Master of Science in Islamic Art, Architecture and Urbanism

Ahmad ibn Tulun (835–84), the son of a Turkic slave in the Abbasid court of Baghdad, became the founder of the first independent state in Egypt since antiquity, and builder of Egypt’s short-lived third capital of the Islamic era, al-Qata’i‘ and its great congregational mosque. After recounting the story of Ibn Tulun and his successors, architectural historian Tarek Swelim presents a topographic survey of al-Qata’i‘, a city lost since its complete destruction in 905.

The city of Doha is growing rapidly with emerging urban nodes and centers, housing development. Little attention however has been paid to several growth aspects including the understanding of urban space diversity and the resulting inhabitants' spatial experience, their attitudes toward emerging urbanized spaces. Utilizing a perceptual approach in the form of an attitude survey, this paper explores urban spaces in the city of Doha as perceived and experienced by different groups.

The regeneration of urban open spaces of traditional markets in the GCC is driven by socio-cultural intents to reconcile between tradition and modernity. This paper investigates the qualities of urban open spaces of two traditional markets in Qatar through behavioural mapping and impressionistic assessments. The paper aims to demonstrate the variations of urban open spaces in historic markets of Doha and Al Wakra cities and to investigate efficiency of use. The study utilizes both quantitative data and qualitative observations during the peak hours.

The aim of this chapter is to compare Islamic Sharī’a law with international policies governing cultural heritage preservation, and to investigate current, related laws in Qatar as a case study for the Middle Eastern region. The author presents research carried out within the Materiality and Preservation in Islamic Contexts project, in which he examined governing models of cultural heritage preservation by reviewing Islamic classical literature and by analysing Qatar’s Law on Antiquities according to six criteria of policy efficiency described by Daniel Mazmanian and Paul Sabatier (1983).

While exploring the concept of built heritage preservation from an Islamic perspective, this study will dig out the jurisprudential principles to challenge the contemporary destruction of built heritage in