A Critical Reading of the Islamic City and Architecture in the Thought of Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Subject Areas : Islamic urbanism
Amirarsalan Moradi sangachini
1
,
Hamidreza saremi
2
*
,
Khatereh Moghani Rahimi
3
1 - M.A Student in Urban Planning, Department of Urban Planning, Faculty of Arts and Architecture, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
2 - Associate Professor in Urban Planning, Department of Urban Planning, Faculty of Arts and Architecture, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
3 - Ph.D. Student, Department of Urban Planning, Faculty of Arts and Architecture, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
Keywords: Islam in the Modern World, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic City, Islamic Architecture, Islamic Urbanism.,
Abstract :
A Critical Reading of the Islamic City and Architecture
in the Thought of Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Amir Arsalan Moradi Sangachini*
Hamid Reza Saremi**
Khatreh Moghani Rahimi***
In the contemporary era, architecture and urbanism in the Islamic world face profound crises of meaning, identity, and spatial coherence under the influence of modernity. This study offers a critical reading of Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s thought to examine its theoretical potential for analyzing these challenges. Using qualitative critical content analysis, the research focuses on Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen of Islam in the Modern World. The findings reveal that Nasr conceptualizes Islamic architecture and the Islamic city through key notions such as unity (tawḥīd), sacredness, spatial flexibility, and the harmonious relationship between human beings and nature, while strongly criticizing modern architecture for its detachment from meaning and the sacred. At the same time, the analysis shows that Nasr’s framework remains largely philosophical and normative, offering limited engagement with contemporary social, economic, and institutional realities. The study concludes that Nasr’s thought provides a powerful critical framework whose relevance today depends on translating its concepts into analytical and practical criteria for contemporary urban design and policy.
Keywords: Islam in the Modern World; Seyyed Hossein Nasr; Islamic City; Islamic Architecture; Islamic Urbanism.
Introduction
In the contemporary period, the Islamic world has faced multiple challenges resulting from its encounter with modernity, including cultural, social, environmental, and epistemological transformations. Modernity, characterized by instrumental rationality, secularism, individualism, and a rupture from sacred traditions, has reshaped human modes of existence and meaning. These transformations are clearly reflected in architecture and urbanism, where functionalism, economic logic, and technological determinism have contributed to spatial fragmentation, loss of identity, and the erosion of symbolic and spiritual dimensions of the built environment. As material expressions of worldview, architecture and the city have become central arenas in which tensions between tradition and modernity are manifested. In response to this condition, several Muslim thinkers have critically reassessed modernity through a renewed engagement with Islamic intellectual and spiritual traditions. Among them, Seyyed Hossein Nasr occupies a distinctive position. Drawing on Islamic philosophy and metaphysics, Nasr develops a comprehensive critique of modern civilization and its desacralized conception of knowledge, nature, and art. In Islam in the Modern World, he argues that Islamic architecture is not merely functional or aesthetic, but a concrete expression of a sacred cosmology rooted in tawhid, reflecting unity, harmony, and metaphysical order. From Nasr’s perspective, the Islamic city embodies a unified worldview in which work, worship, education, family life, and nature are integrated into a meaningful whole. Urban space is therefore not simply a setting for material life, but a medium for spiritual formation and the manifestation of sacred order. Despite the importance of this perspective, Nasr’s ideas are often treated descriptively or idealistically in architectural discourse rather than critically examined as an analytical framework for contemporary urban issues. This study addresses this gap by exploring how Nasr’s key concepts, particularly unity, meaning, and the human–environment relationship, can inform a critical analysis of modern architecture and urbanism in the Islamic world.
Methodology
This study adopts a qualitative research design aimed at critically examining Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s ideas on Islamic architecture and the Islamic city and assessing their analytical relevance for contemporary architectural and urban debates. Given the theoretical nature of the research and its focus on philosophical texts, the study employs qualitative critical content analysis as its main methodological approach. This method allows for the systematic extraction, interpretation, and evaluation of key concepts embedded in complex theoretical texts, while also identifying both their conceptual strengths and limitations. The primary source of analysis is the book Islam in the Modern World by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. The research focuses specifically on Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen, as these chapters directly address issues related to Islamic architecture, the Islamic city, the relationship between human beings and the built environment, and critiques of modern architecture and urbanism. The selection of these chapters was informed by a review of existing literature, which indicated that they have rarely been examined independently and analytically within architectural and urban studies.
To enhance the credibility and consistency of the analysis, the coding process involved continuous comparison between extracted concepts and the original text. Conceptual extraction continued until theoretical saturation was reached and no new significant themes emerged. In addition, selected interpretations were reviewed by a researcher familiar with Islamic philosophy and qualitative research methods in order to ensure coherence and fidelity to the original text. This methodological framework enabled a structured and critical engagement with Nasr’s thought while maintaining analytical rigor.
Findings
The findings indicate that Nasr understands the relationship between human beings and the built environment as deeply symbolic and reflective. He argues that the external spatial environment mirrors the internal spiritual and intellectual condition of human beings, and that the visual disorder and loss of beauty in contemporary cities of the Islamic world reflect deeper epistemological and moral crises. This perspective offers a strong critique of modern urbanism by linking spatial fragmentation and aesthetic degradation to the loss of sacred meaning. However, the analysis shows that Nasr largely presents this relationship as one-directional, from the inner state of the human being to the external form of space. The active role of architectural space in shaping human behavior, perception, and spiritual experience is not fully developed within his theoretical framework.
Another key finding concerns Nasr’s emphasis on unity and tawhid as the foundational principles of Islamic architecture and the Islamic city. Unity, in his view, is not merely a theological doctrine but the metaphysical basis of all Islamic arts. In architecture, it is expressed through coherence and harmony among spatial elements, the integration of major urban institutions such as the mosque, market, school, and home, and the close relationship between the city and nature. While this articulation provides a compelling philosophical vision, the findings suggest that Nasr’s discussion remains primarily symbolic and formal. He devotes limited attention to the social, economic, and institutional mechanisms that shape urban space in contemporary contexts and often undermine the realization of such unity.
Finally, the findings demonstrate that Nasr locates the root of architectural and urban crises in the secularization of knowledge and the loss of sacred science. He argues that in traditional Islamic civilization, disciplines such as geometry and mathematics were inseparable from metaphysical meaning and served as means of manifesting divine order in space. In contrast, modern architecture reduces form and material to purely functional and economic categories. Although this diagnosis offers a profound philosophical critique, the analysis shows that Nasr provides limited engagement with the potential for reinterpreting contemporary science and technology within a meaningful architectural framework.
Overall, the findings indicate that Nasr’s thought offers a rich philosophical critique of modern architecture and urbanism grounded in unity, sacredness, and meaning. Its contemporary relevance, however, depends on translating these concepts into analytical and practical frameworks capable of addressing the social, economic, and institutional realities of modern cities.
Conclusion
This study has critically examined Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s reflections on Islamic architecture and the Islamic city through an in-depth analysis of Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen of Islam in the Modern World. The findings demonstrate that Nasr offers a coherent philosophical framework for understanding architecture and urban space as expressions of a sacred worldview rooted in unity, meaning, and metaphysical order. By emphasizing concepts such as tawhid, sacredness, spatial flexibility, and the harmonious relationship between human beings and nature, Nasr provides a powerful critique of modern architecture and urbanism, which he views as products of a desacralized and fragmented conception of reality. At the same time, the critical analysis reveals important limitations in Nasr’s theoretical approach. His interpretation of the human–environment relationship is largely unidirectional, portraying the built environment primarily as a reflection of human spiritual and intellectual conditions. This perspective underestimates the formative and educative role of architectural space in shaping human behavior, perception, and ethical sensibilities.
Overall, this research concludes that Nasr’s thought should be understood less as an operational model for urban design and more as a critical and normative framework that exposes the deeper epistemological and ethical dimensions of architectural crises. The contemporary relevance of his ideas depends on their reinterpretation and translation into analytical tools and design principles capable of engaging with present-day social and institutional contexts. Such a translation would allow Islamic architecture to move beyond symbolic revivalism toward a meaningful and context-sensitive engagement with the challenges of modern urban life.
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* M.A Student in Urban Planning, Department of Urban Planning, Faculty of Arts and Architecture, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
a.moradisangachini@modares.ac.ir
http://orcid.org/0009-0009-7099-629x
** Corresponding Author: Associate Professor in Urban Planning, Department of Urban Planning, Faculty of Arts and Architecture, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3625-7268
*** Ph.D. Student, Department of Urban Planning, Faculty of Arts and Architecture, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
k.moghanirahimi@modares.ac.ir
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1791-797x
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