Botanic and poetic landscapes: a reading of two Persian texts on early Safavid gardens

Abstract

Existing scholarship on Persian gardens reveals a pattern of common interest in spatial layout, formal quality, and symbolic meaning. Gardens are often depicted as symmetrically laid out enclosures, as introverted places for hedonistic purposes, as passive spaces for contemplation, and as symbolically charged, earthly embodiments of Qur’anic paradise. Such depictions present Persian gardens as salubrious oases intended purely for repose and delight. This discourse has oversimplified the history, meaning and function of Persian gardens, which were dynamic venues serving multiple and complex purposes. Against this background, the study attempts to shed new light on Persian gardens and landscapes through a fresh reading of two key Persian texts that provide historically grounded perspectives on the gardens’ botanical functions and poetical meanings. The first text, Irshād al-zirā‘a (Guidance on Agriculture), is a botanical manual offering extensive material on the science of agronomy and gardening as well as rare agricultural instructions regarding the laying out and planting of formal gardens, taking into account both garden aesthetics and the science of horticulture. The second text, Jannāt-i ‘adan (Gardens of Eden), is a compilation of five poems composed in 1557 by Shah Tahmāsp’s court poet and historian, Navīdī Shīrāzī, to celebrate the completion of the new imperial garden city of Qazvin. The new reading of these texts shows how Persian gardens served multiple functions ranging from the most practical to the most poetic, how formal aesthetics and paradise symbolism played only marginal roles in their design and creation, and how different considerations contributed to the creation of desirable garden environments. Adopting a historical method of analysis and interpretation, the study examines examples of both existing and imagined sixteenth-century Safavid gardens, in order to support the reading of and excerpt translations from the selected texts. The study paints a new picture of early Safavid gardens and their centrality as dynamic and adaptable places that fulfil the needs of their patrons, courtiers, harem members, visitors, and even the citizens of their respective cities. It brings to light overlooked factors that contributed directly or indirectly to garden form, structure and meaning, while reintroducing the Persian garden as an intersection where nature, indigenous design, local cultural and social lifestyle, economic efficiency, power, patronage and dynastic politics meet.