The Institute of architecture and Islamic arts-later to be renamed the department of architectural engineering- was established at Al al-bayt University in 1994 to serve the universities’ core principles; which mainly aims to enhance the sense of belonging to the Islamic civilization and its values, and moreover getting familiar with its heritage and accomplishments. This was all part of the university’s vision of dedicating efforts towards the development of different sciences among Muslims, and most important of all was to reunite sciences with its Islamic origins.

    In 2002 the Department started to offer the Bachelor of Science program in Architectural Engineering with approximately 70 students from different parts of Jordan. This was part of the university’s effort towards establishing new specializations to fulfill community’s aspirations and needs. In addition to opening the opportunity to students from all over Jordan and specially Al-Mafraq and its surroundings to study architecture without having to travel to universities in other cities in Jordan or countries abroad.

    The main objective of the Department is to prepare the qualified human capital to support the country and the region as well. A human capital with a deeply rooted theoretical base of architectural principles and philosophy based on the Islamic civilization perspective. A capital capable of dealing with design problems in the field of architecture as a science connected and integrated with most scientific and applied disciplines. Another main objective of the Department is the creation of the suitable domestic and urban environment that fulfills social, psychological, and economical human needs using different environmental friendly and energy efficient techniques.There is a great hope that the Department is going to take considerable part in establishing cultural values and constructing scientific pillars which reflects the Arabic­-Islamic values resembled by Jordan and Al al-bayt University.

    The department is working seriously to establish and develop communication channels with other architectural schools in Jordan, Arabic and international establishments, and engineering corporations in both public and private sectors. It is working on one hand to appoint more faculty members who will support the Department with their academic and research experiences. On another hand the Department is putting all effort to prepare its facilities with the necessary infrastructure-including drawing tables, studios, and classrooms supplied with different developed equipments and scientific tools that coop with the continuous progress in the different architectural fields specially the use of computers in architectural drawing and presentation. It also intends to open a specialized library rich in architectural books and references.