The 27th of the holy month of Rajab is traditionally celebrated as the date of the Prophet Muhammad’s (saws) miraculous journey to Jerusalem and his ascension from there to the highest heavens. A full description of this very important Islamic holiday and the recommended adab, or ettiquette, for the observant is detailed here. It is being observed variously tonight or tomorrow night, and God knows best.

Bagh-e-Ferdowsi

One winner of the 2001 Aga Khan Award for Islamic Architecture is a gorgeous park in Tehran. It was featured in the September issue of Landscape Architecture magazine. The excerpt doesn’t say much, though there is another nice picture of the park. The park is built almost entirely from rough hewn rock. The walks, steps, walls, all from the same stone. One detail that stuck out was a notch carved down the center of the wide steps to channel water – I would love to see that in the rain. The other thing that struck me was that there is no way a design like that would pass code around here. No handrails, no ramps, no smooth even surfaces, no universal accessibility. I try not to get hung up on it, but I can’t avoid thinking that all these ADA codes wind up detracting from the beauty of our public places. If a place like the Bagh-e-Ferdowsi is unbuildable here, that has to be to our loss.