Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1984. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH / Bibliography: p. 462-466. / This study aims to analyze the effect of the responsibility enjoyed by individuals over the built environment. To understand these effects the study concentrates on the physical state of the property. It is concluded that three claims will affect the physical state of a property: the claim of ownership, the claim of control and the claim of use. These three claims can be enjoyed by one or more individuals at the same time over the same property. A model is developed to explore the relationships between the three claims and the parties involved in sharing them, and it is then used to explain the physical state of a property. For example, given the same circumstances, we may expect a property that is owned, controlled and used by one person to be in a different state than if it is owned by one person, controlled by a second and used by a third. In the first case, responsibility is unified in one person, while in the second, it is dispersed among the three persons. In addition to these two, the developed model recognizes three more patterns of responsibility into which a property may be submitted. These five states of submission of the property are called the "Forms of Submission of Property." The relationship between the individuals sharing the responsibility over a property will affect the state of the property. If the relationships between the responsible parties change, the state of the property will change. The relationship between responsible individuals in the traditional Muslim built environment differs from that of contemporary environments which have changed the physical state of properties. By concentrating on the traditional built environments, this study highlights these differences. It investigates various elements from both traditional and contemporary environments within the different forms of submission. First, the study investigates each form of submission independently, and then it explores the coexistence of the various properties that are in different forms of submission in the traditional built environment. This explains the relationship between the individuals responsible for different properties. From these explorations the conclusion is reached that responsibility in the traditional environments has shifted to outsiders in contemporary environments. In traditional environments the users had more responsibility; in contemporary environments outsiders share the responsibility with the inhabitants through interventions in all claims. The study demonstrates that the structure of the built environment has changed because of the change in the pattern of responsibility. Examples of such changes are: the potential of the physical environment, the conventions of·the society, the social relationships between users and the territorial structure. / by Jamel A. Akbar. / Ph.D.

This dissertation explores the application of spatial organization models to medieval Islamic urbanism. In particular, the systems of urban settlements in Mesopotamia and Persia during the ninth and tenth centuries A.D. are investigated, depending primarily on medieval indigenous sources. The study of Islamic urbanism in general, and medieval Islamic urbanism in particular, remained for a long time obscured by an inadequate single perspective: the "Islamic city" as an individual social entity occupying a fixed geographical area. The conventional approach can be criticized for its restricted focus on Islamic cultural tradition as the only explanatory variable and for its search for an ideal-type construct in the tradition of Western urban-ecological writings of the first half of the twentieth century. The alternative approach put forward in the present thesis examines the city as part of a larger urban network extending over several regions. It is argued that the application of spatial organization models to medieval Islamic urbanism will help to clarify the place and role of cities in both the regional and national structures and will provide a suitable framework for comparing the stages of urban and regional development. Following a historical perspective, the study results indicate the sequence in the evolution of a distinctive form of Islamic urbanism through the operation of several spatial processes. Such processes signify the expansion, assimilation, and integration of urban settlements in former Sasanian lands. Analysis of the road network provides the necessary framework by which interurban contacts are examined on both the national and the regional levels. Hierarchical organization of space and settlement interdependencies are further demonstrated by the analysis of long-distance kharaj (land tax) mobility. This medieval fiscal system is used as a surrogate for human spatial interaction and is supplemented by an evidence for the existence of an urban hierarchy derived from the actual methods and approaches used by the medieval Arab geographers themselves. The findings of the present study demonstrate the evidence for the evolution first of a nationally integrated urban system and second of several regionally organized urban subsystems.