A Study of Shia Teachings in Safavid Garden Cities

With no doubt، the Safavid era should be considered as the most brilliant periods in history of Iranian urbanization and architecture. Thus، it will be a good idea to study the factors involving in it from various angles. Isfahan school of thought and its teachings were formed under the influence of Shia intellectual wisdom and it was one of the most effective factors which brought about the dignity and progress of Safavid art and architecture as compared with other eras. In fact Shia in Safavid period with the sovereignty of Safavid kings and formal state of Shiism، escaped from its previous situation and changed its status from a minority into majority. Thus، it had impacts on various dimensions of Iranian lives in particular urban life. In the first part، this article studies the Iranian Islamic garden construction in Safavid period with an emphasize on studying the main constructing elements and their roles in defining the physical identity of garden. In the other part، the link between urbanism and garden construction in Safavid age and the emergence of city garden and factors affecting its formation will be elaborated. In the continuation، the historical garden city of Isfahan as the most famous and magnificent Garden City built in the Safavid age and is selected and the quality of using the main elements and method of making landscape in Iranian garden in the definition of framework and image of this city will be studied. The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between Shia religious beliefs and the emergence of the idea of Garden City by the Safavids. For this purpose، the analytical-descriptive method has been employed and the analyses of the data are made in qualitative and inferential methods. Data collection has been made by using library sources. The results obtained from this article shows the quality of relation between the idea of the Iranian Garden City at Safavid age by using the model of Iranian garden and the position of religious ‘Islamic and Shiite beliefs in tits formation.