Dissertation_Dr Faisal Almubarak

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resulted in problematic urbanization. The modem urban formation lacks a strong reference
to the local heritage and identity. The new space-design is that of centralized planning and
municipal controls (devoid of social considerations) which supplant residents' control and
input in development.
The Muslim city was built reflecting its inhabitants' convictions. 4 Islam has nurtured
egalitarianism rather than elitist-despotism or materialist privatism. Such emphasis has
prompted Rapport to comment that the "Islamic city to an American has no order." 5
Europeans perceived the African village as lacking order, mainly and simply because it is
not laid in a geometrical form. Such parochialism has undermined the development of
sensible solutions to local problems.
Under the guise of modernization, many Developing and Third World countries have
sought Western technical advice and financial backing to plan the growing metropolis
awakened by the new international economic systems to which their nation-states became
connected. Modernization of the medina, upgrading it to the metropolis, has been looked
upon by each fledgling nation-state's political leaderships as a leverage for legitimacy. A
brief discussion of traditional urban processes, the structure and form of the pre-industrial
city in a West-East comparison will be first presented. The discontinuity of the "placid"
traditional Muslim city, and its subsequent substitution by the "chaotic" metropolis, I
argue, has not been due merely to technological factors, 6 the introduction of new planning
and architecture principles 7 and/or that of the transfer of residents' responsibility and
control over their neighborhoods into that of the institutionalized government municipality. 8
Rather, it is largely due to the sudden metamorphosis in the society's political economic
structure at the macro-level, which has caused lopsided societal development at the microlevels
of these countries cultural systems of which the urban sphere is one manifestation.
I. ISLAM (722-1000 AD): PHILOSOPHICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL UNDERPINNINGS
OF URBANISM
Documentation puts the Near Eastern Mesopotamia region as the cradle of urban
civilization which goes back to 5,500 B.C. when cities first appeared. 9 The long history of
urbanism in the Middle East has been the result of propitious, temporal as well as physical
conditions. 10
As a birth-place for the world's great religions, the area witnessed the
creation of many settlements and urban centers. Several factors have forged the