Crisis in the Built Environment The Case of the Muslim City

Abstract

Despite this boors orientation toward scholars in the field of environmental design, it contains many environmental observations that are interesting to the casual reader. The originality of this work is that it investigates Islamic principles and processes of managing and operating the built environment by Muslim individuals and parties. Through his invdgation, the author has tried to show that the environment which existed in many parts of the Islamic world was successfully ordered by users to meet their needs and optimize Islamically acceptable behavior. Furthermore, it constituted a model of success for today’s crisis of built environments in the contemporary Muslim world. The crisis of contemporary environment, which is described as Responsibility and Control of the built environment, has shifted from people/users to centralized “formal” govemment-run agencies. The result of this conversion of roles has negatively affected both the relationship of individuals and groups to the built environment, and the ability of agencies to exercise management of that environment. The realms of “Responsibility” and “Control” of “territories” and “properties,” have been impressively elaborated in the investigation included in this book. Their Islamic signiiicance have also been supported by references to original Islamic concepts and rules. The theme presented is that “responsibility” and “control” have been two fundamental issues which the Qur’an, the Hadith, the Sira, and other Islamic traditions have strongly advocated. The author develops a study model focusing on three areas: ownership, control, and use. The combination of these three areas have generated five possible relationships or forms of submission which include: unified (the same party owns, controls and uses the property), dispersed (three independent partia are involved; one owns the property, a second controls it and a third uses it), permissive (a party that uses a property and has to deal with the party which owns and controls it), possessive (the party that uses and controls a property has to deal with the party which owns the property), and trusteeship ...