On Earth As It Is In Heaven: Persian Paradises and Thoughts About Art

April 07, 2024

On Earth As It Is In Heaven: Persian Paradises and Thoughts About Art

The stylistic influence of the Persian garden has spread far and wide with Islamic hegemonies through time and place, and may be seen everywhere from Andalucia to India. These gardens often take a quadrilateral form known as ‘charbagh’, consisting of four gardens divided up by waterways, or sometimes walkways (think the Taj Mahal). Supposedly this design represents the four gardens and four rivers featured in the Qu’ran. However, long before Islam, in the days of Persia’s Achaemenid Empire (founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC), there was already the notion of creating a secluded space for physical and spiritual relaxation and reflection. The very word ‘paradise’ is derived from Old Iranian paridaiza, meaning ‘walled enclosure’. And yes, this is all connected with the Judeo-Christian idea of the Garden of Eden.

Persian gardens are high on sensory stimulation, with water to soothe the senses and cool the air, and trees and plants selected for their aesthetic beauty and fragrance. Here, one can step outside of the tumult of life into a place of peace and reflection which Jason Elliot, in his excellent Mirrors of the Unseen: Journeys in Iran, describes as being ‘steeped from antiquity with connotations of the otherworldly’ creating a ‘symbolic alliance between spiritual and natural plenitude’ and ‘an earthly foretaste of the Garden on High’. Elliot notes the allegorical impact of Persian gardens:

‘In poetry, and especially mystical poetry, the theme of the garden as a destination of the spirit was developed into a pervasive metaphysical motif. Seen in these symbolic terms, earthly beauty is a reflection of the beauty of paradise, an invisible world mirrored in the concrete, and a reminder of Man’s divine origin.’

And what about the geometrically contained plant motifs of Islamic art, found in tiles and carpets, walls and ceilings? Elliot notes that poetic metre, musical modes, the proportions of calligraphy and the geometry of architecture, are ‘[a]ll...refined by symmetry and rhythm; all strive for clarity, luminosity, and above all, beauty’. These art forms are ‘mirrors of the invisible world’, just as the Persian garden is intended to be. The patterns of language, music, and mathematics exist and must be cultivated as a means of trying to grasp, emulate, and articulate divine order. So, as Elliot says, ‘[o]n earth, in other words, as it is in heaven’. Do we think this applies only in Persia?

above: Calligraphy at National Museum in Tehran

above: detail from Nasir al Mulk mosque, known as the Pink Mosque

above: Carpet, Shiraz factory

above: Khan Madrasa theological school, Shiraz

above: detail from Jame Mosque, Isfahan

above: detail of fresco, Vank Armenian Cathedral, Isfahan

I visited several gardens when I was in Iran a few years ago, and I include some photographs so you can see for yourself the diligent proportions of these earthly mirrors of the Otherworld. They are regarded as so culturally important that several are included as UNESCO World Heritage Sites (Shazdeh in Kerman, Dowlat Abad in Yazd, and Chehelsotoon in Isfahan, along with others). They are an expression of transcendence, something we all seek in our own ways.