"Gardens are not only places to escape and give pleasure to our senses, not only places that allow us to meet people and experience adventure. City parks and gardens provide an escape into the world of the spirit. In our parks and gardens, we proclaim the interdependence of all creation, sharing the soil, rain, sun, and flowers by our actions and engaging them with our dreams. Not only organically satisfying and beautiful, they are also intimations of the sacred manifested in our empirical world, as a grace. There we play with the freedom of children and aspire to the condition of Paradise. There we meditate on how we can transform our lives in the context of the sacred and other people.
"In gardens we arrange nature to suggest to our senses and imagination a world which is not just a whim of design but a reflection of a higher reality. Gardens are more than places of retreat and relaxation, of physical rest and emotional rejuvenation. Here untamed nature converges with our human inspiration to bring innate beauty to its full realization. While we come to gardens to find refinement and be revitalized, their effect goes much deeper. There we find the joy that lifts our spirits as we know we are in the very presence of God. The presence of the sacred in gardens is particularly evident in the religious traditions of Taoism, Buddhism, and Islam. . . .
"In the Qur'an, the Muslim faithful are promised that they shall dwell in Paradise where there will be cool and fruitful gardens, and rivers of flowing water. The principal function of Islamic gardens is to anticipate the Paradise of the Afterlife by providing beautiful and harmonious surroundings — a retreat from the world where the human spirit can let go of distracting thoughts and be at peace. Peace is not just peace from the world, but more importantly, peace and serenity for the inner life. As the Sufi poet Rumi tells us: 'the real gardens and flowers are within, they are in the human heart, not outside.' The Islamic garden helps those committed to the spiritual path to remember Allah constantly.
"In Islamic gardens water predominates, both physically and spiritually. We can see this, for example, in the fountains in the Court of Lions of the Alhambra Palace and in the nearby gardens of the Generalife in Granada, Spain. The Court of Lions is the masterpiece of the many royal courtyard gardens in the palace. In the center stands a fancy sparkling fountain, fed by mountain springs, held aloft on the backs of twelve water-spouting lions. The water awakens and inspires our senses: not just our sight, but our hearing and touch too. With their murmuring, the fountains sing the song of life. The water is not only life-giving, but a spiritual blessing from God, a direct symbol of God's mercy. The fountains provide the ever-flowing divine waters, refreshing our bodies, but also constantly renewing our spirits. One inscription in the Alhambra reads: 'the fountain in my midst is like the soul of a believer, immersed in the remembrance of God.' "
