Cosmology and Islamic city planning

Some of you have expressed an interest in the cosmological aspects of city planning, a subject we touched upon briefly in the lecture on the foundation and symbolic significance of Baghdad. I've added an article to the Supplementary Readings section of learn@uw that might be of interest to you. As mentioned in lecture, we know more about the foundation of Cairo in this respect, but this article pulls together the evidence on Baghdad and some other cities, including Mecca and Kufa. If you are interested in the history of the city you may want to have a look.