The Expansion of Urban Layouts over Cultivated Spaces in the Medieval Islamic West

Abstract

This article* deals with one aspect of the formation of Islamic town planning in the Middle Ages: the expansion of settlements over agricultural land and the application of the regular layout of the former to the latter. To do so, we analyse the three variants of this phenomenon that we have been able to identify, which are related to the three types of cultivated spaces that underwent urbanisation processes. The first two took place within the limits of city walls so that their construction did not lead to an increase in the size of madīnas, although it did lead to the “densification” of the urban fabric; the third, which affected the agricultural areas beyond walled perimeters, resulted in a significant quantitative and qualitative growth of the city. This “overflow” of the madīnas is a fact of capital importance in the urban evolution of cities, which in most cases led to the formation of the suburbs.