ABSTRACT
The "storehouse" of Ottoman landscape culture included both real and imaginary spaces: physical spaces of gardens, cities and the human body; and metaphysical spaces of paradise gardens, cosmography and imagination. Cosgrove and Daniels explain the concept of landscape as a "cultural image" embedded in all forms of cultural production textually, visually and architecturally. In the Ottoman poetic genre of ehrengiz, movement, traveling, exploration, and contemplation were major themes, and the city was a source of joy and pleasure and as well, was a source of knowledge. Ibn al-Arab's philosophy was significantly instrumental in the development of Ottoman culture, though its influence was diverse. The Ottoman orthodox tradition acknowledged gardens as spaces for the attainment of knowledge, thus spaces of contemplation. Melms valued each human being as a beloved reflection of God. However, following after the doctrines of the Islamic philosopher Ibn al-Arab, Sufi mystics of the Melm philosophy argued the superiority of an intermediary space called barzakh.
