Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain

D. Fairchild Ruggles

1 paradise lost
I haven't read this,but the author's contention,contained in the editorial review,that the concept of paradise is a latter thought,is diammetrically opposed to the generally accepted idea that the islamic garden is a a descendant from the perisan chah-bagh,the four way divided,enclosed pleasure garden.
Ancient Persia was to the arabic world what greece might have meant to the romans,a paradigm to be emulated.
The word paradise,per se,comes from the persian paradeisos,meaning the royal enclosed hunting grounds.

2 serious scholarship accessible to the layperson
I own the hardcover version of this book. This is a fascinating topic. The writing in this book is beautiful: rich, concise, informed.

This book is serious scholarship, but much of it is accessible to the interested layperson. I highly recommend this book.

Well, he thought, since neither Aristotelian Logic nor the disciplines
of Science seemed to offer much hope, it's time to go beyond them...
Drawing a few deep even breaths, he entered a mental state practiced
only by Masters of the Universal Way of Zen. In it his mind floated freely,
able to rummage at will among the bits and pieces of data he had absorbed,
undistracted by any outside disturbances. Logical structures no longer
inhibited him. Pre-conceptions, prejudices, ordinary human standards vanished.
All things, those previously trivial as well as those once thought important,
became absolutely equal by acquiring an absolute value, revealing relationships
not evident to ordinary vision. Like beads strung on a string of their own
meaning, each thing pointed to its own common ground of existence, shared by
all. Finally, each began to melt into each, staying itself while becoming
all others. And Mind no longer contemplated Problem, but became Problem,
destroying Subject-Object by becoming them.
Time passed, unheeded.
Eventually, there was a tentative stirring, then a decisive one, and
Nakamura arose, a smile on his face and the light of laughter in his eyes.
-- Wayfarer

If you throw a New Year's Party, the worst thing that you can do would be
to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and call you to
say they had a nice time. Now you'll be be expected to throw another party
next year.
What you should do is throw the kind of party where your guest wake
up several days from now and call their lawyers to find out if they've been
indicted for anything. You want your guests to be so anxious to avoid a
recurrence of your party that they immediately start planning parties of their
own, a year in advance, just to prevent you from having another one ...
If your party is successful, the police will knock on your door,
unless your party is very successful in which case they will lob tear gas
through your living room window. As host, your job is to make sure that
they don't arrest anybody. Or if they're dead set on arresting someone,
your job is to make sure it isn't you ...
-- Dave Barry