Voices of Islam (205 page)

The much-misused Arabic word
jihad
literally means ‘‘struggle’’ or ‘‘effort’’ and can take many forms, such as a
jihad
against intolerance and discrimination. However, according to a saying of the Prophet Muhammad, the greater
jihad
(
al-jihad al-akbar)
is the ‘‘war’’ within our own selves. This jihad is the struggle to transform the negative and egocentric motivations within us and to nurture positive ones. By the grace of God, this effort will eventually be rewarded by inner contentment and peace. Our longing for serenity of soul is like a vague memory of our primordial nature (
fitra
in Arabic), when the human being was at peace with the Creator in the Garden of Eden and therefore at peace with the soul. In order to regain this primor- dial Paradise, those who are seriously committed to the spiritual path of Islam must reach the state of constant remembrance of God (
dhikr Allah
). Few would argue that it is easier to nurture this contemplative state when surrounded by the beauties of nature or when sitting in a garden designed and planted with spiritual symbolism in mind. The traditional Islamic garden, providing as it does a sanctuary from the world and a foretaste of the Gardens of Paradise, can be a powerful aid in this remembrance.

DIVINE UNITY

The doctrine of Divine Unity (
tawhid
) is the profound message of the Qur’an that penetrates every aspect of a practicing Muslim’s life. It also

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Voices of Art, Beauty, and Science

underpins Islamic art, architecture, and garden design. Beyond the different components of a garden—water, planting, geometry, and architecture—lies this secret force that draws them all together in a satisfying and harmonious composition. After spending some time contemplating a garden that exemplifies these principles, such as the Patio de la Acequia at the Generalife Gardens in Granada, or the smaller
chahar-bagh
in the Alacazar of Cordoba, the visitor will begin to understand that it is this secret force of
tawhid
that lies behind the sense of unity that gives an Islamic garden its special contemplative quality. This evocation of Divine Unity is evident in all traditional Islamic gardens, whether it is the magnificent Bagh-i-Fin in the Iranian city of Kashan, or one of the great mausoleum gardens of India, or the more intimate courtyard gardens of Damascus or Fez. ‘‘In Islamic art, unity is never the result of a synthesis of component elements; it exists
a priori,
and all the particular forms are deduced from it; the total form of a building or interior exists before its parts, whether they have a static function

or not.’’
26

After spending many hours absorbing the atmosphere of the Patio de la Acequia in the Generalife, the Court of the Myrtles and other courtyards of the Alhambra Palace, and the Azem Palace courtyards in Damascus, a realization became clear to me. For the first time, I became fully aware of the profound understanding that the Muslim designers and craftsmen of these gardens had of the harmonious relationship between architecture, geometric planning, water, and planting. All expressed the unity of the whole. I had no doubt that this understanding came about because their designers’ whole way of living was permeated by
tawhid,
the central message of the Qur’an. This factor more than any other made possible their astonishing achievements in the art of garden design.

The essence of the concept of Divine Unity in Islam is the awareness that ‘‘There is no divinity but God.’’ This statement, the first part of the
Shahada,
the Muslim testimony of faith, may also be rendered, ‘‘There is no reality but the Reality.’’ In other words, the only reality is God. Thus, for the Muslim, existence is centered entirely on the consciousness of Divine Unity. This means that everything in the created world is transparent: behind the ephemeral beauty of the outward form, one can discern the ineffable spirit within. This eternal and transcendent quality gives the world of nature and all of manifestation their meaning: all else passes away. As Burckhardt observed:

The most profound link between Islamic art and the Qur’an...lies not in the form of the Qur’an but in its
haqiqah,
its formless essence, and more particularly in the notion of
tawhid,
unity or union, with its contemplative implications; Islamic art—by which we mean the entirety of plastic arts in Islam—is essentially the projection into the visual order of certain aspects or dimensions of Divine Unity.
27

The Islamic Garden: History, Symbolism, and the Qur’an
107

TRADITION

The merging of the sacred and the secular is a crucial part of traditional Islamic culture, as it is of all traditional cultures. Tradition entails the ‘‘handing-over’’ of precious learning from one generation to another, which can be traced back to its ultimate source in Divine Revelation. However, Islamic gardens were not just for evoking the Unity of the Divine. They were also for pleasure and lovemaking, for political discussions and parties, and for growing vegetables and fruits. They were also for rest and refuge, and for delighting in the cooling and soothing properties of water. They were for enjoying the aesthetic and sensory delights of flowers, the scent of blossoms, the songs of the birds, and the protective shade of trees. However, all these things were enjoyed, not just for their sake alone, but also in the understanding that they were both a taste and a reflection of the joy and bliss of the Heavenly Gardens.

Thus, when one author writes, ‘‘the conclusion that the Qur’an supplied the blueprint for Islamic gardens is methodologically fallacious,’’
28
she is correct in the sense that the Qur’an did not offer a ‘‘blueprint,’’ a practical guide for measuring out one’s garden as the Bible instructed Noah how to build the Ark. However, the Qur’an did offer something incommensurably deeper and more powerful than a blueprint. It offered the inward dimension, the idea behind the blueprint: the
haqiqa,
the Truth. This Truth was con- tained in the Divine Revelation of the Qur’an with its emphasis on
Tawhid
or Unity. When combined with a knowledge and love of the natural world, as well as the universal forms inherited from ancient civilizations, it resulted in the creation of a new art, an art that was all the more beautiful because it was true. One of the most important factors that make ‘‘Traditional’’ art traditional is that it is has a meaning: it performs some function, whether symbolic or practical, besides being aesthetically pleasing.
29
‘‘Art for art’s sake’’ has no place in the traditional world. The fact that
janna
means both garden and Paradise is indicative in itself of this lack of distinction between the sacred and the profane.

Never before in the history of humankind have there been such enor- mous and densely populated urban areas as there are today; and never before has there been such an intense desire to escape these areas—usually through travel to remote places ‘‘untouched’’ by humans—but also, on a smaller scale, through creating gardens. Increasingly, people are attempting to create their own miniature Paradise Gardens, green and secluded places that soothe the soul. These gardens are not only places of peace and quiet that are beautiful to behold, but they are also (often unconsciously) a recreation of the Heavenly Garden, itself reflected within all of us—our inner garden: ‘‘Look for the garden within yourself, in your indestructible divine Substance, which will then give you a new and imperishable

garden.’’
30

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NOTES

(Ed.) following a note signifies that the note was added by the general editor of this set.

1. See Abu al-Fadl Jamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Manzur,
   Lisan al-‘Arab
   (Beirut: Dar Sadir, n.d.), vol. 10, 38–39. This early dictionary from the 13th century
   CE
   clearly indicates that for the pre-Islamic Arabs, a garden was a walled orchard that contained date palms or irrigated vineyards. (Ed.)
   

2. Huston Smith,
   The World’s Religions
   (New York and San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991), 236.
   

3. See especially, Qur’an 55,
   Surat al-Rahman,
   which will be examined in more detail below.
   

4. A little later (c. 1500
   BCE
   ), a garden was also the symbol of the Afterlife for the ancient Egyptians, who often placed models of gardens in their tombs.
   

5. The Qur’anic term
   firdaws
   is an Arabized version of the Middle Persian
   pardis,
   meaning, ‘‘garden.’’ Thus, the plural term
   jannat al-firdaws
   literally means, ‘‘Gardens of the Garden,’’ in other words, the quintessential or primordial garden.
   Gana
   is the Hebrew term for garden, as in
   Ganat Aden,
   ‘‘Garden of Eden.’’
   Pardes
   also appears in Jewish mystical texts before the coming of Islam. (Ed.)
   

6. The word
   gul
   is used as a general term for ‘‘fl in Persian, as well as specifi for the rose. An abstracted version (the essential form) of the rose is the dominant motif in many tribal carpets from Baluchistan to Anatolia, through to the wide range of Turkomen rugs and carpets.
   

7. Titus Burckhardt,
   Moorish Culture in Spain
   (Munich: George D. W. Callwey, 1970); English translation by Alisa Jaffa (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1972), 209–210.
   

8. A friend made a parallel observation recently: While congregations have dwindled to an all-time low in many—if not most—churches and cathedrals in Europe, these buildings are still beautifully maintained and conserved and are lit up by floodlights from without. Paradoxically, it seems that as the ‘‘inner light’’ diminishes, the outer light increases. Is this another sign of the times?
   

9. On a recent radio program in the United Kingdom (BBC Radio 4, 14 September 2005) something that our ancient forbears understood well was acknowledged as if it were a new discovery: the environments we construct for ourselves have a powerful effect on our health and well-being.
   

10. Titus Burckhardt,
    Art of Islam, Language and Meaning
    (London, U.K.: World of Islam Publishing Company, 1976), 91.
    

11. In a
    hadith qudsi
    (non-Qur’anic divine saying) it is recorded, ‘‘Tomorrow I shall make their eyes delight in My Gardens.’’ The key phrase in this tradition literally means, ‘‘cool their eyes,’’ suggesting the healing effect of the color green on eyes that have become tired and sore after the heat of the desert. See
    Divine Sayings: The Mishkat al-Anwar of Ibn ‘Arabi, 101 Hadith Qudsi,
    Arabic Text and English Translation by Stephen Hirtenstein and Martin Notcutt, (Oxford, U.K.: Anqa Publishing, 2004), 59 and Part 2, endnote.
    

    The Islamic Garden: History, Symbolism, and the Qur’an
    109
    

12. Vita Sackville-West,
    Passenger to Tehran,
    quoted by John Brookes in
    Gardens of Paradise: History and Design of the Great Islamic Gardens
    (London, U.K.: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1987), 13.
    

13. A term from the
    Fatiha,
    the opening
    Sura
    (chapter) of the Qur’an, which Muslims recite in each of the five daily prayers.
    

14. This point was captured beautifully by the poet Saadi of Shiraz (d. 1292
    CE
    ), who wrote: ‘‘To the eye of the discerning man, every leaf upon a growing tree is a book imparting knowledge of our Creator.’’
    Poems from the Persian,
    trans. J. C. E. Bowen (Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell and Company, 1958), 53.
    

15. Following the teachings of the Hadith, it is traditional for Muslim men not to wear silk or gold; along with wine, these are saved for Paradise.
    

16. See, for example, Martin Lings,
    Symbol and Archetype: A Study of the Meaning of Existence
    (Cambridge, U.K.: Quinta Essentia, 1991), 67. Al-Ghazali, the great eleventh-century Persian scholar and theologian, defined symbolism as ‘‘the science of the relation between multiple levels of reality.’’
    

17. For further information on the Gardens of Paradise, see Emma Clark,
    ‘‘Underneath which Rivers Flow’’: The Symbolism of the Islamic Garden
    (London, U.K.: The Prince of Wales’ Institute of Architecture, 1996). For a fuller explanation of
    Surat al-Rahman,
    see Abu Bakr Siraj al-Din,
    The Book of Certainty
    (Cambridge, U.K.: The Islamic Texts Society, 1992); see also, Frithjof Schuon,
    Islam and the Perennial Philosophy,
    trans. J. Peter Hobson (London, U.K.: World of Islam Festival Publishing Company Ltd., 1976), chap. 12.
    

18. The roots of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all start with the Prophet Abraham, father of Ishmael and Isaac. It was Abraham and Ishmael who built the Ka‘ba at Mecca, the place toward which Muslims turn in their five daily prayers. The Ka‘ba is symbolically the centre of the world for Muslims; its shape is almost exactly a cube. The circle that pilgrims trace in their circumambulation of the Ka‘ba represents Heaven and the Ka‘ba itself represents the Earth. Thus, through performing this symbolic rite, human beings reaffi their role as the link between Heaven and Earth and as Heaven’s representatives on Earth.
    

19. Burckhardt,
    Moorish Culture in Spain,
    209.
    

20. See Russell Page,
    The Education of a Gardener
    (London, U.K.: Penguin Edition, 1983), chap. 2.
    

21. The term,
    rawda,
    is applied specifi ally to the small area in the Prophet’s Mosque at Medina between the Prophet Muhammad’s tomb and the pulpit (
    minbar).
    It is called this because of the saying of the Prophet, ‘‘Between my house and my pulpit is a garden (
    rawda
    ) of the Gardens of Paradise.’’ Today, when worshippers visit the Prophet’s Mosque at Medina, this area is always the most crowded, since everyone longs to be with the Prophet in his Paradise Garden.
    

22. Constance Villiers Stuart,
    Gardens of the Great Mughals
    (London, U.K.: A. & C. Black, 1913), 42.
    

23. It was only after visiting Iran and spending time in cafes at the foot of the Elborz Mountains north of Tehran that I really began to understand the importance of water and shade, and to absorb the atmosphere of what an Islamic garden means. Here, fast-running streams are straddled by cheap metal divans on which are placed rugs and cushions so that the visitor can sit cross-legged or lie on them and wait to
    

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    be served with watermelon, tea, and perhaps a
    shisha
    or an
    argileh
    (water-pipe). One sinks back into the cushions, looking up at the leaves of the
    chenar
    tree (
    Platanus orientalis
    ) filtering the sunlight, and listening to the sound of water running over the pebbles below. At such times, the phrase from the Qur’an, ‘‘Gardens underneath which rivers flow,’’ is brought alive. This experience is truly a foretaste of the Paradise Gardens that Muslims and others too no doubt, hope to be their final resting-place.
    

24. Quoted by Sajjad Kausar in
    Shalamar Garden, Lahore: Landscape, Form and Meaning
    (Islamabad: Department of Archaeology and Museums, Ministry of Culture, Pakistan, 1990), 74.
    

25. Smith,
    The World’s Religions,
    222.
    

26. Burckhardt,
    Art of Islam,
    75.