The Persians too made an early mark on the world of gardens. So captivating were the gardens of Persia and Egypt that when Alexander the Great’s conquering armies returned to Greece in the fourth century B.C.E., they came well stocked with seeds, plants, and ideas.

When Arab armies spread east and west in the seventh century C.E., they, like Alexander, came across the gardens of Persia. (Compare Esther 1:5.) “The Arabs,” writes Howard Loxton, “found the Persian gardens very similar to the paradise which was promised to the faithful in the Koran.” Like its Persian model, the typical Arab garden, from Moorish Spain to Kashmir, was divided into four sections by four streams united at the center by a pool or a fountain, reminiscent of the four rivers of Eden.