Imminence- Transcendence- Isfahan's school- Architecture body of mosque.

lief and faith are key factors in architecture, whether in forming the human beings lives or its role in their spiritual dimension. Thus, architecture is the body that belongs to human's thoughts and beliefs; therefore where ever a major artistic creation with traditional nature has been observed, there should exist a live traditional thinking. So in order to recognize the mystical and philosophical ideas that their peak was represented in Safavid era which is known as the golden age of art, we have to enter through the gate of Islamic arts philosophy. Transcendence and imminence as the subject matters are one of the ways to find out and comprehend the philosophy of art and the beauty of Islam, but the important point about these subjects is the dual structure of transcendence and imminence. Due to the dialectic between these two - transcendence and imminence- (Throughout the history of Islam) and while they have separated features, only it can be possible to figure out their complementary feature through their unitary vision. Of course, such duality that the universe is made up of one whole which is composed of two obvious and inseparable elements, has been seen in different religions, like "Yin and Yang" in China. As mentioned in Islamic sciences and in an initial classification about God and the universe, two words are in common; Transcendence and imminence. The transcendent philosophers do not consider any human traits for God and in contrast there are imminent mystics who define imminence as the attribution of human traits to God. Going out from this conflict is only possible through unitary vision of transcendence and imminence. This vision which is attributed to Muhiddin Ibn Arabic, considers the summation of transcendence and imminence in order to God's cognition. Since mosques (central) are the most effected places by beliefs and thoughts of their time, they are chosen as the typical examples for reloading the transcendent and imminent ideas. For this purpose, first quantitative and qualitative criteria of transcendent and imminent shapes in architecture were extracted. On the other hand this means that in architecture, components of imminent shapes correspond to transition, dynamism, transparence, transfer, static, sublime and establishment; and components of transcendent shapes correspond to void, centripetal, symmetric and balanced spaces. Then in order to recognize the transcendent and imminent aspects, all the skeletal shapes of Imam Mosque, like the system of entrance, yard, porch and dome were measured and evaluated with these criteria. The results of this measurement were the dominant imminent aspects for transitional and motional shapes like entrance and porches, and the dominant transcendent aspects for mosque's yard as the static, void and centripetal space. But the balance of transcendent and imminent ideas can be searched comprehensively in the architecture of dome, where the void atmosphere (negative) and the tangible positive atmosphere (surrounded the environment) have been defined and the static and centripetal and in a same time dynamic, connected and transitional atmosphere (vertical) toward the God can be understood, observed and perceived.