The Urgency of the Digital: The History and the Future of the Islamic Built Environment Today

This Special Issue of the International Journal of Islamic Architecture focuses on the critical and urgent use of digital tools, interfaces, media, and methods for the study, design, documentation, and presentation of Islamic architecture and the built environment. The articles herein tackle this topic by considering the manifold ways that computerized technologies and approaches disrupt – or, conversely, extend – pre-digital as well as analogue architectural and spatial practices. In addressing a range of environments, from the streets of contemporary New York City and the brick-constructed domes of medieval Isfahan to computerized representations of Mecca, the hajj, and mosque architecture, each of the authors reveals how digital applications and tools are, or could be, reshaping views of Muslim societies.