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<p>Traditional Islamic cities have generally gathered orientalized gazes and perspectives, picking up from misconceptions and stereotypes that during the second half af the 19th<br /> century and<br />were perpectuated by colonialism. More recent scholarship has shed light on the urban organization<br />and composition of such tissues; most of them confined to old quarters or historical centres of<br />thriving contemporary cities within the Arab-Muslim world. In fact, one of the most striking features<br />has been the unveiling of layered urban assemblages where exterior agents have somehow<br />launched or interrupted an apparent islamicized continuum. Primarly, this paper wishes to search for<br />external political factors that have designed regularly geometrized patterns in medium-sized Arab<br />towns. For that, two case studies from different geographies - Maghreb and the Near East - will be<br />morphologically analysed through updated urban surveys. Whereas Nablus (Palestine) ows the urban<br />matrix of its old town to its Roman past, in Azemmour’s medina (Morocco) it is still possible to track<br />the thin European early-modern colonial stratum. However, both cases show how regularity patterns<br />challenge Western concepts of geometrical design to embrace levels of rationality related to tradional<br />Islamic urban forms, societal configurations and built environment. Urban morphology becomes a<br />fundamental tool for articulating the history with me processes of sedimentation and evolution in order<br />to read current urban prints and dynamics. Thus, the paper will also interpret alternative logics of<br />rational urban display in Azemmour and Nablus, linked to ways of living within the Islamic sphere.</p>