Utopia

In accordance with Emmanuel Levinas’s ethics, the interconnection between the subject and its Other is equated with the master-slave relationship, which is not by any means absolute. This article aims at illustrating an oscillating state of master-and-slave relation with regard to Levinas’s ethics in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy. The Face of the Other becomes a ‘poor master’ who needs help and yet gives a serious order to the subject, one that he should obey. Subsequently, the Other deprives the subject of his/her wealth, thus overcoming its own poverty; therefore, the Other as a ‘poor master’ and the subject as a ‘wealthy subject’ constitute an ethical relationship. Founding the argument on the above-mentioned Levinasian principles, this paper approaches the altruistic intentions of Atwood’s post-apocalyptic characters, and inspects how the post-apocalyptic world of her MaddAddam trilogy is ultimately orientated towards, if not also predicting, a return to now bygone humanistic, ethical and communal society.

Does it sound plausible to obtain a strategy for global peace in Farabi’s political philosophy? Put another way, could we procure a common language leading to peace among all cultures and religions, according to Farabi? Farabi’s utopia (al-madīnat al-fāḍila), literally meaning ‘the excellent state’, consists of five levels. On the first level stands the philosopher (fīlsūf) or the prophet (nabī). The second level includes poets (shuʿarā), music composers (mulaḥḥinūn), writers (kuttāb) and the likes. Farabi strongly believes in the power of imagination (khīyāl) and that most people are under the influence of their imaginative faculty (al-quwwat al-mutakhayyila). This faculty has an important outcome which influences his view on religion (milla), prophet, and their relation with the public (jumhūr): imagination, in his view, is the most powerful tool of influencing the public. Regarding this principle, it could be concluded that there is a shared function between the poet and the prophet. Farabian theory of peace may well be identified, based on the shared function between the poet and the prophet. In other words, for Farabi rational truth and rational happiness is fixed and one, having only one denotation, while its connotations, that is, sensory images and imagery forms are more than one—possibly many more. That being the case, various and sundry cultures and religions might well have different ways to pursue the same knowledge, truth, and contentment.

Mosques, as symbol of Islamic architecture must play an important role in reflecting the superiority of Allah the Almighty. There are many ways in making it successful and one of them is through the high quality of aesthetic value. Aesthetic value in Islamic art and architecture is normally portrayed by the highest degree of motifs and ornamentation. Contemporary mosque designers normally focused on the majestic looks of the exterior part of the mosques and leave the manipulation of the interior space to the users. This research method is descriptive - analytic gathering tool: library studies and documents referring to the theories of thinkers has benefited the field. So, this paper explain Reflecting the symbolic meanings of Islamic mysticism in design of Mosque in Hermeneutic and Semiotic as research methodology. At the end of some of the concepts related to reread the configuration mystical concepts discussed in the relevant analysis is presented.

Utopian thoughts have precedence as old as human history. Islamic civilization utopian thought owes its progress to the Farabi&rsquos utopian concept and expansion and academic study of utopian term in west owes to the Thomas More Utopia book. Theoretically, Farabi&rsquos utopian thoughts influenced development of utopian system in both Islam and Western civilizations. By emphasis on Farabi&rsquos Utopia as an example of utopian ideas in Islamic civilization, and Thomas More&rsquos Utopia as an example of utopian though in the western civilization, this research tries to investigate the commonalties and differences of these utopias. The architectural and urban building spaces of these examples were studied in the conceptual viewpoint. Thomas More Utopia consists of fifty four similar cities. All of the cities have been constructed well according to the same plan as possible as. The nearest cities have approximately twenty four miles distance, and the furthest ones are not so far from each other so that the people can travel less than one day. Because of similarities in the cities, only one of them has been referred in the &ldquoUtopia&rdquo this city is Amaurot. Each city sends three wise old men to Amaurot every year to negotiate on their common affairs. Amaurot is the main city of the island and it is near the center of the island. &ldquoThe opinions of the Utopians&rdquo and &ldquoThe Policy of the City&rdquo are two books of Farabi. He expresses the political and philosophical systems of Utopia comprehensively. He divides communities qualitatively and in addition, there are cities in contrary to Utopia. He pays attention to the quality of communities from perfectionism and auspicious perspective. In other words, the goal of the city determines type of the city. Farabi likens utopia to a creature that has independent existence beyond the members of the city. The comparison of the architectural and urban building spaces of Farabi&rsquos utopia and Thomas More&rsquos utopia showed that both of the cities are placed in the defined space from urban structure perspective both of them have defined volume and level, and the difference is that Thomas More&rsquos utopia is located in an islands and Farabi&rsquos utopia is universal. The More&rsquos city has a defied localization but Farabi&rsquos city does not posse this characteristic. Farabi has referred to the market space and transaction regarding to the urban micro spaces while Thomas More has referred to passages, hospitals, market and hall and other specification, situations and services. More has not explained the social and geographical divisions, but Farabi divides his utopia into complete and incompetent city and offers subcategories of human communities. Thomas More has emphasized on the urban divisions on streets and fragmentation of the city and also has referred to details like type of material, material used and entrance of city while, in Farabi&rsquos utopia has no references to the details of the architectural spaces and he has emphasized on educational and social goals.