Emma Clark is a British

garden designer A garden designer is someone who designs the plan and features of gardens, either as an amateur or professional. The compositional elements of garden design and landscape design are: terrain, water, planting, constructed elements and buildings, ...

, historian, and author. She specialises in designing Islamic gardens.

Life

Clark is the great-granddaughter of the former British prime minister,

H. H. Asquith Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928) was a British statesman and Liberal Party (UK), Liberal politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. He was the last ...

. She developed an interest in Islamic gardens while studying under

Keith Critchlow Keith Barry Critchlow (16 March 1933 – 8 April 2020) was a British artist, lecturer, author, Sacred geometry, sacred geometer, professor of architecture, and a co-founder of the Temenos Academy in the UK. Biography Critchlow was educated at ...

at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...

in London. She is a convert to Islam. Clark designed the "Carpet Garden," inspired by two Turkish carpets at

Highgrove House Highgrove House is the family residence of King Charles III and Queen Camilla. It lies southwest of Tetbury in Gloucestershire, England. Built in the late 18th century, Highgrove and its estate were owned by various families until it was pu ...

, with

Charles, Prince of Wales Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. Charles was born at Buckingham Palace during the reign of his maternal grandfather, King George VI, a ...

, and Mike Miller for the Highgrove gardens. She was approached by Muslim scholar

Timothy Winter Timothy John Winter (born 15 May 1960), also known as Abdal Hakim Murad, is an English Islamic scholar and theologian who is a proponent of Islamic neo-traditionalism. His work includes publications on Islamic theology, modernity, and Anglo ...

to design the Islamic gardens at the Cambridge Central Mosque, Europe's first eco-friendly mosque. The garden was inspired by the

Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

ic depiction of

heaven Heaven, or the Heavens, is a common Religious cosmology, religious cosmological or supernatural place where beings such as deity, deities, angels, souls, saints, or Veneration of the dead, venerated ancestors are said to originate, be throne, ...

. Clark is also an instructor at The Prince's School of Traditional Arts.

Publications

* ''The Art of the Islamic Garden'' (Crowood Press, 2004) * ''Mehmet the Conqueror'' with illustrations by Laura de la Mare (Hood Hood Books, 1997) * ''Underneath Which Rivers Flow: the Symbolism of the Islamic Garden'' (Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture, 1996) * ''Sinan: Architect of Istanbul'' with illustrations by Emma Alcock (Hood Hood Books, 1996)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clark, Emma English Muslims English gardeners English garden writers Living people British landscape and garden designers Converts to Islam 21st-century British women writers English children's writers Traditionalist School Year of birth missing (living people)