The Recognition of the Impact of Occupation and Social Class of Muslim Owners of Qajari Houses of Bushehr on Shaping the Privacy Hierarchy of the Entrance Space

Privacy is one of the basic principles of Islamic architecture. Islamic texts like Quran and Hadiths indicate that privacy is an important subject in the house which provides peace for the family. The houses that are built in Islamic era represent this principle, but unfortunately, this important architectural principle is nowadays ignored in houses. Therefore, reviewing the privacy principle in the traditional houses can help the architects recognize and apply it in houses. The entrance hierarchy, which is based on several factors such as religious, cultural, social, etc., is one of the elements to create the privacy in houses. It seems that this hierarchy in Bushehr’s houses is due to other factors that have not been investigated before. This article tries to discuss these points: the meaning of privacy hierarchy, reviewing the privacy hierarchy in the entrance of Bushehr historical houses, and its relation with the homeowner’s job. So in this article, the theory of hierarchy of privacy in Islam has been used by library resources, articles and internet sites and the traditional houses of Bushehr are studied by using interviews with experts, direct observation, and the documents that have remained from these houses. The results show that the occupation of Muslim home owners of Bushehr has influenced the entrance hierarchy in buildings. So the houses of important governmental people had the highest hierarchy privacy due to their relations with important people. Doctors and businessmen’s homes had a relatively high level of privacy due to their relations with customers and ordinary people. The homes of people with office jobs and normal social level had the lowest hierarchy privacy among the homes that were surveyed. Thus it can be said that, based on a Muslim owner’s job, the amount of privacy hierarchy had been different which are classified into three different types. The first type; the entrance was located at the corner of the house plan as of the businessmen and doctors’ houses. Due to a high number of visiting people, the entrance was designed with high privacy level and no direct visibility into the house. In some cases, for men’s trade affairs, there was a room whose entrance was located in the first vestibule of the house.The second type; the entrance of these houses was located on one side of the house plan. It opened to the courtyard with less hierarchy than the previous type. It just contained a corridor because few unfamiliar people visited these houses which belonged to the governmental office workers. The third type; these houses had two separate entrances and belonged to important people (such as consuls, mayors, sheriffs, etc.). The house and office of these people were combined in one complex. Because important governmental people visited these houses, two entrances were created to separate the private and public sections of the house.