Advisor: Prof. Omar Amireh

Abstract:
The thesis investigates the impact of political changes upon the structure of Arab Muslim cities. The fact that the built environments are constantly changing is a major accepted phenomenon in this study (i.e. the built environment is viewed as a dynamic and not static entity). Therefore, all investigated concepts were studied as constantly changing mechanisms overtime. To link cities' morphology with the political changes the thesis investigates individual, communal and property rights in general, while concentrating on methods that shifted those rights over time from one party to another. It is found that through istihsan or juristic preference (a discretionary opinion in breach of strict analogy in deducting rights) and other similar methods of deducting laws, rights have shifted from the public to the central authority or the ruler. To explain this shift the thesis studies the development of fiqh or Islamic jurisprudence and concludes that the major reasons for such shifts are "typologies of governments" and not ruling dynasties such as Abbasids or Umayyads.

Ibn Khaldun, from his observation of political history, concluded that three types of cyclic governments have successively ruled Muslims. The thesis uses this classification of Ibn Khaldun in observing environmental decisions and then establishes links between morphology of Arab Islamic cities and changes of social structure created by the various government types. Since individuals' values and interests varied among social classes, the built environment created by the decisions of those classes varied too.

To investigate decision making processes, a framework that links social classes, and government-types were created. The frame work was established by analyzing the decision making process in garrison towns such as Al-Basra and Al-Kufa, transformed towns such as Damascus and created towns such as Wasit and Samarra. Observing the processes of planning and settling those towns led to the conclusion that the accumulation of building and planning experiences in the society were not influenced in their developments by the various dynasties (whether Umayyads or Abbasids) but by the government-types. In other words, interaction between both accumulation of building experiences and government-types were one of the major factors that shaped Muslim cities.

The above mentioned framework was also created by investigating several mechanisms, among them are: process of land distribution such as 'iqta' or allotting and ikhtitat or legal squatting (this is the closest translation to 'ikhtitat); process of tribal grouping and subdivisions on those allotted or squatted settlements and processes of deciding sites' of cities, widths of streets and the like. In short, to investigate the impact of political changes on Arab Muslim cities, the thesis investigates and links government-types, principles of rights in the Islamic legal system, decision making process, tribal mobility, and accumulation of building experiences. Finally, although the study does not concentrate on economic aspects, in few cases it does mention economical consequences on the created framework.