Key Things About Islamic Gardens
In the Islamic world, gardens are specially prized as places which can make you feel at peace, refreshed and in harmony. Many Islamic countries have long, very hot, dry, dusty summers and it can feel like paradise to find somewhere cool, green, shady with fountains and lots of water flowing — the traditional Islamic garden.
Key Things About Islamic Gardens
Islamic gardens always have water at their heart.
For a lush green garden with fountains and pools in a hot, dry country, you need to create a special place to which you can bring water by a canal. You need to build a wall round the place which is to benefit from this water, so dust and sand cannot blow in. So Islamic gardens are always rectangular and surrounded by a wall or screen which separates them from surrounding countryside or, in cities, from the streets.
This gives a sense of mystery, when you first go into them, and a feeling of privacy when you are inside.
Because Islamic gardens are often created where nothing has been growing before, the gardener does not have to fit the garden round any existing trees or ponds. So all the trees, pools and paths in these gardens can be planned according to ideas in the gardener’s mind. Islamic gardeners follow the Islamic tradition of decorating things through beautiful geometric patterns. So pools and flower-beds are always precise geometric shapes like eight-pointed stars, octagons and rectangles. These are arranged according to a symmetrical, harmonious plan so that the garden itself is a beautiful, regular geometric pattern. This expresses ideals of harmony and order in Islam.
So some key things about Islamic gardens are:
- Water – fountains, pools, and flowing watercourses and the greenery and hence shade this produces.
- Walls or screens which make the garden an enclosed rectangle, mysterious and private.
- A lay-out in harmonious symmetry, using beautiful geometric shapes for pools, paths, pavilions or flowerbeds.
Extra Information
When and where were the great Islamic gardens built? See more information on Persian, Arab and Mughal garden-builders.