Islamic city:imagination or the truth

Islamic city” is a term coined by mostly French Orientalists who had undertaken structural studies of cities in northern Africa, they provided some characteristics of cities they had observed (and not all cities with Muslim residents), and attributed the characteristics to the Islamic city, notwithstanding the fact that some of these characteristics went back to climates, and others to the interminglement of cultures, manners, and customs of a land with the Islamic culture, which were not directly related to existential and legislative doctrines within the Islamic worldview. Therefore, in order to scrutinize the concept of city in Islam, we need to consult its most important source, that is the Quran, as well as the tradition, so as to home in on existential and legislative characteristics of the Islamic city. In this paper, we deploy methods of phenomenology and textual interpretation to inquire the notion of city, and we have gleaned four concepts (“balad,” “qaryah,” “madina,” and “misr”) from the Quran. Features of these concepts are elaborated by drawing on exegeses provided by prominent religious scholars and a survey of relevant hadiths. These features are then compared with theories of Orientalists about the Islamic city as well as modern theories of urbanization and features of contemporary (Islamic) cities. Studies show that in the Islamic Sharia, there are specific instructions for people’s lifestyle, which determine the conditions in which they live in the city, and in the end, the city is formed and its structure is constructed in virtue of such lifestyle, along with other factors (cultural, geographical, etc.). What is known today as the Islamic city is far from aforementioned doctrines, and cannot thus be property described as Islamic city. A city is Islamic if its interiors and exteriors are both Islamic.