El viaje espiritual al "espacio verde": el jardín de la visión en el sufismo

The spiritual voyage towards the «Green Space» is a journey through the symbolic significance of the colour green, the liturgical and spiritual colour of Islam, its starting point is the work of two contemporary Iranian artists, Suhrâb Sepehrî and Shirin Neshat. From the ancient religions of the Near East to Islam, green has been the colour of the spiritual firmament, the pastures of paradise, the land of the world beyond. The green garden reached by the dead soul (dên) in Mazdaism, the green of the land of Xvarnah in Zoroastrianism, or the ascent of the soul (gryw) to the Paradise of Light in Manicheism are ideas that are taken up by the great Persian poets (Nizâmî, Rûmî, Hâfiz) to speak of resurrection and the entry to the world of the soul. In Sufism the green light is the summit of spiritual growth, the eternal garden (al-Kubrà, al-Simnânî); it is the «Green Sea» that constitutes the beginning of the glow of eternal life (Ibn al-‘Arabî), the colour of absolute perfection (‘Iraqî) and of resurrection (al-Tirmidhî), the colour of the meadow where the Source of Eternal Life rises (Suhrawardî, Ibn al-‘Arabî, Rûmî) and so on. So it is what Nizâmî calls «the precious emerald garden», Rûmî the trae «orchard» and Hâfiz the «garden of the vision».