The Impact of Educational Policies on the Islamic Schools Architecture. Case Study: Timurid and Safavid eras

Education has been a huge part of Iranian history and it has changed due to cultural and artistic, social, and political conditions during every historical period. Every change of historical periods and every development of architectural techniques and methods followed up with physical changes in historical schools. This proves that any educational approach in each era is related to the educational system. How the policies of the educational system affect the architectural elements of Timurid and Safavid schools is the issue of this research and the main question is: what kind of effect did the Timurid and Safavid educational policies had on the architectural physical elements of schools in these two eras? The method of data collection is research in terms of the type of descriptive-analytical results and in terms of historical-interpretive approach, which is done by typological analysis method and by library data collection method (documentary) and by mapping, document reading, and receipt-taking tools done. In order to determine the evolution of Safavid schools after the Timurid period, an architectural physical examination was done on the case studies.Evidence shows that the amount of financial support of the school founders has had a great impact on the school dimensions, quality, and many other factors such as the architectural building method. The concept of education was influenced by Iran’s politics at different eras. This is one of the main reasons why educational policy and school’s concept were changed in different periods. These physical changes were impacting different aspects and elements of schools. Such as dimensions, Madrasa and dorms qualities, paying more attention to students housing, changing the school’s entrance, and more. The Safavid era was known as an era during which fundamental changes had been made in the political and social structures, and as mentioned in the research background, this period was one of the most influential periods in the field of education. in this period, the schools had been changed in order to emphasize the importance of education based on factors such as public education policy, public attention, and the Safavid educational system. So, the construction of schools was increased in this period and such an increase was observed both in number and area. In addition, a greater number of educational and residential spaces with higher quality were formed in the Safavid schools. Comparing to the Timurid era which the super religious policy was ruling the country and almost every school has had a prayer area, dome chamber, or a nave, some of the Safavid schools even did not have had a prayer area at all and only had an educational approach. To sum up, the most common reason for school changes in both periods was to provide a more desirable residential, educational, and prayer space for students.