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Yamuna River Complex

Since the establishment of Islam as a religion in the 7th century C.E., many elements shaped the arrangement of human life on those lands. The pattern of life was shaped by three main constraints:
The earlier settlements
The present context, climate and geography
The way of life suggested by the religion

The study here, presents the evolutions, creations, alterations and changes made along with time with the onset of Islam in the Asian region.

Gardens are (at once) highly meaningful, expressing the position of humankind with respect to the Earth and the Cosmos, and basically ordinary, reflecting the need to produce a food crop in order to survive the fallow season and plant fresh another year. In Islamic history there is really only one formal garden plan, with a few variations in it. This is the so-called chahar-bagh, or the four part garden laid out with axial walkways that intersect the garden in the center.

The gardens started as a secular endeavour evolving from the practical and functional needs. These needs led to the taming of the surrounding landscape and organise it in a way to enhance the earth’s yields. This also involved creation of a legible map of which all the resources were distributed and organised. The Islamic garden was not an exclusively Muslim production. It arose from a specific set of climatic conditions clubbed with the techniques used for controlling the landscape which later reflected in the regional concerns that were common to all the people sharing that particular landscape.

The Muslims inherited practical and intellectual knowledge from the Roman past, the built landscape on which they now inhabited; they learned also from their diverse brethren, for these were areas populated by Byzantine Christians, Jews, Copts, and adherents of various polytheistic religions such as Zoroastrianism and Judaism. However, while human cultural practices changed with the advent of Islam, many aspects of the land itself did not, for the climate of the North Indian rim has not changed significantly in the past 2000 years. Thus, early Muslims could build upon ancient and existing knowledge of agriculture and land management techniques.

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