Voices of Islam (204 page)

The Islamic Garden: History, Symbolism, and the Qur’an
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cardinal directions, the four elements, and the four seasons. The cube, the three-dimensional form of the number four, represents solidity, the Earth. The word
Ka‘ba,
indicating the cube-like structure in the courtyard of the Great Mosque of Mecca to which Muslims orient their prayers, means ‘‘cube.’’
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The fourfold plan also recalls the fundamental
mandala
of the Vedic tradition, which is divided into nine squares and symbolizes the terrestrial realm. Tibetan Buddhist
tangka
s are also based on a square diagram within a circle, representing the earth encircled by heaven.

The religion of Islam reconfirmed these ancient, widespread, and universal truths, and invested them with a new spiritual understanding. In describing his visionary ascent to heaven (
mi‘raj
), the Prophet Muhammad spoke of four rivers: one of water, one of milk, one of honey, and one of wine. These four rivers are also mentioned as part of the Gardens of Paradise described in the Qur’an: ‘‘Rivers of unpolluted water, rivers of milk whose flavor does not change, rivers of wine delicious to the drinkers, and rivers of purified honey’’ (Qur’an 47:15). This description from the Qur’an echoes the Book of Genesis, in which it is written: ‘‘And a river went out of Eden to water the garden and from thence it was parted into four heads’’ (Genesis 2:10).

Burckhardt’s description of the Court of Lions at the Alhambra is worth quoting in full here:

The plan of the heavenly garden always includes the four rivers of Paradise flowing towards the four quarters of Heaven, or from them towards the center. The watercourses of the Court of Lions are fed from the two halls to the north and south and from the two stone canopies at the west and east end. The floor of the halls is set higher than the garden, and so the water, which fl from round basins, runs down over the threshold towards the fountain, where it collects around the lions and soaks away
.. .
. The fountain itself, with its twelve lions supporting a basin spewing water, is an ancient symbol which reached the Alhambra from the pre-Christian Orient by way of all kinds of intermediary links. For the water-spewing lion is none other than the sun, from which life gushes forth, and the twelve lions are the twelve suns of the Zodiac, twelve months that are all present concurrently in eternity. They support a ‘sea’
.. .
and this sea is the reservoir of Heavenly waters
...
. The stone canopies, too, at opposite ends in the east and west of the garden, are also a part of the picture of the garden of paradise, for in the description of paradise, the Qur’an mentions high canopies or tents.
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It is probably the case that only the master-gardeners would have been aware of the profound meanings underlying the plan and construction of the great Islamic gardens, passing on the knowledge gradually to their apprentices as they proved themselves spiritually mature. As with all traditional arts and crafts, including architecture and landscape design, a master-craftsman would have first conceived of the design of a garden and would have overseen the project as it developed. He would have worked in

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close collaboration with his patron, just as the great architect Sinan did in the sixteenth century
CE
when designing his masterpieces in Istanbul for Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. At the Alhambra, Muhammad V was the patron who initiated the Court of the Lions and would have understood much of the profound meaning of the fourfold pattern. Interestingly, the English word ‘‘patron’’ comes from the Latin
patronus
and old French
patron,
meaning, ‘‘father.’’ The term implies care and protection as well as support and guidance. The word ‘‘pattern,’’ or model upon which a thing is designed, also has its origins in
patron
and
patronus.
This common set of meanings reinforces the idea central to the esoteric perspective (partly inherited from Plato) that everything on Earth is a symbol of its divine model or archetype in Heaven. Indeed, as mentioned earlier, the Islamic gardens on earth are not only a foretaste of where the faithful may hope to go after death, but are also symbolic representations of the divine archetype, the Heavenly Gardens as presented to us in the Qur’an.

MANIFESTATIONS OF THE
CHAHAR-BAGH

The
chahar-bagh,
based as it is on the number four, has become the principal Islamic symbol of the Qur’anic Gardens of Paradise. This model was taken up and developed all over the Islamic world. For example, in Isfahan there is a road called The Avenue of the
Chahar-Bagh,
which in earlier times was lined with several beautiful fourfold gardens. These gardens were evocatively described by Russell Page, an English gardener in the 1960s: ‘‘Perhaps the world’s loveliest processional way, and almost every garden is set symmetrically round a central pool whose four subsidiary rills carry water into each quarter of the garden and then to the roots of every tree and plant.’’
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Page’s description is enough to make one weep, since the present- day traffi choked street in contemporary Isfahan is very different from the enchanting scene conjured up here.

In India, some of the great mausoleum gardens were built with the tomb placed in the center of the quadripartite plan, as in the mausoleum of Humayun, or with the mausoleum placed at one end, the
chahar-bagh
stretching out in front with a pool in the center, as at the Taj Mahal. The beauty of these mausoleums and their gardens is quite breathtaking. More modest, but still enchanting, examples of
chahar-bagh
s are to be seen across the Islamic world in Morocco, Syria, Persia, and Turkey, where many court- yard gardens integral to houses and public buildings still survive. Moorish Spain saw the construction of some of the most beautiful Islamic gardens in the world. The best known of these are the courtyard gardens of the Alhambra Palace, together with the gardens of the Generalife. The gardens of the Alcazar in Cordoba also deserve special mention since, despite being in Christian hands for many hundreds of years they are still utterly Islamic in

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their ambience. Clearly, the original intention of echoing the Gardens of Paradise is so closely interwoven with the fourfold geometric design and its inherent symbolic meaning that it is not possible to separate one from the other. As with most of the great Islamic gardens, there is a perfect balance and harmony between the principal elements of geometric formal design, the exuberance of the planting to soften the geometry, and the focal point of the garden: water. An important factor in the planting of the garden, besides shade and the color green, is that the garden should contain scented plants. It is mentioned in the Qur’an that sweet basil (
rayhan,
55:12) can be found among the flowers growing in the Paradise Gardens.

In Morocco, there is a type of garden called a
riyad
that is related etymologically to the term
rawda,
a word that can mean both ‘‘garden’’ and ‘‘cemetery’’ in Arabic.
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Riyad
usually refers to a garden that is walled on three sides, the fourth side being the house of the garden’s owner. The term may also refer to the house itself, with a walled garden at the back. In premodern times, a
riyad
more often than not contained an arbor of vines and a vegetable garden, as well as providing shade, solace, and food for the family. The name of Riyadh, the capital city of Saudi Arabia, comes from the same term. In the larger Mogul and Persian gardens, as well as in the Menara Garden in Marrakech, architecture in the form of pavilions or ‘‘kiosks’’ (another Persian word) can be found, which were often placed near the water for a cooling breeze. As Constance Villiers Stuart observed in the early twentieth century
CE
, ‘‘In Persia and India a house or palace is always understood to be included under the name of garden, and the whole compo- sition was closely and beautifully interwoven.’’
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This principle of the close interweaving of the house with the garden is crucial to an understanding of the sense of unity fundamental to all Islamic design.

WATER

‘‘Gardens Underneath which Rivers Flow’’: the idea of water fl wing underneath the Gardens of Heaven probably arose from the demands of a desert existence, where the only source of water for most of the year was from oases or underground irrigation systems such as the
qanat
s in Persia.
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In the gardens themselves, water is to be seen and experienced; in order to irrigate the flower-beds, it has to flow in straight channels and rills, often under the pathways, thereby giving the visitor the impression of actually being in a garden ‘‘underneath which rivers fl w.’’ On a more profound level, water fl underneath suggests the nurturing of the ‘‘garden within’’ or the ‘‘Garden of the Heart’’ by the ever-flowing water of the spirit, which serves to purify the souls of those on the spiritual path (
al-tariqa
). Indeed, water is symbolic of the soul in many sacred traditions. Its fluidity and constantly purifying aspect is a reflection of the soul’s ability to renew itself, yet always

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to remain true to its source. The apparently endlessly flowing waters in the gardens of the Alhambra Palace and the nearby Generalife are some of the most evocative representations of the Islamic Gardens of Paradise anywhere in the world. The sound of water not only muffles the voices of the visitors, but it also has the miraculous effect of silencing one’s own thoughts and allowing an overwhelming sense of peace to descend.

One glance at traditional Islamic gardens shows that, besides their geomet- ric layout, they all have a fundamental element in common: water. Water, as already observed, is the single most defi element in an Islamic garden. Just as there are rivers and fountains in the Gardens of Paradise, so there are rivers, or rather channels or rills, and at least one fountain, in the earthly gardens. Indeed, in many cases it is true to say that the geometric layout of a garden has been determined by the practical demands of irrigation, by the water-fl itself. In a traditional culture, as pointed out above, there is no clear distinction between what is carried out for practical purposes and its spiritual significance: they go hand in hand.

Inventive devices in Persian gardens that are designed for distributing water or increasing the aesthetic experience of water include the
chador
(literally ‘‘shawl’’ in Persian, as in a ‘‘shawl of water’’), a stone slab carved with geomet- ric patterns so that the water breaks up into patterns as it falls over it. There is also the
chabutra,
a stone-seating platform that allows one who sits in a garden to be surrounded by water; this is a wonderful aid in meditation. One may see too a
chini-khana
(literally, ‘‘china cabinet’’), rows of small niches carved into stone, within which a fl or a candle in a jar may be placed and over which the water falls. When such devices are combined with imaginative yet subtle lighting at dusk, it is no wonder that visitors from beyond Muslim lands are so often enchanted by the Islamic garden, such as the Russian prince who described the Shalimar Bagh in Lahore in 1842:

The whole garden was illuminated from the edges of the fountains and water channels to the branches of the orange trees. Globes of coloured glass placed behind these candles tinged the sparkling water green or red. Add to all of this continuous fi the magnifi warlike courtiers, the garden with its walks covered with Kashmiri shawls with the horses trampling upon them, the intoxicating smell of the orange blossom, and the even more intoxicating movements of the dancing girls. One felt inclined to say like Poor Tom in King Lear, ‘‘God keep us in our five senses.’’
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PEACE

It is written in the Qur’an that the only word spoken in the Gardens of Paradise is ‘‘Peace.’’ ‘‘[In the Garden] they hear neither vain speaking nor recrimination, nothing but the saying ‘Peace, Peace’’’ (Qur’an 56:25–26). Therefore, one of the principal functions of the earthly ‘‘Gardens of

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Paradise’’ is to provide a place of tranquility and harmony, a retreat from the world, where the soul can let go of distracting thoughts and be at peace. The word
Islam
is related to the Arabic root S-L-M, which primarily means ‘‘peace.’’ When taken together with its actual root,
aslama
(‘‘to surrender, to give oneself over to another’’), Islam thus means ‘‘the peace that comes when one’s life is surrendered to God.’’
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The traditional greeting used across the world by all Muslims, irrespective of race, nationality, color, back- ground, or age, is
As-Salamu ‘alaykum,
‘‘Peace be upon you.’’ The reply is,
Wa ‘alaykum assalam,
‘‘And upon you be Peace.’’ Thus, when two Muslims greet each other, they echo the greeting that is given in the Gardens of Paradise. There is something extraordinarily beautiful about the courtesy, dignity, and sobriety of this greeting, which is both warm and reserved at the same time. It is warm because as two human beings before God, whatever our station in life, we acknowledge each other respectfully and as equals. It is reserved because the greeting requires no further communication; discretion and privacy are maintained and nothing further need be said.

Thus, when we read in the Qur’an that no words are spoken in the Gardens of Paradise except ‘‘Peace’’ (
Salam
), this seems perfectly natural. The human search for Paradise on Earth is essentially a search for peace, not just peace from the world, but peace from our passional soul (
nafs
), the ego and its desires—so that we may repose in our immortal soul.