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An Islamic garden is generally an expressive estate of land that includes themes of water and shade. Their most identifiable architectural design reflects the charbagh (or chahār bāgh) quadrilateral layout with four smaller gardens divided by walkways or flowing water. Unlike English gardens, which are often designed for walking, Islamic gardens are intended for rest, reflection, and contemplation. A major focus of the Islamic gardens was to provide a sensory experience, which was accomplished through the use of water and aromatic plants.
Before Islam had expanded to other climates, these gardens were historically used to provide respite from a hot and arid environment. They encompassed a wide variety of forms and purposes which no longer exist. The Qur'an has many references to gardens and states that gardens are used as an earthly analogue for the life in paradise which is promised to believers:
Allah has promised to the believing men and the believing women gardens, beneath which rivers flow, to abide in them, and goodly dwellings in gardens of perpetual abode; and best of all is Allah's goodly pleasure; that is the grand achievement. – Qur'an 9.72
Along with the popular paradisiacal interpretation of gardens, there are several other non-pious associations with Islamic gardens including wealth, power, territory, pleasure, hunting, leisure, love, and time and space. These other associations provide more symbolism in the manner of serene thoughts and reflection and are associated with a scholarly sense.
While many Islamic gardens no longer exist, scholars have inferred much about them from Arabic and Persian literature on the subject. Numerous formal Islamic gardens have survived in a wide zone extending from Spain and Morocco in the west to India in the east.[1] Historians disagree as to which gardens ought to be considered part of the Islamic garden tradition, which has influenced three continents over several centuries.
- ^ Latiff, Zainab; Ismail, Sumarni (March 10, 2016). "The Islamic Garden: Its Origin And Significance" (PDF). Research Journal of Fisheries and Hydrobiology (1816–9112).