Islamic and Islamicate Gardens
Authors: Wescoat James 
Published: February 2025

Islamic gardens evoke images of paradise in the hereafter and places of historical beauty and abundance in the designed landscapes of this world from the Middle East heartland across the western Mediterranean region, the South Asian subcontinent, extending to many other places around the world. These gardens have historical connections with pre-Islamic traditions, exemplified by Persian baghs, bustans, and paradeisos, and indeed in most places where Islamic gardens eventually developed—from the gardens of ancient Pharonic Egypt and Mesopotamian kingdoms to Roman territories and more proximate antecedents like Byzantine gardens that gave way to Seljuk and Ottoman successors. Islamic gardens have drawn upon and influenced gardens of concurrent and later cultures, including regional kingdoms of western and southern India which yielded hybrid multicultural landscapes. In light of these varied places and contexts, it is challenging to speak of the Islamic garden, as was common in some late-20th-century surveys. Similar challenges occur in related fields of Islamic art, architecture, and culture. Some scholars thus find it useful to distinguish between Islamic and Islamicate traditions, the former having primarily religious connotations while the latter connote the cultural works of Muslim peoples, often in alliance with others in complex multicultural contexts. Other scholars use the term Islamic to encompass both categories. Although the distinction between Islamic and Islamicate has not previously been applied to gardens, this bibliography demonstrates its utility for understanding and studying the field. The bibliography begins with a historiography of comprehensive survey works, which are qualitatively rich but quantitatively limited, followed by previous online bibliographies and Islamic garden databases that provide a wealth of relevant information. It then turns to studies of Islamic gardens, per se, that is, to scholarship on gardens in the Qurʾan, Hadiths (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions), Islamic law (Sharia and fiqh), theological works, and Sufi literature. These sources are considered in theoretical studies of Islamic gardens, as well as in studies of historical Islamicate gardens built by Muslim patrons and peoples. The greater part of the bibliography surveys research on Islamicate gardens of different regions and historical periods. It takes a historical geographic approach to those places, starting with studies of influential pre-Islamic gardens, proceeding to early gardens of Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs, culminating in Andalusian gardens. That section is followed by relatively small but growing fields of research on medieval gardens of regions that today comprise Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Persia/Iran, Afghanistan, and India. The largest section addresses research on gardens of the three large Muslim empires—Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal—from the fifteenth through nineteenth century that witnessed increasing exchange with European garden traditions. The bibliography concludes with emerging trends in early-21st-century Islamicate garden research, design, and heritage conservation in a globalizing world.