Investigating the causes of the functional differences in the physical structure of Sharif Abad neighborhood with the neighborhoods inside the city walls of Ardakan

The Iranian-Islamic city evokes a special pattern of urban development, whose physical elements exist in the form of four general categories of religious, economic, defense, and service elements, and one of its most important characteristics is the existence of urban neighborhoods. The neighborhood is made up of main and secondary components and spatial, cultural and economic factors have an influence on it, and although today it is no longer as important and prestigious as the past, but due to the old cores remaining from the old neighborhoods, it continues to give its identity in some areas. Ardakan is one of the oldest cities in Yazd province, which follows this pattern of urban development, and due to having a monocentric growth pattern, its neighborhoods were formed inside the city wall, and this caused the neighborhoods to be dependent and integrated into the body of the city and not independent. But Sharif Abad, which today forms one of the neighborhoods of the city, was located outside the city walls in the past, and this geographical distance, along with the Zoroastrian minority's residence in a part of it, caused its physical structure to be different from other neighborhoods inside the Ardakan. This article investigates and analyzes the differences in the physical structure of Sharif Abad neighborhood with other neighborhoods inside the Ardakan fence in the framework of four elements of faith, economy, defense and service, with a descriptive-analytical method and relying on library and documentary studies as well as observations and field surveys.