This worldly life has an end
And it’s then real life begins
A world where we will live forever
This beautiful worldly life has an end
It’s a just bridge that must be crossed
To a life that will go on forever

So many years, quickly slipping by
Like the Sleepers of the Cave
Wake up and make a choice
Before we end up in our graves
O God! You didn’t put me here in vain
I know I’ll be held accountable for what I do
This life is just a journey
And it’s taking me back to You

So many get caught in this beautiful web
Its gardens become an infatuation
But surely they’ll understand at the final stop
That its gardens are meant for cultivation

In earlier times, our houses, roads, and neighborhoods were all neat, nice and warm. Our pleasures and enjoyments, our understanding of aesthetics, our perception of the arts were each a reflection of our spirit and of the profundity of our world of thought. Our homes were a place of rest and relief in the soft and smooth bosom of nature. Our neighborhoods were each a display and a stage where our world of thought and philosophy of life were exhibited and staged. Our roads that were crowded with mosques, Sufi lodges, schools, and other educational institutions and that made us think, feel, and emotionally inspired as if they were corridors opened to the metaphysical realms were the quintessence of liveliness and exquisiteness, getting us to a journey to a world of fancy evoking more charms and delights than that which is real-a journey imbuing our hearts with the most romantic feelings. Such was our places that we have gotten to know and possessed the experience through those still in existence; and we have seized up those that ceased to exist through the lens of the remains of those yet left.

Once we could constantly feel the mother nature extremely close to us physically and emotionally as if we were held and fondled lovingly in our mother’s bosom; we would never had the feeling of being away from the beauties but would make ourselves acquainted with the manifestations of the Most Beautiful of the Beautiful at different wavelengths at every single day. We would open our windows and doors whenever we wished and let those bountiful Divine beauties becoming manifest all over the place flow even into our bedrooms. We would turn our cottages, houses, villas, and mansions into a nice, charming spot in the universe in proportion to their caliber and could live the joyest of pleasures and the highest of excitements in such a miniature place of bliss. Again whenever we wished we would turn from our dwellings towards our surroundings, fill our ears with multifarious tunes and melodies resonating in the bosom of the entire existence and entertain our hearts with the most pleasing of the musical sounds.

Those days, we would imbibe-as if drinking in sips or taking breaths-all the beauties of our gardens and orchards that were more beautiful than the ornate tails of peacocks and more flamboyant than the wings of butterflies; we would live unquenchable joys and pleasures while taking a glance at the vicinities evoking in our minds the spectacular views of heavenly panoramas.

Just like our homes, our streets, neighborhoods and even towns and cities-with all parts and in all aspects, were like a special spot in the heart, a perspective of our sentiments, and an image of our thoughts reflected in various shapes. We would scent out and find in them the inclinations of our souls, their connectedness with our aspirations and all the immensity and profundity of the features making up our identity. No matter whether worn-out or well-kept, colorful or faded, our homes and streets were like living beings whispering constantly the lyrics of an immense message of the past.

All those buildings and residential areas with their cultivated, delicate, elegant, and oriental characteristics-exactly similar to the polite and courteous people dwelling in those houses, walking through those streets, and residing in those neighborhoods, were somewhat romantic, and more than that they looked like the corridors of heavenly pavilions and the shades of heavenly sceneries.

Some houses from among them were so exuberant and dynamic just like an establishment dedicated to worshipping or educating people. Looking from this perspective, they looked as if one could see the pure companions of Paradise in them. As every soul and sound in them spur mysterious inspirations-like a bud putting out new shoots, we would be filled with amazement and feel ourselves face-to-face with the most invisible and the most unknown of the lights, patterns, shades and hues.

Some of those houses would plant themselves in front of us as if they were petrified records of history and relate many, many stories to us through the fading and rusts here and there, through their calcified façades and their ages old artistic styles, and through the signs of wear and tear formed on their walls as a result of the happenings in the course of time.

As soon as some of those houses came into our view with a stance and style of their own-resembling our virtuous mothers with their loose outer garments evoking chastity and respect in us, they would make a way into us with seriousness, dignity and awe, and would blow self-control and possession into our spirits.

Still some other houses would look like a sign and symbol indicative of the beauty, profundity, grace, elegance, and mellowness of their indwellers through their pleasant colors of rosy pink, orange red, deep chestnut, violet, and lavender blue.

The expanse of our faith, the utmost end of our hopes, and the expectations of the furthest kind would come just before our eyes whenever we saw those houses reflecting the meaning, essence, tint, and style of a shared belief, a shared culture and a shared civilization with the heavenly profundity. The elegance, artistic style and beauty of those houses were so profound and so harmonious with the book of nature that the blueness of the azure sky and the gorgeous patterns of the earth were in close association with most of those houses, and as such one would think of each and every one of these houses as a cradle swaying between the lights, colors, and patterns of the earth and the skies. While one looks around or contemplates right before them, they would feel themselves up in the skies according to the immensity of their imagination and would be mesmerized as if they were the children of incredible bounties.

It was this good taste and pleasure in our landscaping, architecture, and city planning evoking in mind and spirit the feeling of connectedness between the earth and the skies-the feeling that aroused in such people as Pierre Loti (1850–1923) to have their last sleep in the shade of our sycamore maples that are as peaceful as the gardens of Paradise.

Those who lived in our houses and neighborhoods would feel the melodies in all tones, see the flowers blooming in all shades of color in our gardens and woods almost all the time, and experience the joyest of pleasures at the face of the dazzling harmony of the entire existence. Through their openings-one to the skies and the other to the earth, these houses and mansions would make one able to behold such an immense size greater than a hundredfold of their vastness of size and would become a door to the infinitude beyond their spatial largeness.

It was like a fairyland enchanting everyone with those houses in our towns marked with congruence and harmony with one another and those in our villages with their beauties at different wavelengths-with all these houses that provided relief and gave pleasure to the senses; with our roads long drawn out in loops; with our spacious mansions and palaces holding their heads high, honest and blameless as if they personified in concrete form the independence of an efficacious heart in the highest degree. It was such an enchanting land with our houses of prayer as the very heart of this entire harmony; with the minarets at one corner of these places of worship-just like an emphatic interjection in a discourse-proclaiming the greatest truth several times a day; with little domes that are gathered around the essence hidden in the spirit and meaning both the minaret and the mosque communicate; and with a compact group of religious schools, healthcare facilities, hostels and soup kitchens that are like a group of hatches taking refuge in and walking around a sitter. It was such a captivating land with the gardens, woods, swinging cypresses, breezes blowing with fragrant smells, free-standing fountains, drinking fountains, and bowers all over the place that were designed with a unique taste, some of whom were in peace and watchful and some in loud clamor-all of them were in a race to convey a message to us.

People in those days would rush from cities to the country for a change of air and seek for the pleasure of cheerfulness and joy, peace and serenity, and privacy and seclusion, or they move from villages to cities which were not too noisy at the time, experience the elevation, solemnity and seriousness of urban life, and would become accustomed to more systematic and broadminded urban ways. With the belief that they attained more profundity in both thoughts and feelings in cities, they would keep moving there and back.

Alongside the general outlook of the urban and rural life with a shared intellectual and cultural attitude, one could notice the diversity within society that is worthy of mentioning. Every single village, town, or city was kind of reflecting the same matter in a distinct way and expressing, so to speak, a metaphor in a poetic manner in different ways of versification. To a certain degree, each and every single one of them revealed a different style in attitude, composition, and evocative qualities. Each one of them was a miniature of the entire world reminiscent of a feast and festivity in a state of exhilaration, warmth and fervent ecstasy-a miniature formed and built up through hard work and physical and intellectual efforts lasting for ages, attaining a profound aesthetic beauty, and dazzling with their animate and inanimate accessories improving them.

Metropolises were, so to speak, a concord of fineness and beauty in every way through the strenuous efforts of the grand architects and the landscapers with thriving aesthetic tastes. The beauties of our orchards and gardens impressing our hearts like a poem; the stretching of our plains and meadows in joy; the monumental stance of our hills and mountains; the gentle murmuring of our drinking fountains and rivulets into the hearts; the graceful tulips everywhere dimpling up to us as if smiling; the rubicund cheeked roses with diffusing fragrance that we know fairly well for ages; our sweet scented carnations and pinks that are sharp and biting to the taste as if saying, “there is no rose without thorns”; the pleasant daisies that are so common in our lands and thus suffer our aloofness and disregard; the small violets that are so beautiful and yet so low at the soil level as if they are the symbol of unpretentiousness and meekness; the lilies that are so choosy and unwilling to become familiar; the tender, delicate magnolias which are as sensitive as our hearts; the hyacinths as our next door neighbor and relative; and the camellias and orchids that we become familiar later on-all these beauties with a smell reminiscent of elegiac tunes and the colors bringing to mind the eternal beauties would inflame the hearts that were amorous with eternity and would constantly remind us of the realm to be sought. When the chirping of the birds, the humming of insects, the bleating of the sheep, and the breathings of those who love each other for the sake of God were added upon all these beauties, everywhere would become thoroughly imbued with the heavenly shades and hues. Everywhere was vivacious, warm, and joyous like the Garden of Eden and menagerie at such a blessed period of time when nature was preserved and forests were protected.

In such a world time used to pass so much differently that a few hours spent there would turn out to be so copious and fruitful; it would become perpetual, never passing out of our mind.

I do not know if we could unearth and breathe life into these memories we have witnessed and experienced or those we have been told and have still kept in remembrance; however, I will always miss the “Paradise Lost” with its gardens, orchards, gardeners, and everything within it.

With fire in their hearts and a blissful composure

They take everywhere armfuls of peace

Inside their eyes dews of infinity appear

The luminous riders, divine light on their faces

Like censers giving off fragrance all around

Leaving wisps behind, everywhere they pass

Offering the secrets of eternity to the world

Never-fading values in their thoughts

Like censers, giving off fragrance all around

In their gardens, like a legendary land

Springs of Paradise pour from crystal fountains

In their evergreen realm where no fall is seen

Everyday a new spring, everyday new blooms

In their gardens, like a legendary land

Angels hover in their horizons at each moment

They breathe the same air as heavenly spirits

Skies open their arms, constellations stand in salute

With their inner worlds like bays of Paradise

Angels hover in their horizons at each moment.

Heaven is often pictured as perfection, a place where everything is fresh, clean, pure, and beautiful. As the Bible describes it: He (God) will wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor pain. All of that has gone forever (Revelations 21:4). Many societies and religions have tried to recreate the “feeling” of a heavenly place on Earth in the form of spiritual places in churches, synagogues, mosques, cemeteries, and chapels.

The shared Jewish, Christian, and Muslim belief in only One God has resulted in similar traditions. For example, idolatry and “false gods” are forbidden. In Christianity, statues help believers to focus on God; however, it could become a controversial point where statues or crucifixes are not supposed to be taken as God. In contrast to the idea of using a physical object to help invoke spiritual feelings, Islamic law forbids the use of statues of any sort. (2) As a result of this prohibition, Muslims used nature, in the form of gardens and designs, to invoke spiritual feelings. Mosques with unique architectural designs often have elaborately decorated interiors, and the gardens are filled with symbolism and beauty.

Islamic gardens are a prime example of the concept of heaven, Earth, and the garden blending to produce spiritual symbolic sanctuaries. “Every garden created in the Islamic world tends to be seen as a metaphor for Paradise.”(3) The English word paradise comes from the Persian word Pairida za: pairi (around) and daeza (wall). (4) Thus, pairida za referred to something with a wall around it and eventually came to mean a walled garden. This word became paradeisoi in Greek and paradises in Latin. The concept of Paradise as a garden is exemplified in many Biblical and Qur’anic passages.

The Islamic view of heaven, Hell, and earth

Islam views Paradise as the opposite of Hell and always contrasts heaven with Earth. (5) In this way, “Paradise and Hell pertain to the Return to God” and so “cannot be experienced in their fullness until after the Last Day.” (6) Heaven and Earth refer to the “situation of the cosmos” from the beginning of time until the end. (7) Therefore, on the Last Day or the Day of Judgment, “heaven and earth, they will have vanished since their inhabitants will have been moved to the Garden and the Fire.” (8)

Although this view is very similar to other religious views, some of its intricate and deeply religious implications make the concept unique. In contrast to Islam, Christianity teaches that a person dies and after purgatory either goes to heaven or to Hell (Luke 16: 22-23). Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all thought to have “ideas of heaven that are historically and theologically connected to one another,” (9) which makes the specific differences and distinctions harder to conceptualize. In the following Qur’anic verse, the promise of a peaceful afterlife with God is placed in the context of a garden: God has promised the men and women who believe in Him gardens watered by running streams, in which they shall abide for ever, goodly mansions in the gardens of Eden. And, what is more, they shall have grace in God’s sight. That is the supreme triumph (Qur’an 9:72).

Within this verse, three important aspects are visible. First, Islam promises believers an afterlife with God; second, the Paradise of afterlife has the form of a garden; and third, the Garden of Eden, also mentioned in the Bible’s Old Testament, is part of Muslim belief.

In a religious sense, the Garden of Eden is seen as and believed to be the garden from which all life came. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have different interpretations of what Adam and Eve’s actions have meant for the human race, as well as where the Garden of Eden is located. (10) However, these three religions agree that the Garden of Eden is an example of heaven. According to Murata, God “created Adam for the earth, not for the Garden,” and so the Islamic view of Adam’s (and Eve’s) “fall” from the Garden is not as negative as it is in Christianity. Rather, it is thought of more as a “slip caused by Satan.” (11)

The Islamic view of nature

Since gardens are made up of nature, it is interesting to see how an Islamic view of nature relates to the Islamic idea of Paradise. Since nature itself is seen as spiritual in its own right, its connection as a material used to make a symbolic Paradise on Earth is very intriguing. Islamic garden construction involves using a spiritual component to build a spiritual or religiously significant product. Therefore, an Islamic garden is a reflection of God’s Beauty, (12) for what better way to reflect His Beauty than by using what He has provided?

Looking at the Qur’an’s description of Paradise, it is important to note the repetitive use of the phrase jannat tajri min tahtiha al-anhar (gardens underneath which rivers flow).” A common Qur’anic example of this is: For those who are God-conscious, with their Lord are gardens through which rivers flow (Qur’an 3:15). Fascinatingly, the Qur’an is not the only religious book that mentions water flowing; the Bible also mentions it: A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches (Genesis 2:10). The ideas of gardens, water, heaven, and Paradise, which recur throughout the Qur’an and Bible, have very specific implications as to how Islamic gardens were formed.

Islamic gardens and Islamic cosmology

Islamic gardens are connected to the spiritual side of Islamic cosmology. What makes these earthly gardens even more interesting is that they do far more than just reflect the concept of the garden in Paradise; rather, they are constructed in such a way that they echo God’s words as revealed in the Qur’an.

One of the most visible and striking aspects is the wall surrounding the garden’s exterior. This practice differs markedly from what we see in the West, where a garden is open to public viewing. External aesthetics are very important in the West, and one way to illustrate them is to design their gardens accordingly. In the Islamic world, however, gardens were walled off because the garden’s interior was far more important than its external aesthetic appeal. One reason for the wall was to enclose tranquility, which was an intricate part of an Islamic garden, and thereby separate the sacred from the outside world. These gardens were meant for private, inner contemplation and to be a retreat from the busy, hectic outside world.

A second feature is each garden’s specific layout. The idea of a four-fold separation, which is central to Islamic gardens, can be seen in both the Qur’an and the Bible. In the Bible, four rivers flow from the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:10). The Qur’anic description of the four rivers is more detailed and very thought-provoking: (Here is) a Parable of the Garden that the righteous are promised. In it are rivers of water incorruptible, rivers of milk of which the taste never changes, rivers of wine that are a joy to those who drink, and rivers of honey pure and clear. In it there are for them [the believers] all kinds of fruits and Grace from their Lord. (Can those in such Bliss) be compared to such as shall dwell for ever in the Fire, and be given to drink boiling water, so that it cuts up their bowels (to pieces)?” (Qur’an 47:15).

A third feature is the essential presence of water. Water, a life-giving substance, is needed to irrigate plants and trees. In the more ancient gardens, prior to efficient plumbing, gardens were irrigated through systems that brought water down from snow-capped mountains. The water was distributed efficiently in a hierarchical fashion: first for drinking, then for bathing, and then for the land. (13)

Since one function of an Islamic garden was to serve as a retreat from a long day of work or the world’s troubles, water helped to relax the people and cut down outside noise. There was usually a fountain or two that supplied flowing water, which added to the serenity.

Another important aspect was the garden pavilion, which typically had a “rectangular platform with open porches, probably columned, added to each of its shorter sides.” (14) The pavilion was meant to provide a shaded vantage point in which everyone could sit and view the magnificent garden and contemplate inner thoughts.

Since idolatry and statues are forbidden, Islamic gardens were decorated in other ways, usually with geometric shapes. Muslims saw geometric patterns in everything, including the petals of a flower or the thorn of a rose. “The squares, circles, and octagons we see in the gardens could be there for good theological reasons: the square represents the earthly order of things, the circle indicates God’s celestial perfection of eternity, and the octagon the circle squared signifies our earthly struggle to achieve everlasting unity with God’s higher plans.” (15)

Another decorative style of Islamic art and architecture is the arabesque, which “includes ornamentation in stylized plant forms and strictly geometrical interlacing work.” (16) Many times these designs dealt with the “cosmic rhythms with alternate and complementary phases of evolution and involution, expansion and contraction.” (17) Arabesque design included the idealized styling of plants and vines to create patterns. This art form, just like the gardens themselves, has a geometrical element. For example, many of the patterns were based on circles divided by six, eight, or five.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Islamic gardens intrinsically contain two aspects: architectural and cosmological. Architecturally, they resound with religious symbolism in both their design and form. It is important to remember that “the perfection and ‘economy’ of the cosmos, however, is not to be judged by human standards at all.” (18) Although Islamic gardens are mirrored after Qur’anic verses and ideals, the gardens are by no means meant to be the archetypical Paradise.

Richard Ettinghausen, realizing that there has to be a reason why the Islamic garden “was such a ubiquitous art form in the Muslim world,” posits three reasons for this “propensity.” First is the “idea of Paradise as a reward for the Muslim faithful,” which is well-documented in the Qur’an. Second, many gardens and designs pre-dated Islamic times, and, he continues, “in Islam there exists both a sacred, visionary, and a secular, hedonistic tradition, each centered around a special garden of the highest beauty.” Third, the “influence of horticulture” or, in other words, the need for the environment and geography, was an important consideration. (19)

Islamic gardens, although a very important way for Muslims to be in touch with Paradise, are “only a sensual symbol of God’s everlasting beauty.” (20) The following Qur’anic verse shows that no matter what their location, each person should be able to see God’s wonderful creations: We shall show them Our portents on the horizons and within themselves until it will be clear to them that it is the Truth. Does your Lord not suffice, since He is Witness over all things? (Qur’an 41:53).

Finally, gardens add to a person’s life by providing stress purification as well as spiritual purification. In a way, they enable people to escape their life and move to a better place: Paradise. Through garden architecture, people have attempted to reflect a cosmic order and thereby enhance and transcend daily life. For Muslims, whatever is seen on Earth comes from God’s own greatness, and therefore: “For all believers, there is an understanding that there would be no gardens, no rivers and no fruit in this world if it were not for their archetypes in Paradise.” (21) Thus Islamic gardens are not just for the growth of God’s plants, but also for the growth of the Islamic cosmological ideal.

Footnotes

1 Miller, Lisa. “Why We Need Heaven,” Newsweek, 12 August 2002, 44-49.

2 Lehrman, Lewis, Becoming a Successful Artist, (North Light Books, 1996)

3 Brend, Barbara, Islamic Art (Harvard University Pr., 1992).

4 Moynihan, Elizabeth B., Paradise as a Garden: In Persia and Mughal India (New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1979), 1.

5Sachiko Murata and William C. Chittick, The Vision of Islam (New York: Paragon House, 1994), 80.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 Seale, Allan, New Life for Old Gardens: Designs for Reviving Your Garden (Sterling Publications, 2002).

9 Jeffrey Russell, A History of Heaven: The Singing Silence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), xiii.

10 John Prest, The Garden of Eden: The Botanic Garden and the Re-Creation of Paradise (London: Yale University Press, 1981), 15.

11 Murata and Chittick, The Vision of Islam, 142-43.

12 John Brookes, Gardens of Paradise: The History and Design of the Great Islamic Gardens (New Amsterdam: The Meredith Press, 1987), 19.

13 Ibid., 193.

14 Elisabeth B. Macdougall and Richard Ettinghausen, eds. “The Islamic Garden,” Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture IV (Washington, DC, Trustees for Harvard University, 1976), 72.

15 William Howard Adams, Nature Perfected: Gardens through History (New York: Abbeville Press, 1991), 62.

16 Titus Burckhardt, Art of Islam: Language and Meaning (World of Islam Festival Trust 1976), 56.

17 Ibid., 57.

18 Seyyed Hossein Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines (Boulder: Shambhala Publications Inc., 1978), 124.

19 Macdougall and Ettinghausen, eds., “The Islamic Garden,” 6-7.

20 Ibid., 39.

21 Emma Clark, Underneath Which Rivers Flow: The Symbolism of the Islamic Garden (London: The Prince of Wale’s Institute of Architecture, 1996), 16. 

I imagined you travelling on the hills of my heart.

A mirage, I know, but it sufficed to calm the anguish of my heart.

As I mentioned you again, nothing else remained in my memory.

I wish I could move the whole of time with love of you,

and travel in your horizons, rising high like spirits;

I wish I, finding a way, could fly into your heart.

I wish I could move the whole of time with love of you.

I’ve come to understand that it’s too late to reach you,

I will lament continually for the pangs of separation;

Lamenting, I will wait with ever-fresh hopes of union with you.

I’ve come to understand that it’s too late to reach you.

My heart, like a pigeon’s, trembles following your footprints;

I beg you to give me a feather from your wing,

so that I might continue after you and reach you.

My heart, like a pigeon’s, trembles following your footprints.

O Rose, which changed dry deserts into gardens of Eden,

Come and, with your intoxicating colour, enter my heart!

It’s time that you smiled into my weeping eyes,

O Rose, which changed dry deserts into gardens of Eden!

Let me be your slave who, like Majnun, runs after you,

Spark such embers within me that I catch fire like a furnace,

and come out of this dream, enduringly bitter without you.

Let me be your slave who, like Majnun, runs after you.

I count how many days have passed without you,

and a gloom invades my soul, darkening it;

Let me see your face, as the sun is about to set.

I count how many days have passed without you.

Let my setting, the last moment of my life, be a new rising,

and my heart be invaded by the colours of your climate;

let lutes be played everywhere, and reed flutes heard.

Let my setting, the last moment of my life, be a new rising.

***

This ‘book’ or exhibition was once much more dazzling; like a magnificent vessel sailing in the ocean of love and ecstasy or a chandelier with one thousand and one lights, it was beautiful beyond imagination. With its emerald hills and slopes and exhilarating valleys and plains, with its forests inhabited by thousands of kinds of cheerful animals and paradise-like gardens, fields and orchards, and with its singing birds and merry-making insects, this ‘book’ was the realm neighboring the other world. Divine mercy poured onto it in the form of rain to make the earth more fertile and, in return, hands were held open towards it in profound gratitude.

Those who sensed nature in that manner could not help but establish a deep heartfelt relation with the sound, melody, taste, smell and beauties which issued from it by the Hand of Power. For they were so intimate and familiar with it that whenever they gazed on it, they felt different things pertaining to the worlds beyond.

Like the elegance and grace in the architecture of a palace inspiring in us different things beyond the palace itself, nature, this exhibition of the miracles of Divine art, inspires in our hearts an intuition of the existence of One who, being the real source of all harmony and beauty, has brought it into existence and designed it, One who, although He makes us feel Himself through every work of His, is beyond the capacity of direct human perception.

The natural world and the heavens are as if in each other’s arms. It is as if in response to the strong desire of mountains to meet with heavens which they show by making their peaks lean on their skirts, heavens hang their skirts down over them. Like bees flying from one flower to the other, human imagination travels through the reflections of the Creator’s beauty and goes as fas as the horizon. When it reaches the horizon, thinking that the road goes on far into eternity beyond heavens, it sets out for a new journey and man begins to hear the melodies belonging to the worlds beyond. Those who, through their imaginations, can stay in those worlds for a long time, succeed in meeting the true beloved, with the love of whom they are consumed and for the union with whom they long.

For those who have resolved to make a journey through this realm of nature which provides knowledge of God for the traveller and where the heart, spirit and conscience overflow with innumerable kinds of pleasures, with its exhilarating spectacles, multi-coloured hills and slopes, impressive mountains that lead one into day-dreams, amorous gardens, awe-inspiring forests, streams and rivers murmuring in their way to union with seas-it is especially in spring and summer, a realm of joy, pleasure, peace and imagination. 

There is a magnificence, a charm, and a poetical harmony in every corner of this ‘book’ or exhibition. It is as if-with all its variety of beauty diversified in colours and forms, and the sheer charm of its general appearance, such that one would say, It is impossible for it to be more beautiful than this!-nature were in a sort of beauty competition. Those who have awakened to those beauties observe it differently and hear from it melodies of unimaginable beauty. Those ‘intoxicated’ spirits see trees dancing mentioning His Name and flowers announcing Him in the languages particular to themselves, and they hear everything in nature whispering peculiar messages from that symphony of beauty.

There are parts of nature which know of neither winter nor autumn. They are so dazzling and charming that you feel near the pont of touching the ultimate reach of beauty where this and other worlds are as if concentric with each other. The slopes of those places give you the impression that you are in gardens of Paradise, the rivers flowing through them bring to your mind the rivers of Paradise, and the swaying of their trees bring you a gust of breezes in gardens of Paradise. In short, in the beauties exhibited in those places you feel and observe the eternal beauties and, thinking that the worldly life is too short to experience all those beauties perfectly, you feel an earnest desire for eternity and turn to the Infinitely Powerful One so that that vital desire of yours may be realized.

What a pity it is that this magnificent book, this charming exhibition, which the Infinitely Merciful One has created and presented to man to observe and study and to be exhilarated by, is no longer given any more care than is given to a heap of junk or rubbish. Worse than that, it is more and more becoming a wasteland and like a dunghill.

Today, air, that magnificent conductor of Divine commands, is a suffocating smoke and a perilous ‘whirlpool’. Water, that source of life and other Divine bounties, is either a hazardous flood or forms desolate expanses of pitch. And earth, that treasure of Divine grace and munificence, is a wilderness no longer productive and a ruin without any ecological balance.

Like everything else entrusted to us, we have deplorably treated this ‘book’, this magnificent exhibition, which is an embodiment of Divine grace and mercy. How deplorably and awkwardly we have treated plains and residential places, which we have changed into deserts and heaps of ruin. How deplorably and gracelessly we have treated seas and rivers, which we have polluted. Again, how deplorably and awkwardly we have treated air and water, and fields, forests, and gardens, which we have made unfavorable to any life. Truly, by changing this Paradise-like world to a hell, how deplorably and awkwardly we have treated ourselves!

Unless we improve this world, whose order we have destroyed and which we have polluted, and restore it to its essential beauty and magnificence, it will inevitably collapse on us in heaps of wreckage.