Mosque

The present paper aims for the most part to prove the fact that religious and spiritual places and above all, mosques play major roles within Islamic urban areas. They are in fact the basis of civil infrastructures. A historical analysis focusing on where mosques stand in Islamic urban areas reveals that mosques have always been the center of development and growth and that they must be studied as a cultural and historical component of Islamic cities. The study also argues that considering mosques as works of architecture in isolation would be a far cry from reality. There are indisputable ties between mosques and historical –cultural developments in such cities.

Mosques represent Islamic art and identity and have displayed themselves in each geographical region in a way compatible with the culture and identity of that society. The significance of this research lies in its meticulous examination of early mosques within two dis tinct cultural and societal contexts, Iran and China. By inves tigating these mosques' architectural, cultural, and spatial attributes, this s tudy sheds light on the divergent approaches of two communities facing the same religious, social, environmental, and cultural challenges during a comparable his torical period. Despite sharing the same religious foundation and featuring similar spatial arrangements within the mosques, the contras ting cultural affinities reveal the crucial need to comprehend and appreciate the dis tinctive qualities inherent to early mosques in these two dis tinct cultural spheres. This research endeavor is a pioneering exploration toward unraveling the complexities surrounding early mosques, thereby deepening our unders tanding of their his torical and cultural significance in disparate cultural contexts. The research methodology involves a comprehensive review of library sources, articles, and software analysis using Depthmap X. As a result, and mosques have been compared based on the four main dimensions of architecture: spatial, conceptual, and philosophical s tructural features. Iranian mosques demons trate a fusion of Saudi Arabian Islamic architecture and Iranian design, emphasizing entrance connectivity. Chinese mosques, on the other hand, blend Islamic elements with ancient Chinese architectural art, prioritizing courtyard connectivity and integrating environmental elements, resulting in a dis tinctly Asian flavor.

The Bayazid Bastami complex, located in Bastam, Semnan province, is considered one of the outstanding examples of the Iranian religious architecture during the Ilkhanid era. Due to the existence of a renowned Sufi’s shrine, Bayazid Bastami (161-234 AH), this complex has attracted the attention of different reigns and kings since the very early Islamic period, and numerous constructions have been performed in this monument during various periods from the Deylamiyān (Deylamites) dynasty to the Qajar period. Most of the constructions in this complex and also the restorations conducted here relate to the Ilkhanid era, and particularly to Sultan Muhammad Ghazan Khan’s reign (694-703 AH) and Sultan Mohammad Khodābandeh Öljaitü’s time (703-716 AH). Thanks to his high regard for Bayazid, Öljaitü even selected his own children’s names according to Bayazid’s name and titles: Bastam, Bayazid, and Ṭayfūr. In various Ilkhanid buildings and extensions in Bayazid Bastami’s complex, numerous inscriptions can be seen that have adorned the architectural elements of this complex. Due to the existence of multiple features and the religious importance of this part, inscriptions on the mihrab of this mosque, called Mardana or Bayazid, have been widely investigated and analyzed from different aspects, including ritual, artistic, and historical. In the present research, a descriptive-analytical methodology has been applied, and the data have been collected from documentary and field studies with a theoretical approach to study the cultural history.