ABSTRACT
Like all regions, and to a greater extent perhaps than most, urban forms in the Middle East have been the result of a large variety of historical circumstances and the changes in culture which they have created. This chapter seeks to carry out a study of urban features of the Middle East, calling on examples from different periods and locations. Following the death of Muhammad in 632 AD, the Islamic conquerors spread out from the Arabian peninsula across North Africa, north into Turkey and eastwards into Persia. They established the longest period of significant urban growth which the region has ever experienced. Much of the development of an Islamic pattern of town design is the product of Islamic methods of social administration and philosophy. Some Islamic towns have central squares like their European counterparts, but these do not represent the planning of the earliest period of urban development.
