Owned/Permanent Dwellings or Temporary/Rental Dwellings in Knowledge - Based Cities

On one side, “the divine wisdom and knowledge-centric character of the celestial human soul and human self, and the never-satisfying natural urge of humans for truth-finding and scholarly dynamism” is an obvious truth, and prideful, to all thinkers. This truth bears nothing but “a kind of dynamic, scholarly life”, a type of lifestyle that can be achieved only in a dynamic context of ideas and knowledge. On the other side, we are aware of the fact that living cities around the world are much diverse in countless aspects, e.g., in knowledge-centric cultures, moral manners of life, and the level of strength of educational environments (even in different parts of a city). That is why the aforementioned “ideological dynamism” as the requisite for human prosperity would only result in “an essential freedom in the thoughtful, and of course, temporary selection of one’s dwelling, city, or living environment”. The goal of this paper is to analyze “permanent dwelling conditions or sedentism” in Qur’anic literature and Imam Ali’s (pbuh) sayings. In conclusion, the important finding of this research was that what most professionals regard as the “reason for the emergence of human civilization and scientific and cultural activities of past and present societies” [(namely, sedentary settlement)] is in fact “the true cause of all wars, bloodsheds, and violations around the world”. Furthermore, it is “the root of all scientific and technological decline in Muslim societies,” for the “permanent settlement of righteous thinkers and scholars.” This paper is a specialized research on the Holy Qur’an and evidentiary sayings of the Shi‘ite knowledge-centric Imams. The intertextual method was used in the interpretation of the Holy Qur’an, in addition to an analytic description of the sublime Qur’anic sayings.