Where the ground is flat and the water lies deep, raise it from wells by wheels into tanks and channels, and lay the garden out in regular, symmetrical plots round them, with walks, beds of flowers and trees in order.
The fourfold garden
Lay out the garden as a walled square divided into four by raised walks with water channels on the two axes, and divide each quarter again.
1 → 4 → 16 beds; water on the axes
The charbagh (“four gardens”) is Persian in origin (the royal garden at Pasargadae already had axial water channels), and in Islamic tradition it was associated with the four rivers of Paradise described in the Qur’an. Babur, founder of the Mughal dynasty, laid out charbaghs wherever he went, and his successors set their tombs in them. At Humayun’s Tomb the tomb stands at the centre; at the Taj Mahal it stands at the river end, and the centre is marked by a raised marble tank, so that the building is reflected in the water and seen against the open sky.
Related rules
Orient the prayer hall so that its principal wall, the qibla wall, stands square to the direction of Mecca, and mark the middle of that wall with a niche, the mihrab.
qibla wall ⟂ direction of the Kaaba; mihrab on the axis
Place an iwan (a vaulted hall walled on three sides and open on the fourth) at the middle of each side of the courtyard, the one on the qibla side leading to a domed chamber before the mihrab.
Stand the minarets free at the corners of the plinth, so that they frame the tomb in every view without crowding it.
Where people disagree about the width of a public road, make it seven cubits, and let no one build out into it; lanes that serve only the houses on them may be narrower.
public road ≥ 7 cubits (≈ 3.5 m)
Build as you will on your own land, provided you do your neighbour no harm: open no window, door or roof terrace that looks into his house or court, and do not set your door opposite his across a lane.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “The fourfold garden”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/charbagh-fourfold. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.