The Myth of Islamic Heritage versus Authentic Tradition

Introduction

In the minds of many, today’s concept of heritage is associated with an image of an idealistic past. It triggers emotional and nostalgic sentiments toward a dreamy, beautiful past. This sense of longing for the past and its heritage has begun to grow since the middle of last century, especially in light of present disappointing conditions and future fears. The past, as we see it, is better than today, and its inhabitants enjoyed a happier, more stable life. Its remaining cities, as we believe today, are the best witness to its response to the needs of its people and the requirements of their time. However, how was this feeling established, and does it reflect the reality of the past? Put differently, does heritage reflect the true past?

Since the 1970s, interest in the concept of heritage has been steadily increasing, on the level of both governments and international institutions, as well as the academic level. Many studies and approaches have emerged focusing on different themes such as heritage conservation practices and policies, heritage and identity, authenticity and politics, and heritage tourism and its association with the national economy. Trends toward the concept of heritage are still controversial, especially in light of the so-called “World Heritage,” which has been viewed by many as a globalizing process that embodies separation and displacement of heritage from its local contexts and communities. Questions have arisen about who owns heritage, and what the purpose of preserving heritage is? Can national identity be formed by linking it to heritage? And what past should be preserved? These questions, and many others, tackled in the last few decades form what is known as the “Critical Heritage Discourse,” where answers are still under debate. Therefore, this article attempts to contribute to this discourse by critically reading the concept of heritage from a contemporary perspective, focusing on the “Islamic” urban heritage (of built environment) in particular. The article is based on a critical analysis of contemporary issues related to urban heritage, such as the concept of identity and its relation to the mechanisms of power and authority, or the so-called politicization of heritage, as well as history and the inherited. Regarding the investigation of the “Islamic” urban heritage, the article will rely on prime historical texts as the main source of data. One might claim that the article is selective with the historical evidences used to support its argument; however, such evidences have repeatedly occurred across history and are documented in multiple historical manuscripts, giving the argument validity.

Tradition, Heritage, and the Inherited

Nowadays, most studies on heritage have a clear mix in their use of the terms “tradition,” “heritage,” and the “inherited.” They are used interchangeably and without any clear distinction between them; therefore, it is important to clarify these terms or concepts. According to English dictionaries, the term “tradition” (Taqalid in Arabic) is defined as the resultant inherited legacy of the subsequent generations in a society, or, it is the beliefs, objects, or customs a society performed or believed in in the past and are transmitted through time from generation to generation. Heritage (Turath in Arabic) is the inherited property. It also means tradition if related to traditional inheritance, such as buildings and the like. ¹ These definitions show a great overlap between the two terms. If so, why are they distinguished in many studies on heritage?

Despite many attempts to define the terms “Tradition” and “Heritage” in contemporary Western studies of heritage, ambiguity regarding the precise meaning of each still exists. For example, in AlSayyad’s study, Consuming Tradition, Manufacturing Heritage, ² the exact meaning of the terms is unclear, despite the distinction in the title of the study. However, in light of developments in the field of heritage studies and practices in the past two decades, there has been a proliferation of debates and studies to distinguish between the two terms. Although many researchers agree on the different terms, there is no agreement in contemporary Western discourse on their exact meaning, a matter that leads to a confusion and overlap in their use. For example, Graburn considers that both concepts are the product of modernity, and that they include what has been inherited from previous generations through family and kinship relationships, or identity-group to which the individual belongs. ³ Yet, he was unable to distinguish between both terms clearly.

Similarly, in his study, titled, The Real, the Hyper, and the Virtual Traditions in the Built Environment, AlSayyad emphasizes the difference of both concepts in most cultures. ⁴ In most European languages, tradition means “a belief, a custom, or a practice that has been handed down through a process of generational transmission,” while heritage simply refers to “a specific physical inheritance whether property, material objects, or places of national and universal significance.” ⁵ Although AlSayyad made the above distinction between the two concepts, such a distinction is not clear in most of his studies. In the above study, he focuses on the concept of tradition without heritage, so that the first concept appears as if it includes both. AlSayyad considers that tradition, unlike its meaning in Western cultures, includes tangible inheritance such as historical buildings and urban sites as well as intangible inheritance. AlSayyad refuses to view tradition as a static legacy transmitted from the past and belonging to a group of people. For him, this prevalent view of tradition is not valid in the age of globalization. He implicitly hints to the death of this view of tradition through the question he posed in the title of his book The End of Tradition? ⁶ In contrast, AlSayyad views tradition as a dynamic project for reinterpreting the past in light of the present. It is thus characterized as transient, fleeting, and contingent. ⁷ He adds that the process of transmission from one generation to the next, and the continuity of the inherited physical objects, techniques, and beliefs which some scholars, such as Paul Oliver, consider as the basis of tradition, are but partial basis. Tradition more greatly depends on the continuous process of representing the past and rearticulating its ideas more than its practices. That is, tradition accepts change to ensure its continuity through time and space. ⁸ If this is tradition for AlSayyad, then what is heritage?

AlSayyad, in his above study, may have replaced the use of the term “heritage” by distinguishing between three types of tradition: the real, the hyper, and the virtual. What is of concern to this article in AlSayyad’s classification of tradition are the first two types, the real and the hyper traditions; they are the closest to the two concepts employed in the article. The real tradition is inherited across generations, which, according to contemporary Western discourse, is inherent and reflects real traditional life practices (which is closer to the term “tradition” as used in this article). Hyper tradition has emerged as a result of globalization, the change in the concept of time and space, and the development in transportation systems. It denotes the past that has never occurred, or tradition that is separate from its culture and place of origin (perhaps the term is closest to the concept of heritage as used here). ⁹ Hyper tradition is the production or representation of the real tradition in a manner that denies its own authenticity. It is represented in media and social networks, as well as in video games that include representations of cities and virtual environments. This suggests that AlSayyad distinguishes between the real tradition and the hyper tradition (or heritage) based on two aspects: first, their association with the concept of authenticity. Real tradition is authentic while hyper tradition is not; it is the image of truth, not the truth itself. Second, the time scale. AlSayyad relates tradition with what has been inherited from the past, whereas hyper tradition has been identified with the contemporary time scale.

Comparably, in his studies, Ronström distinguishes between the concepts of tradition and heritage on different terms. ¹⁰ Although he regards both concepts as global phenomena and modes of producing the absent (the past) in the present, he considers them different concepts due to their contrasting mindscape of the past, scope of work or domain, and production responsibility. For Ronström, tradition works within a narrow, local circle closed to its inhabitants, while the scope of heritage extends to the state, or even the entire world as in the World Heritage. Heritage is the globalization of tradition and its removal from its local narrow circle to the larger, a matter that triggers debates regarding property ownership and rights of use and control. Tradition belongs to its inhabitants, while heritage is subordinated to the state or international institutions. Heritage tends to resist local inhabitants’ attachment to their tradition. Moreover, tradition can be produced locally, whereas heritage is centralized in its production; it is in the hands of specially approved, professional experts authorized to determine what qualifies as heritage. As such, tradition, due to its direct connection with its inhabitants/owners, induces a sense of nostalgia and a respect for the past, a feeling not evoked by heritage in its visitors/tourists who are mostly nonowners/nonlocals. Heritage strips tradition of its attachment to its inhabitants. It is becoming globalized and thus losing its authenticity, as in heritage tourism industry. Heritage, according to Ronström, is “everybody’s and therefore nobody’s.” ¹¹ In his studies, Ronström highlights the process through which tradition, bound within its closed local circle, was transformed due to globalization, and through centralized structured mechanisms, into the broader concept of “heritage” available to all. ¹² He points out that “the change from tradition to heritage is significant, that it signals changes in the production of collective memory, and that this has to do with changes in local power structures.” ¹³

Looking at many studies on heritage, it can be inferred that there is somewhat of an agreement on the concept of tradition in the contemporary Western discourse, but not for the concept of heritage. Many scholars such as Paul Oliver, Edward Shils, and Yi-fu Tuan link the concept of tradition with the past and the transmission of its objects from one generation to another. However, does all the inherited constitute tradition?

As argued in this article, one of the main criteria of tradition is to be accepted by its original (past) society and to be recurring, such as social customs, dress, food, behavior, and built environment based on socially accepted production mechanisms and practiced conventions at the time. Matter, whether tangible or intangible that emerged in the past on an individual (non-societal) scale is not considered a part of tradition. Hence, the theme of transmission per se, adopted by Oliver and others, cannot be considered the primary core of tradition; it implies the inclusiveness of tradition to all that has been transmitted or inherited. In view of that, there is a difference between tradition and the inherited; the latter may include individual, non-societal matter that was transmitted from the past.

In their production process, Islamic built environments, as explained below, follow certain mechanisms set by the Islamic legal system (shari‛a). ¹⁴ Thus, as socially accepted and employed mechanisms, the criterion for judging whether a built environment is an Islamic tradition or not is its subjection to the Islamic shari‛a production mechanisms. For example, the city of Samarra is a historical site, but according to this article, it is inherited, and not tradition. It is a capital city established by the Abbasid caliph Al-Mu‛tasim in Iraq in 211 H/836 AD, after leaving Baghdad due to conflicts between his Turkish soldiers and the people of Baghdad. Al-Mu‛tasim built Samarra to be a city for himself and for his soldiers; thus, he wanted it to be unique so that history recalls its greatness. He established Samarra with iconic architecture and unprecedented urban planning, characterized by representations of power and authority. In building Samarra, Al-Mu‛tasim followed a gridiron planning where he isolated his residence in a private center surrounded by the camps of his Turkish soldiers, which formed a human security belt for his protection. In other words, the city of Samarra was a royal city associated with its builder (Al-Mu‛tasim), thus deteriorated with the decline of his power. Samarra continued for nearly half a century until the Abbasid caliph Al-Mu‛tamid left Samarra for Baghdad, and then the city of Samarra collapsed. In terms of its architecture, planning, and urban mechanisms, Samarra constitutes an interruption in the course of production of “Islamic” built environments. It is an individual, authoritarian product that deviated from the Islamic norms and mechanisms of built environment production. Throughout Islamic history, many similar examples of buildings and cities that did not adhere to the Islamic mechanisms of built environment production as set by shari‛a were found. Such examples are part of the inherited, and not of tradition.

As for the concept of heritage, although its definition has been scrutinized by many studies, its content and precise meaning in contemporary Western discourse remain controversial. Studies have branched into two main approaches: the “heritage studies” approach which views heritage as a representation of the past. It stresses the materiality of heritage, or “icons of identity,” according to Lowenthal, ¹⁵ that is, the physical objects inherited from previous generations. Such objects, thus, have to be preserved and protected. The other approach is the “critical heritage studies,” emerged since the 1980s in the studies of Lowenthal, ¹⁶ Hewison, ¹⁷ and Laurajane Smith, ¹⁸ among others. This approach moves beyond the traditional focus of heritage studies. It views the past as continuously negotiated in the context of present needs. In this respect, Lowenthal, the father of this approach, views heritage as not equal to the past (history), but rather as a way of reliving the past; it improves the past to suit the present. In other words, heritage brings the past to the present. Whereas history signifies objectivity, “truth” has little value for heritage. ¹⁹ This article is a contribution to this approach. Adopting a critical analysis standpoint, it perceives heritage, part of which is Islamic urban heritage, as a contemporary political-economic discourse, developed by modernity, capitalism, globalization, and the requirements of power to meet its contemporary interests (as explored below). It is part of the power game deployed by the state to fulfill its interests, under the notion of culture.

Tradition in this sense indicates a consistent content; however, it grows with the accumulation of societal inheritance across generations. Tradition is a term that denotes societal matter, often from the distant past, accepted and used by the past society and inherited in a cumulative manner through history. This meaning is probably implicit in the title of AlSayyad’s book Consuming Tradition, Manufacturing Heritage, ²⁰ where the first part of the title can be interpreted as the consumption of something inherited from the past. Heritage, as declared by many scholars such as Smith, ²¹ Harvey, ²² Abu Lughod, ²³ and Urry, ²⁴ is a process. Linguistically, the term refers to the verb “heritageization” rather than being a noun. This can be extrapolated from the second part of AlSayyad’s title “Manufacturing Heritage,” as if heritage (as a verb) denotes the process of producing heritage as a noun. It is part of the consumption process of tradition. The act of heritage can hence be depicted as “heritageization,” as explored below.

Contemporary Urban Heritage—A Critical Reading

Today, many studies relate the emergence of the concept of contemporary heritage to the 1970s, particularly to the proclamation of UNESCO’s (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage Convention in Stockholm in 1972, and afterward the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003. ²⁵ Scholars attribute the emergence of the concept of heritage during that specific period to several reasons. These include its emergence as part of the postmodern condition, the “cultural turn,” which called for abandoning comprehensive modern concepts, as well as bringing attention to cultural differences. Moreover, during that time, heritage emerged as an integral part of political-economic capitalism which emphasizes the importance of heritage tourism as a source of the national income. This led to raising interest in local heritage as well as its promotion globally. ²⁶ Some studies have also associated the emergence of heritage with the concept of national identity, which strongly emerged in the post-colonial period, linking it to the politics of identity and its relationship with urban heritage as a physical representation of national identity. ²⁷ As such, heritage is a contemporary product that did not exist throughout history, but circumstances, in all of its aspects, facilitated its production, safeguarding, and consumption.

The prevailing concept of contemporary heritage is promoted by what Smith calls “Authorized Heritage Discourse—AHD,” a European professional discourse that began to emerge since the nineteenth century in debates between professionals and official authorities preoccupied with heritage. According to this discourse, heritage is a contemporary product concerned with ancient tangible objects of special aesthetic value and importance, where the responsibility of experts and specialists is the service and care of the past, to secure its protection, and to maintain its value and delivery to nonexpert communities. In the formation (or industrialization) of heritage, these experts focus on some physical objects and sites of particular aesthetic value, and choose them as carriers of the national identity. ²⁸ Part of this discourse is the existence of a reciprocal relationship between heritage and identity. Heritage is considered one of the most important pillars for establishing identity. In return, identity is a conduit for heritage and a means to its perpetuation. In that respect, Al-Tuwaijri states that there is no identity without heritage, and no heritage that does not institute an identity. ²⁹ This connection between heritage and identity transformed heritage, part of which is Islamic urban heritage, into an emotional concept that inspires nostalgic feelings and longing toward the past, which is pictured as ideal and utopian, especially in light of the vulnerable present.

However, Smith criticizes this discourse as being political, concealing a process linked to power, authority, and identity-making with its associated politics of identity and recognition. She views contemporary heritage not just as a product or “something,” but rather, she views it as a cultural and social act or process to create a new kind of connection between the past, the present, and the making of meaning. ³⁰ Here, the power of the state and its control over the process is clearly established. The state, represented by its institutions, becomes a major part of this process. It acts as a mediator between the past and the inhabitants who turned into recipients of produced heritage and passive consumers. It is a process of exerting power from the top down.

Reading this from the perspective of critical analysis, we will refer to the concept of power as occurred in the modern state. Based on the concepts of power, authority, and social contract, the modern state was keen to maintain its permanence and strength by increasing its authority and power exercitation scopes, that is, expanding the sources of its power. In the middle of last century (post-colonial era), national and reformist movements, as well as the concept of the nation-state have emerged. The state sought to build a national identity that reflects its civilization and supremacy, and responds to the political reformation demands. It found in the concept of national heritage what may support its power and achieve its objectives, while at the same time meeting the demands of the nationalists and reformers. The state resorted to heritage as a starting point for building its national identity, part of which is urban heritage. Urban heritage was considered a national heritage that must be protected and preserved; therefore, some countries, including the Arabs, used their authority to appropriate some of the privately owned old buildings and historical sites of heritage value. They transformed them from private to public properties, owned and controlled by the state. Through its nationalization process, the state has transformed urban heritage into a cultural capital that is controlled and used as a source of state power. This, according to some critical studies on heritage, confirms that heritage is a political process in the first place. ³¹ Heritage has moved away from everyday lives and practices to become part of the power game within the political sphere; it has become politicized.

But, if we distinguish between heritage as a contemporary concept related to national identity, and the inherited, which is all that was inherited from previous generations, could all the inherited turn into heritage? If heritage establishes identity, it must be a cherished heritage. But, can we establish heritage in accordance with the image of the national identity that we seek? Put differently, can we manufacture heritage?

The process of heritage nationalization was not quite objective; it was accompanied by a process of establishing the heritage that would represent the desired national identity. Not everything inherited is qualified to be a national symbol. Some legacies constitute what might be called a “negative heritage,” according to Rico, which includes an unpleasant memory of stories of conflicts or wars, ³² or “dissonant heritage” (opposite to “consonant heritage”), according to Tunbridge and Ashworth. ³³ A filtering process should be pursued to create heritage that symbolizes the desired identity, or it can be called “Heritageization,” ³⁴ or “Heritage industry.” ³⁵ It must be recalled that not every heritage is part of tradition; tradition is the collective inheritance accepted and reiterated by its past society. The inherited is all that has come down to us from previous generations, whether it is collective tradition or individual products. To clarify this, we must first explore the relationship between heritage and modernity.

Urban Heritage and Modernity: Contradictory or Complementary?

In its contemporary meaning, the concept of tradition has emerged since the age of the Enlightenment as a precondition to the establishment of the progressive concept of modernity. ³⁶ Tradition did not emerge as a matter of interest per se, but rather as the antithesis of modernity. It was needed to validate the transformation from previous societal systems (Islam in the Islamic world, for example) to modernity. This in turn leads to the inference that the concept of tradition did not occur in Islamic history due to the endurance of the same Islamic societal system throughout that history. However, with the transformation of the prevailing societal system, the concept of tradition has emerged as the antipode to modernity in the tradition–modernity dichotomy. In this dichotomy, tradition was portrayed as a reactionary, emotional, and non-progressive concept versus the rational, progressive modernity. But despite calls of progressive modernity to break with the past, the writings of William Morris of Romanticism and the appearance of the law of historic building preservation in Britain in 1882 led to the emergence of the concept of “heritage” and the calls for its maintenance and protection. At that time, this was implemented within a very narrow range. But, if tradition is the antithesis of modernity, what about heritage?

Mixing in their use between tradition and heritage, some scholars such as Giddens, ³⁷ Harvey, ³⁸ and Macaron ³⁹ associated heritage (or more precisely tradition) with modernity. They tend to depict the relationship between the two as antagonistic, where heritage appears as the antipode of modernity in most of its properties. Heritage, in its contemporary concept (rather than tradition, according to this article), is a Modern concept rather than an antithesis of modernity. Although heritage is produced from the concept of tradition, which modernity set as its antithesis, the concept of heritage emerged to maintain the power of the modern state. Heritage is a source of state power. But, how can the concept of urban heritage per se be modern?

The concept of urban heritage and its interest in the tangible historic buildings and sites has emerged as a European concept corresponding to modernity. It adopted the same modern perspective toward history and the built environment. That is, modernity cherished the end product of urban built environments and the attributes of inventiveness, creativity, and progress. Therefore, the focus of most Western architectural history books is on the study and analysis of monumental buildings as end products, such as cathedrals, temples, palaces, and theaters. Moreover, modern historiography developed the theme of periodization which divides history into periods (e.g. Ancient, Medieval, Modern), each characterized by a distinct urban and architectural style. ⁴⁰ Taking up the same methodology, modernity focused in its examination of Islamic architecture (conducted by the Orientalists) on mosques in particular and on some grand palaces such as Al-Hambra Palace in Granada, Al-Ukhaydir Palace in Iraq, and Topkapi Palace in Turkey. As such, urban history has merely turned into a history of significant buildings. Respectively, the process of contemporary heritage-making focuses on certain architectural buildings that materialize the achievements and creativity of the ancestors and call for pride and gratification. The concept of heritage has acquired in its formulation a modern mold; it dealt with tradition and the inherited as a repository of buildings and objects from which it can select what is suitable to become a national symbol.

Moreover, contemporary heritage, adopting modernity’s approach, has considered historical buildings as end products without relating them to their past context. Inherited buildings have been non-contextualized; they were not dealt with as a whole but merely as beautiful physical products suitable for contemporary consumption. Eric Hobsbawm states in that respect,

The destruction of . . . the social mechanisms that link one’s contemporary experiences to that of earlier generations, is one of the most characteristic and eerie phenomena of the late twentieth century. Most . . . grow up in a sort of perpetual present lacking any organic relation to the public past of the times they live in. ⁴¹

Smith criticizes this approach and considers the whole heritage to be intangible. Buildings and physical objects are not of value in themselves, but acquire their value and meaning from the associated events, rituals, and practices. Smith adds that linking heritage as a product to the physical boundaries of the site or heritage building helps to curtail the content of heritage or, more broadly, the past, the meanings, and the values associated with it. ⁴² Heritage is thus transformed into a product and commodity for consumption, where people become consumers of the produced, or manufactured heritage. Similarly, Janet Abu Lughod stresses that what distinguishes tradition is that it is a community product rather than an individual’s, based on the creative circulation of what the society produces without a binding adherence to the past or the tendency toward absolute renewal. ⁴³ What gives traditional architecture its value and distinction is its community production mechanisms, and not its sole end product.

Tradition and Heritage of Islamic Built Environments

Islamic architecture, as defined by Hoag, is “that building produced by the followers of the Prophet Muhammad [ppuH] between the seventh and eighteenth or nineteenth centuries of our era . . . wherever the religion . . . [of Islam] flourished.” ⁴⁴ Likewise, Ernst Grube relates Islamic architecture to its special characteristics that make it distinctly different from non-Islamic architecture, describing it as “Islamic.” ⁴⁵ These definitions view Islamic architecture from an orientalist perspective whose main focus is on the physical end product. Today, this perspective forms the prevailing perception among many architects and researchers of Islamic architecture. ⁴⁶ According to these definitions, attaching the adjective “Islamic” to the legacies that occurred throughout Islamic history makes all the inherited valid to be heritage. It is Islamic, as claimed, because it appeared within the Islamic civilization, historically and geographically. However, referring to what we mentioned above regarding the distinction between the inherited, tradition, and heritage, is all premodern architecture produced by Muslims, Islamic? And thus, is all “Islamic” architecture appropriate for contemporary heritageization?

To answer these questions, we will first define Islamic architecture and built environment from a non-orientalist perspective. Since the 1980s, a new approach of perceiving Islamic built environment has emerged, viewing it as a process, not as an end. It defines Islamic built environment (part of which is architecture) as the one produced by Muslims throughout history, following rights-based production mechanisms derived from shari‛a. ⁴⁷ It is “Islamic” because it is related to the Islamic production mechanisms, and not because it has been produced by Muslims or because it exists within the Islamic history and geography. According to this approach, Islamic cities were produced and reproduced based on a system of rights, bestowed by shari‛a to individuals, groups, and the state. In most cases, the state has no authority to grant rights to individuals or groups, or to deprive them of their rights. The role of the state in the built environment is quite limited. Its role is chiefly to maintain the rights of its people. Inhabitants themselves were responsible for the production of their built environments, using self-implemented set of rights, without any external intervention. Such rights act as organizing mechanisms in the built environment. As such, rights of all parties in the built environment are well defined. No one party can claim more rights than what shari‛a has bestowed to it. These rights offer its party the power to act in a certain situation. ⁴⁸

Control and ownership of places in Islamic cities were materialized through a rights-based territorial structure, with its main unit known as khitta, or territory. The khitta constitutes a socio-spatial rights unit; it is a materialization of its party’s rights, socially and spatially. Spatial khittas, such as the dead end street, through street, neighborhood, market, and so on, were owned and controlled by various local parties, comprised from the inhabitants themselves. No external intervention is allowed except in cases of dispute, when the judge rules in the case. Rights are employed to organize the relationships between inhabitants among each other, and between properties. The state, accordingly, is not the owner of public spaces in the city such as through streets, main plazas, and the Eid prayer yard; they belong to their parties or to all Muslims collectively. The state cannot claim right of ownership to any public space, land, or property without a legal validation. ⁴⁹

However, this picture of Islamic cities’ production process did not persist throughout Islamic history. Various negative stations that are not gratifying have occurred, deviating from shari‛a production mechanisms. Many “Islamic” buildings and cities that we are proud of today (as a result of their heritageization) were produced by authoritarian acts which were diverted from the well-established Islamic urban mechanisms. If we reread the example of the city of Samarra above, we wonder, how did Al-Mu‛tasim mange to leave the city of Baghdad which has all the merits of a capital city, and replace it with the city of Samarra on which he spent a huge amount of money from the Muslims’ House of Treasure? How did he build an impressive, costly, and luxurious city while Prophet Mohammad (pbuH) moved away from a man who built a dome on his house? How did Al-Mu‛tasim isolate himself in a private zone away from his people while ‛Omar bin Al-Khattab (the second caliph) sent one of his men to burn the door of Sa‛ad bin Abi Waqas’s house, governor of Kufa, when he learned that Sa‛ad had closed it to the public? Can we consider both as Islamic built environments despite the contradiction in their production mechanisms? To answer these questions, we will refer to Ibn Khaldoun (1332-1406, the father of Modern sociology) in reading Islamic history.

According to Ibn Khaldoun in his Introduction, Islamic history has undergone various stages in relation to the prevailing mode of political rule. He classified these stages into “Caliphate system,” “Political Monarchy system,” and “Natural Monarchy system.” Since the Umayyad era, the Islamic state has tended to embrace the Political Monarchy system through integrating the sacred (shari‛a) principles and rules with secular ones. Gradually however, the secular tendency dominated over the sacred one, turning the ruling system into a Natural Monarchy, which will inevitably lead to the downfall of the state. Ibn Khaldoun returns this transformation to the era of the sons of Abdul Malik bin Marwan in the Umayyad dynasty, and the era of the sons of al-Rashid in the Abbasid dynasty. ⁵⁰ This ruling cycle, as Ibn Khaldoun calls it, has recurred in Islamic history in most dynasties, such as the Umayyad and the Abbasid.

This change in the political ruling mode has been accompanied by a change, carried out by the state, in the rights distribution than what has been established by the Islamic law (shari‛a). Rights bestowed to rulers by shari‛a were expanded, exploited, and misused. They were converted into power in the hands of rulers, leading to a central, hierarchical ruling system contrary to the decentralized system of shari‛a. The rights-based ruling system that has prevailed during the Caliphate era was gradually replaced by an expanded power-based one. In the Natural Monarchy, power was concentrated in the hands of the caliphs/rulers and their retinue, which led to increased state intervention in the built environment production, with a reduction in people’s rights, and thus roles.

This expansion in the ruler’s power over the built environment led to a deviation from the Islamic rights-based production mechanisms. In this respect, two types of built environment can be distinguished according to the scope of the ruler’s intervention in the built environment and to who is the main acting party. First, the ordinary (popular) built environment, which is the daily built environment produced by the inhabitants themselves such as their residential houses and neighborhoods. This type of built environment employed the Islamic mechanisms in its daily production and reproduction processes to a great extent, except in certain cases where the ruler’s power dominated. The second type is the authority’s built environment which is produced by the power holders, being caliphs, royals, or governors. This type of built environment did not adhere to the Islamic production mechanisms, but was dictated through the ruler’s or his representatives’ exercise of power. This has resulted in producing monumental buildings such as palaces (e.g. Alasheq Palace, Al-Qasr Al-Harouni, Qusayr Amra), grand mosques, and cities (e.g. Baghdad, Samarra) that were associated with the names of their rulers, many of which have survived to the present time due to their durable structures and materials. The Dome of the Rock, built by the Umayyad caliph Abdul Malik bin Marwan, during the Political Monarchy system according to Ibn Khaldoun, is considered an unprecedented iconic building that set the standards for future Islamic architecture. ⁵¹ His successor, Al-Walid bin Abdul Malik, during the Natural Monarchy system, built the Umayyad mosque in Damascus in a very lavish manner. Today, such authoritarian buildings became part of the contemporary urban heritage. The inhabitants in the Natural Monarchy mode no longer played a key role in the production of the built environment. The state (represented by the caliph or the governor), using its power, compulsively acquired this role, leaving the inhabitants as receptive, inactive actors. As such, it can be said that the authoritarian power-based built environments belong to the inherited, while the ordinary inherited built environments are traditional Islamic built environments.

The city of Wasit, for example, founded by the Umayyad governor Al-Hajjaj in Iraq (83 H/702 AD) is the result of a centralized authoritarian decision-making process, where the population, in contrary to the production mechanisms of Islamic built environments, had no role in its production. Wasit was built as a preplanned city from the tax revenue (kharaj) of Iraq. The city’s main features such as the markets, streets and residential khittas were predetermined. Wasit’s inhabitants were selected or allowed to move in by Al-Hajjaj; they had only to build their houses on the plots allotted to them. ⁵² In other words, the governor of Wasit had the power (not the legitimate right) to manage Muslims’ tax revenues available in the House of Treasure in a manner that serves his authoritarian interests.

The power of the ruler and his intervention in the built environment is most evident in the city of Ar-Ramla (93 H/716 AD). Ar-Ramla was established by Sulayman bin Abdul Malik (Umayyad governor on Palestine) as his own city instead of the city of Al-Ludd which was the Umayyad administrative center in Palestine. He wanted his city to be magnificent in its buildings, and thus dazzling for its visitors. However, the city of Ar-Ramla did not find acceptance by the people of Al-Ludd who refused to abandon their city and move to it. Sulayman bin Abdul Malik forced the inhabitants to do so. He punished those who did not move, demolished their houses in Al-Ludd, and cut the food supply off the city until they moved to Ar-Ramla. The city of Al-Ludd waned and collapsed. ⁵³ When he became the caliph, Sulayman bin Abdul Malik moved the seat of power from Damascus to his city Ar-Ramla. As such, the city of Ar-Ramla is not considered a traditional built environment as it was not communally produced, and did not follow the accepted production mechanisms of Islamic built environments. It is a non-traditional, authoritarian urban production. Similarly, the cities of Al-Karkh, Ar-Rusafa, Al-Mahdiya, Al-Mutawakiliya, and others in the Abbasid era were all built with a centralized authoritarian decision-making process and a system of rights deviated from shari‛a.

Al-Mutawakiliya, or Al-Ja‛fariya (245 H/859 AD), like Samarra, is a royal city that reflects its ruler’s dominant power and restrained rights of its people. It is a preplanned city that followed Samarra in its planning method, however maintaining its uniqueness. The city was divided into several zones, the royal zone in the northern part of the city, the public zone to the south, and the commercial zone. Surrounded by a wall, the royal zone was lavishly planned, with the caliph palaces and those of his sons and the highly ranked men located on a wide ceremonial street crossing the city north-south. This zone included the state institutions (dawaween). The public zone was allotted for the ordinary people, with a huge mosque (Abud-Dulf mosque) located to its north. ⁵⁴ The caliph Al-Mutawakil said after the completion of his city of Al-Ja‛fariya, “Now I know that I am a king, because I built for myself a city to live in.” ⁵⁵ However, Al-Mutawakil lived in the city for less than one year; as after his death, his successor, using his power, ordered the people to demolish their houses and to move back to Samarra. ⁵⁶ The city of Al-Mutawakilya, hence, was a power materialization that waned and collapsed with the collapse of its founder’s power.

Since the production of these cities signifies a clear departure from the Islamic production mechanisms, they are not considered traditional Islamic cities but rather inherited ones. Such built environments, with their non-Islamic mechanisms, convey negative connotations. Then, why do contemporary governments and official institutions regard them as national and World Heritage sites? How can a dissonant built environment that has been rejected by its past society become a consonant one? How can the built environment depart from the mechanisms of Islamic shari‛a and yet become “Islamic” heritage, carrying the Islamic attribute (as an adjective) that was neglected in its production? To further understand the process of Islamic heritage industry, we will turn next to a semiological reading of the process.

Heritageization of the Inherited: A Semiological Reading

In semiology, each object constitutes a sign that has two components: the signifier, which denotes the immediate meaning of the object, and the signified, which connotes its implicit meaning. Each society produces its connotations that act as societal codes. Historic buildings constitute signs that have connotations related to their past and historical context; however, through their heritageization process, major transformations took place with their semiotic components. To elucidate such transformations, we will divide the heritageization process into three stages: selection, formulation, and normalization or reintegration.

The first stage of heritageization, the selection, pertains to issues related to manufacturing the national identity. Do we want the entire inherited built environments, produced throughout Islamic history, to act as symbols of our cultural identity, or is it that not every inherited can be accepted as Islamic heritage? Can we create the scene of Islamic urban heritage by only selecting what we consider as valuable to be part of the heritage scene today and thus serve the desired image of identity? To select what fit to be symbols of national identity, Islamic heritage industry mixed in its selection of objects (signs) between the non-traditional inherited built environments and the traditional ones. However, with the increase in wealth and luxury of Muslim rulers during the Natural Monarchy system, authoritarian, non-communal built environments were produced, contrary to the ordinary built environments produced by inhabitants following Islamic production mechanisms. To achieve the admirable identity, and in light of the modernist appreciation of the end product based on its merits of excellence and creativity, the monumental authoritarian buildings (signs) were mostly better representative or of more value than ordinary built environments. Therefore, to-be-heritageized objects tend to be selected more from the authoritarian than from the ordinary (traditional) built environments. Examples of such objects are Qusayr Amra in Jordan which was included in the World Heritage List since 1985, and Samarra city which entered the list in 2007.

The second stage of heritageization includes reformulating selected objects to fit the politics of identity. In this stage, signs are split into their basic parts: the end product (denotative), which should be consonant with the desired national identity, and the production mechanisms (connotative). As the production mechanisms of the selected authoritarian objects are deviated from the Islamic ones and reflect an authoritarian tendency, they constitute dissonant signs that contradict the state’ politics of identity. Signs, hence, are stripped of their signified connotations, to be intentionally reloaded with new symbolic connotations related to notions of power and civilization superiority. This means un-contextualizing these objects through emptying them of their content, mechanisms, and conditions of production, to be merely treated as inherited objects that constitute Islamic urban heritage. It is a process of reshaping the connotative content so that heritage buildings become symbols of national heritage. As such, the important component of heritage buildings becomes solely their tangible denotative content, that is, their architecture as a physical entity, and not their historical meanings and connotations.

One might argue that heritage is not exclusive to authoritarian buildings. Since the last two decades, increasing international concern toward local/popular/folk/vernacular architecture has transpired, ones produced by the local people themselves, or as named by Robertson and Webster “heritage from below.” ⁵⁷ This might be true for certain ethnic minorities, or disenfranchised groups, but not for Islamic ordinary built environments produced by the people. Such built environments constitute dissonant built environments, not for the people, but for the state. They embody Islamic production mechanisms that radically contradict modern ones. The modern state is based on concepts of power and authority, whereas the mechanisms of Islamic built environments are based on a decentralized shari‛a system of rights that provides its holders with the necessary power, each according to its position in the built environment. ⁵⁸ Therefore, in its heritage industry project, which is basically a modern project that supports the state and consolidates its power, the state cannot accept such Islamic built environments as a whole, with their decentralized mechanisms. This could evoke calls for their revival, a matter that contradicts the national identity building. It was therefore necessary for the state to reformulate such dissonant traditions. This is performed through highlighting the heritageized objects’ signified denotative layer (physical end product), and discarding their connotative mechanisms, to be reloaded with new connotations that fit the present needs and interests.

Employing Barthes’s approach, in their signified connotation, heritage buildings (signs) have moved from a second order as inherited objects to a third order with a new symbolic connotation as symbols of power and superiority, and as national heritage. The Dome of the Rock, the Umayyad mosque in Damascus, and the Alhambra palace in Granada are but examples of such heritage that is loaded with third-order supremacy connotations. It is a contemporary manufactured heritage. Barthes calls this process a “myth,” where the image with its new connotation and symbolism turns into a new “sign” with new content to replace the original sign. They are turned into heritage buildings, or “sites of memory,” according to Nora, ⁵⁹ or more accurately, sites of “invented memory.”

The third stage of the heritageization process is normalization, or reintegration. In this stage, heritageized objects are exported to people, in isolation of their production mechanisms, as “Islamic” heritage ready for consumption as a symbol of national identity. It is the stage of the reconfiguration of people’s collective memory, according to Harrison ⁶⁰ and McDowell. ⁶¹ As such, normalization involves a “forgetting” and “remembering” processes. It entails making people forget the traditional production mechanisms associated with the selected heritageized buildings and sites, and steering them to remember these buildings as merely end products with new content (projected from the top) that evokes admiration and satisfaction. The meaning of the past in people’s minds is reduced to nostalgic feelings toward the heritageized physical buildings and tangible objects, rather than the societal norms and mechanisms that produced them. It is the “fabricated” image of heritage that is reintegrated into society, to become their true past that calls for pride. Dissonant objects are thus converted into consonant ones.

Put simply, in the normalization process, attempts are directed to remind the people only of what accords with the state’s interests and goals, and making them forget otherwise. The new meaning of history is reconceptualized as a dreamy (untrue) historical ideal, a matter that leads to the reproduction of the community’s cultural collective memory in a false and non-authentic manner. It is in fact a heritageized built environment with a false content that claims to be “Islamic.” Several scholars, such as Hewison, have expressed their concern regarding contemporary heritage and its threat to the authenticity of history, arguing that contemporary heritage involves reshaping people’s culture and collective memory through reshaping history and the past in the minds of its people in an unauthentic, distorted manner. ⁶²

Such attempts to reassociate people with their “Islamic” heritage led to the inverse of what was hoped for. The inherited is transformed from being an interconnected part of the local population’s lives into an outside element to be visited and celebrated, be it in museums or historical sites of memory selected for restoration and preservation. In turn, this led to changing people’s sense of belonging, attitudes, and sentiments toward heritage. Whereas tradition evokes genuine sentimental feelings, heritage does not, and whereas people care about their tradition, they don’t share that feeling with “their” heritage. It is a globalized heritage detached from its locality.

Islamic heritage is thus a contemporary industry of an unreal image of the past; it is the past that did not exist, or a “simulacra” in the words of Baudrillard. ⁶³ It is a myth. Such attempts of selection, reformation, and normalization or reintegration often end up distorting history, not preserving it, creating a false image of the past and the inherited. It is a falsification of the past, or a fallacy of heritage. In this respect, John Urry defines heritage as a process of “de-traditionalization”; it is a separation of the inherited from its true past and history. ⁶⁴ Tradition thus remains authentic until it is heritageized, or transformed into contemporary heritage, where its authenticity is denied.

Conclusion

If the societal system we live in today, with its principles and mechanisms (modern, capitalist, centralized governments, etc.), is in conflict with the production mechanisms of traditional Islamic built environments, why do governments continue to insist on protecting and preserving the latter as urban heritage? Why do governments persist on reminding people of the Islamic built environments and evoke emotions of longing and nostalgia, despite their refusal of its inclusive revival? Does this not constitute a contradiction?

Islamic urban heritage, as this article verified, is not tradition. While the latter is the cumulative societal inherited matter, produced in the past by its society following the mechanisms established by shari‛a and the accepted societal conventions, the former is a contemporary process based on heritageization of the inherited of which tradition is part of. Heritage is not a product of the past that we should strive for protecting and continuing in the present, as many believe; rather, it is a contemporary process. It is a politicized industry that seeks to meet the interests of the state, however, with a cultural and social cover. It is a power tool and a capitalist commodity. It is, in short, part of the power game that is threatening the authenticity of the past and the truth of history. The preservation practices of heritage only maintain the image of the past, not its truth, so that the past becomes a simulacrum, materialized through heritage in the collective memory of the present. Neither the heritageized built environments are Islamic, nor is heritage traditional. As such, to reshape Lowenthal’s expression, it is heritage, not history, that is a foreign country. True history as recorded in textual manuscripts remains a useful witness to the falsity of heritage, and a good reference to recorrect the image of the past and restores its authenticity in the present.