Reviewing the Constituent Components of the Spatial Organization of Iranian City after Islam in the 9th–14th AH Travelogues

Spatial organization is a concept derived from a systemic view of the city and its components. It considers the city with a meaning more than the algebraic sum of its physical components. Its meaning is derived from the regularity, ratio, and relationship between components of the city. The spatial organization of a city is a result of the agreement between residents in the formation of the city. According to this perspective, the constituent components of the city in every civilization are formed based on a particular organization and discipline resulted from their similar cultural framework. Therefore, the spatial organization is a distinguished cultural aspect and identity mark. The travelogues of the orientalist of the 9th to 13th AH are the key sources. Although they did not address the city with a clear and systematic view, by mentioning the social life events and describing spaces and significant city elements, provided a mixed image of the spatial organization of the city. Analysis and comparison of the descriptive and specialized findings to explain the spatial organization of the city provide new interpretations about the nature and method of the formation of the Islamic-Iranian city. The current paper aims to address the formation of the particular spatial organization of the Iranian city functionally and semantically. In this regard, the components of the spatial organization are studied in terms of its role in the structure of the “whole” city and the interaction relationships. Research method is historical. Data collection was done using library method, including travelogues and technical resources. The relationship between tourists ‘descriptions and experts’ opinions of Iranian cities and its spatial organization was done through rational inference and analysis of findings. The city space organization is the product of an attitude towards the city as an independent whole. The necessary condition for finding the meaning of the city as a “whole” is the purposefulness of the components and the regularity between them that realizes the formation, development, and evolution of the city in the form of a dynamic organism. In the Iranian city of the Islamic period, four components form the territory, center, structure, and small units, model, and particular relations of the spatial organization of the city. In a general classification, among the four key components of the spatial organization of the Iranian city, due to its creating feature, the center is the necessary condition. Also, due to the service role, other components, along with the center are the sufficient and complementary conditions for the realization of the city’s spatial organization.