Surveying and Analyzing of Effective Factors on the Concept of Neighborhood as a Place of Dwelling; Based on the Views of the Prominent Philosophers of Islamic Utopia

Researches and evidences about living in traditional Iranian neighborhoods reveals a coherent, self-made physical and social structure that expresses the great concepts of human habitations. But today, the City has been separated to different networks of social relationships, which its borders and limits are different for each citizen. The consequences of this semantic change and the social separation is declining the life concepts at neighborhoods in recent decades. As a result, it is necessary to review and analyze the concepts of living in traditional neighborhoods for analyzing the ways to improve the quality of today’s cities. Neighborhood, the sense of belonging to it, collaboration and social participation are the concepts that lead the living in traditional neighborhoods and using the lessons of such a model can revitalize the identity of the neighborhoods and enhances the community-led approaches to society development. Achieving such results requires the acceptance of the neighborhood as a spiritual place and a guidance to the individual and social flows of dwelling. Among the different opinions and perspectives about the concept of the neighborhood, the Islamic Utopia Philosophers and idealists including Farabi, Mulla Sadra, Suhrawardi and etc., despite of some variations, have a similar approach to the place-led and community-led characteristics of traditional Islamic neighborhoods. Therefore, in this research, while analyzing and proving the role of “neighborhood as a place of dwelling”, we find and analyze the factors of neighborhood concept perception based on the viewpoints of Philosophers of the Islamic Utopia. This research’s method is a combination of historical interpretation and content analysis. For studying the viewpoints of the Islamic Utopia idealists and philosophers, the texts and historical documents have been interpreted and analyzed. Also, for studying the theoretical foundations of concepts and terms such as place, neighborhood, dwelling, and the analysis of the early Islamic Utopia philosopher’s opinions, content analysis method has been used. The result shows that the six factors is inferred from the viewpoint of the Islamic Utopia idealists which are the main factors of perceiving the concept of the neighborhood: 1. Collaboration and social participation, 2. Sense of belonging to the neighborhood, 3. Hierarchy and privacy, 4. Individual and social values, 5. Buildings and physical elements of the neighborhood, and 6. Providing of welfare and satisfaction of the neighborhood.