE 51 propriate. Occasionally, of course, The existence mosques of the weremedinas built(actually onor archaeolog- the sites of churches and pagan ically) temples, means that thewithout structure mod-and orientations of ification of the orientation of thethese earliercities can edifices.4be fairly well determined, although Hence even though the mathematically dating the foundation "correct" of particular sectionsqibla of a city might have been available always in remainsthe medievala problem. Doing so,Islamic however, assumes world, many other qiblas were that evidently the present orientation found is basically accept- the same as the able in the Middle East at the same time. original layout, but that assumption is reasonably What is the significance of all this for the structure sound. of Archaeological excavations of cities in the Mid- the city? King in fact makes the statement that "entire dle East tend to confirm that the basic street patterns cities with more-or-less orthogonal street plans were and building orientations have not changed in most sometimes laid out facing either an accepted astrono- instances, particularly with the cultural continuity such mical orientation for the qibla or a mathematically com-as existed during Islamic times. Mosques (or their qibla puted qibla. Religious architecture in these cities could walls) in some instances have been reoriented in later thus be aligned with the street patterns."5 He does note, periods during reconstruction or renovation, a situation however, that "more commonly, mosques would which be could present major problems for their study. oriented to the qibla regardless of the street patterns, However, or this practice seems to have been rather rare in would be aligned externally with the street patterns andMorocco. internally with the qibla."6 In another publication onIn the summer of 1985 a survey of a number of cities medieval Cairo, King states that three sections of Mam- of Morocco and Tunisia was conducted.'" The qibla luk Cairo are oriented in three different directions cor- direction of mosques and madrasas was determined by responding to three distinct ways of determining the compass readings; information was gathered about the qibla.7 history of particular buildings and cities; compass read- It remains to be established, then, what the correla- ings and slope determinations of streets were made; and tion between mosque orientation, street patterns, and maps and aerial photographs were obtained for many of city structure really is. Even in the Cairo study, King the cities." In this paper only some of the results of this does not provide any evidence of actual mosque orien- work in Morocco will be discussed. Although a number tations, or of their relationship to street orientations, of Moroccan cities were surveyed, the paper will con- and neither does he consider the influence of slope on centrate on six of the major medinas: Rabat, Sale, the direction and orientation of the sections of the city. Meknes, Marrakesh, Fez, and Taza. All six of these If Islamic cities, or even some of them, were indeed settlements were founded in Islamic times, providing laid out in relation to the qibla it is most significant. It excellent case studies to test the theses previously men- would mean that Islam played a major role in the actual tioned. layout of cities; that a sacred direction and orientation, at least in some instances, was important in city plan- MOROCCAN QIBLAS IN TIME AND SPACE ning. Yet, there still is no real evidence to show that Islamic city structure was influenced by the sacred In Morocco the true direction to Mecca (the direction of direction to Mecca. a great circle route [= shortest distance] to Mecca) The Maghreb (northwest Africa) and specifically varies from an azimuth of 970 in the north of Morocco Morocco provide an area in which these ideas can (e.g., be Tangiers and Tetouan) to 910 in the southern city tested. This region is especially noted for a great num- of Marrakesh. Yet, considering only the principal ber of cities newly established in early and medieval mosques and shrines of each city (generally thejami or Islam, and unlike the eastern Islamic region of South- Great Mosque), one can see the great variety of read- west Asia with its long pre-Islamic urban heritage, ings (and hence orientations) (table 1, fig. 1).12 It is many of these cities of the Maghreb were entirely readilynew apparent that the qiblas vary considerably from settlements. Hence, as Abu-Lughod8 has pointed theout, "correct" azimuth to Mecca.'3 Although the pos- the Maghreb is a prime area for investigating Islamic sible reasons for the various orientations are beyond the urbanism.

Load more

  24

Copy Link