Khawaja Garden, Narrated by "Nezami Ganjavi"; Representation of Persian Garden Pattern Based on the Interpretation of a Story in Masnavi of Haft-Paykar

Structural and spatial representation of various gardens of different era in Iran based on archeological and historical literatures and documents is one of the major fields in surveying Iranian gardens. These surveys can assist us to gain a better perspective and understanding of pattern and structure of Iranian gardens.
Utilizing a story from Masnavi Haft-Paykar, this current article attempts to introduce a lesser known pattern of Iranian gardens belonging to past historical periods. In this poetry, Nezami describes a complex garden composed of two parts, an internal (Golestan) and an external (Boostan) parts. A mansion (Hejabgah) existed in between those parts. Boostan was an enclosed part located between high walls exclusively for women’s privacy and occupancy. The view of Boostan was only available through the mansion. This represents a kind of garden which can be found in Masnawi of “Vis-O-Ramin” to some extent. Similarly, these spatial images may be extracted from earlier stories with much older historic roots in literature. Furthermore, it is possible that poets such as Fakhreldyn As’ad Gorgani and Nezami in narrating older stories visualized their knowledge of fifth and sixth centuries so that the stories could be matched with the ancient stories. Finding a proper answer to this question is extremely difficult. However, existing images in works of both poets can help us in recognizing a new configuration and pattern and allows us to gain a better comprehension of garden design in Iran.