Author(s)

B. Beizaeijouybari, B. S. Gungor

Abstract

Iranians’ interest on gardens goes back a long way. The concept of the Persian architectural garden, with its finesse aesthetic aspects and landscape settings, has been one of the significant cultural elements in shaping the world for centuries. However, prior to the Islamic era in Iran, Iranian gardens were mostly influenced by the Egyptians’ gardening techniques and concepts which have had an added value to revitalizing the gardening geometry while further beautifying the structure of gardens in Iran. During the post-Islamic period, pleasant gardens, streams, plantations and flowers such as clove gillyflowers or roses were among the top cornerstones of Iranian culture. Water had always maintained its importance in Iranian gardens during the periods both before and after Islam. The geometrical size and shape of the gardens were more important before the Islamic era, while other parameters and factors such as the sacred numbers in the Holy Quran, water, the privacy, the trees and fruits gained more importance during the Islamic period.

Even the natural climate does not help to provide enough water and greenery at the Iranian gardens because of severe drought and hot climatic conditions in the region. The Islamic values helped in fostering the creation of four water slotted gardens in accordance with the symbols of Islam.

In this paper, a comparative study is conducted on different designs of Iranian historical gardens and Iranian gardens which are built both before and after Islam. In addition, an analysis of the changes in the major building blocks used in the design of gardens such as water, type of trees, flower elements… was done based on the Islamic perspective.

Keywords

Iranian garden, Eden, Islam