Abstract
Lahore is famous for its garden heritage, which is widely regarded to be a branch of the Islamic garden tradition. To assess the link between garden history and religion, this chapter begins with a survey of garden verses in the Qur’an and the ideals and imagery they convey. Qur’anic references to gardens are shown to include the Garden of Eden, the gardens of paradise, and the gardens of this world. The second part of the chapter surveys the range of historical gardens and garden-like places in Lahore to ask how they compare with the denotations and connotations of Islamic garden ideals. This search leads to consideration of Sufi shrines, mosques, and parks, as well as Lahore’s famous Mughal gardens. We conclude by reflecting on recent trends in urban landscape development and garden conservation, based on 30 years of research on Lahore.
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Acknowledgements
I thank the editors for their invitation to contribute to this volume. This chapter builds upon an earlier article in Landscape Research (Wescoat 1995). I retained the structure of the original, rewriting it with updated references, issues, and reflections. The Smithsonian Institution Foreign Currency program supported the initial field research for this chapter, as did generous fellowships from the Freer and Arthur M. Sackler Galleries of Asian Art and the Dumbarton Oaks garden and landscape history program. Directors at the Pakistan Department of Archaeology provided access to historical garden sites and encouragement for our research. Colleagues at the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore engaged in many years of collaborative fieldwork, supplemented by the stimulating conversations and work of colleagues at the National College or Art, Beaconhouse University, Lahore University of Management Sciences, and Aga Khan Cultural Services Programme, Pakistan. I bear responsibility for the interpretations in this paper. Citations from the Qur’an are from the translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali (1990 reprint).
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Wescoat, J.L. (2022). The Paradise Gardens of Lahore: Islamic Ideals and Historical Realities. In: Sherma, R.D., Bilimoria, P. (eds) Religion and Sustainability: Interreligious Resources, Interdisciplinary Responses. Sustainable Development Goals Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79301-2_31
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