ABSTRACT
The next chapter opens with the city of Kyoto, an idealized Chinese conception of a city, yet one in which the garden is perceived both for its natural beauty as well as a means to enlightenment. Islam, a religion in which heaven is a return to the Garden of Eden, cultivates the paradise or walled garden. Damascus, Bagdad, and Cairo were early cities known for their gardens, but the apogee of the Islamic garden takes place in Andalusia, in Cordova, Seville, and Granada. In the East, the Islamic garden becomes a passion with the Mughal rulers of Pakistan and India—Babur, Akbar, and Shah Jahan. The last’s masterpiece was the Taj Mahal, originally was a massive recreation of the Garden of Eden extending across the Yamuna river. The chapter concludes with an essay on the towns of Oxford and Cambridge, in many ways the first garden cities.
