Garden Features in Islamic Gardens - Part 3
Structures and other features:
Pavilions and ‘iwans’,
Night-time garden features,
Novelty garden special effects of the past
Pavilions and ‘iwans’
To help people to enjoy the garden at all times – summer and winter, day and night –
Islamic gardens often include buildings, like pavilions, or shelters called ‘iwans’. ‘Iwans’
are deep arched recesses in a courtyard’s walls where there is a raised, sheltered platform
for people to sit and be comfortable. For an example, see:
http://www.gardenvisit.com/ge/kohankashanegarden.htm
Courtyards in mansions in Iran sometimes have a summer iwan which faces north, to catch cool north winds in summer, and a winter iwan facing south for sunshine.
In some countries iwans have ‘tahkt’ beds with cushions and carpets. In others they have sofas. In Syria they often have braziers for warmth, so a courtyard garden can be used in winter, and lamps and large mirrors for lighting at night. Very grand iwans include little pools with fountains too.
Some gardens in Iran have large pavilions at their centre, which contain fountains and pools for coolness and are sometimes decorated with patterns in mirrorwork, colourful tiles and stained-glass windows.
Night-time garden features
In India and Pakistan in particular, enjoying the garden at night was important.
Scented flowers were planted for night time – and white flowers which would look lovely on moonlit nights.
In India and Pakistan there is a special night time garden feature, the ‘chini-khana’. These are rows and rows of little stone niches, each holding a candle, built behind waterfalls so that the candles shine through the sheet of falling water. Small chini-khanas have three rows of five candle-niches each. There are some very large chini-khanas at Shalamar Gardens, Lahore, Pakistan with hundreds of niches.
See the Slide Show in the Middle Terrace section of the Virtual Tour of Shalamar Gardens:
http://mughalgardens.org/html/shalamar.html
To see how chini-khana niches are formed, look at:
http://www.greatmirror.com/
Carved wall-niches for candles are also used in other places in gardens in India and Pakistan, as well as behind waterfalls. Candles and lanterns were sometimes used to great effect. In 1885 a British visitor to an evening party at Shalamar Gardens in Lahore described this:
“Straight away from us went a pathway of water, down the centre of which played a succession of little fountains, giving a sort of misty mysteriousness to the scene. On either side of this fairy-like canal were broad bands of fire, and walks, and great rows of large trees with quantities of Chinese lanterns….These lines of fire and water crossed the gardens in every direction, and at the end of the first terrace we found ourselves in a sort of open colonnade…on the other side of which we looked down upon another great illuminated water garden. It was too lovely….”
Fireworks were a regular part of Mughal gardens at night. There are pictures of this today in the Slide Show in the Middle Terrace section of the Virtual Tour of Shalamar Gardens http://mughalgardens.org/html/shalamar.html
Novelty garden special effects of the past
In Europe’s mediaeval period, Islamic gardens were renowned for wonderful mechanical garden features, though these have almost entirely disappeared. For instance, in the garden of one Baghdad palace was an artificial tree made of gold and silver with metalwork birds which produced mechanical birdsong. We know exactly how some of these devices worked, thanks to Al-Jazari, a Muslim inventor and engineer of the 12th century CE, who described his inventions very clearly in his ‘Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices’.
Sadly such garden features have almost completely disappeared. At the Garden of the Maidens of Honours in Udaipur, India, there is still an 18th century metal bird, on top of a canopy, which rotates when water pressure is very high. The hidden fountains there, which create the ‘Monsoon Garden’, have already been mentioned. Another rare survivor is the ‘Boiling Pool’ in the Garden of Fin, Kashan, Iran. This has scores of underwater jets to make the surface of the water convulse rather like a jacuzzi. Enough underwater jets are still working to show the idea. Some of the water-powered monsoon effects at Deeg Gardens, India, mentioned earlier, are sometimes still working.
Find out more about Novelty Garden Special Effects Of The Past.