Comparative study between the educational and worship areas in the mosque-schools during Timurid and Safavid era

The mosque schools were the social, political, and religious centers considered as a refuge for the turbulent urban life in the Islamic countries. To teach religious affairs in a religious environment, the theocratic regimes in Iran began to construct a new building called the mosque-school while benefitting from the background provided by the mosque-shrines and the mosque- monastaries. Despite the available studies conducted on the formation of these buildings and their physical features; it seems that the appearance of these mosque-schools still has many lessons for the contemporary architecture of Iran. It is not clearly known how the two educational (school) and worshipping areas (mosque) have been linked with each other in the two eras of Timurid and Safavid and what features distinguish mosque-schools from other combined forms of buildings. This research identifies the relationship between the educational and worshipping centers, which are in fact the so-called mosque-schools. The purpose of this article is to find out the relationship between the two educational and worshipping areas in the Timurid and Safavid Eras and the distinctive features of mosque-schools, as compared to the other combined forms.

The present study used interpretive-historical and case study research methodology; and the analyses of the buildings are done by the method of logical reasoning. In this case, first, the two educational and worshipping areas in each era were considered separetly. Then the influence of these areas on the general form of the aforementioned mosque-schools and also the way their different parts are related to each other were analyzed.

To make a comparative study on the relationship between the mosque-schools of the Safavid and Timurid Eras, seven cases of mosque-schools from these two eras were selected, using a purposeful sampling method. Regarding the relationship between the educational and worshipping areas, two general categories were introduced for typology. In these typologies, the mosque-schools were divided in terms of hierarchy, location, and the combination of the educational and worshipping areas. Moreover, the criteria for the simultaneous development of education and training, focusing on education, promoting the social interactions of the students in the mosqus and so on were introduced and, finally, these criteria were compiled and explained in terms of design principles of educational-religious centers. Principles, such as comprehensive development in various aspects, the importance of discussion, the improvement of social interactions, mentioning spiritual issues and other policies show the importance of these matters in the mosque-schools.

The major changes in the Safavid schools provided more suitable residential, educational and worshipping areas for students. Sometimes schools had two separate entrances to access educational and worshipping areas. During the Timurid Era, these two sections were completely close to each other. Ghiasieh and Do-dar schools from the Timurid Era and Chaharbagh and Hakim schools from the Safavid Era are the proofs of this fact. With respect to the principles ruling over the in mosque-schools, for instance, respecting the privacy of the students which, in turn, leads to creating spatial hierarchies and observing order in the mosque-schools can be pointed out. Moreover, the importance of discussion and paying attention to the central courtyard could also lead considering open and semi-open spaces like porticos and also paying attention to natural elements in order to focus the mind on thinking and educational development. These principles lead to the organization and helped to focus on education along with worshipping in the school mosques.