Defending system and means in the strongholds of Islamic Persia Case study: Ismailia strongholds in the area of Ghohestan

Since the beginning of their creation, human beings have defended themselves against natural disasters and human catastrophes in different and various ways, but the form and pattern of defending buildings has changed and evolved depending on man's mental development. During various pre-historic eras, depending on natural and geographical conditions of different spots on the Earth, men have taken different defending strategies into consideration. Thus, defending strategies were very various during medieval Islamic centuries because building strongholds and building defending structures during Arshakuni and the Sassanide eras by means of mud-bricks, mud, stones, and chalk mixture in great numbers took place all over the political and cultural territories of Parthia and Sassanide, which were repeated in a way during this period. Ismailia, by building stone strongholds at the heights, were an important factor of resistance against self-centered power of Sultans in the territory of Seljuqs. By building these strongholds, Ismailia somehow manifested the architecture of Sassanide era and meanwhile granted a creative feature to their own architecture. They casted their extra power in the teeth of Seljuqs, crusaders, and their other enemies in the community of those days by building strongholds at the heights in different spots of the Islamic world especially in the east of Iran (Ghohestan), Almut Valley, Isfahan, and Syria (Jabal Bahra).The present research is a field one and where the strongholds themselves were not available relevant books and sources were used. Moreover, it interprets and explains defending structures of the strongholds along different eras. Then, with a special perspective, the structure and defending form of Ismailia strongholds in Ghohestan have been pointed to. Key