Sustainable Urban Development and its impact on the development of religious land uses

Holy city of Kadhimiya /case study

Abstract

The uses of religious lands in the holy city of Al-Kadhimiya are a response to one of the important human activities that coincided with the need for it to perform the religious function. A number of factors that contributed to giving the city its importance in religious land uses, including the presence of the shrines of the Imams (Musa al-Kadhim and Muhammad al-Jawad, peace be upon them), which are located in the center of the city and there are various activities are distributed around it. These shrines constitute main motivation for distributing jobs and activities in it. It is also considered a major reason for the establishment and development of the city. The research found that the cities of the holy shrines are characterized by the presence of a fixed center represented by the shrine, which has maintained its basic religious role over time. This presence of the shrine led to appear various activities, such as religious activities, housing, visitor services, commercial activities, etc. This requires providing infrastructure services and treating them using modern methods, taking into consideration the gradation in land uses, starting with religious uses and then other uses around the shrine.