Translating the professional title, ‘landscape architect’, is a challenge not only in Arabic speaking countries in the Middle East and North Africa, but more broadly, in countries of the global south. The challenge lies partly in translating the word ‘landscape’ but also in finding the Arabic word for ‘architect’.
 
I will start with ‘landscape’, a word with many meanings, an idea, a cultural construction that is context specific; landscape perception, and valuation, varies from place to place and changes over time. The English ‘landscape’ can be traced to sixteenth century north European cultures. Since, ‘landscape’ the meaning of landscape expanded by disciplines that came to appropriate the word. Artists were responsible for the conception of landscape as scenery, which they expressed through painting and the visual arts. Geographers advanced the concept of landscape as an expression of place and culture. Ecologists used landscape to anchor the abstract concept of ecosystem in a specific place and culture, to them we owe the meaning of landscape as a dynamic and holistic entity. More recently, landscape has served as a political platform to argue for human rights (Egoz et al 2013) and practice citizenship (Waterman et al 2022). These and other interpretations of landscape are difficult if not impossible to capture in one word, let alone to translate. Of all these meanings, however, it is the visual conception, landscape as scenery, that dominates outside academic and professional spheres.
It is understandable therefore that mandhar (from the Arabic source nadhar, sight), is the most common translation in English-Arabic dictionaries. And while the visual aspect of landscape is undeniably important, this translation is problematic. Scenery, the visual dimension of the word, overshadows the other meanings, namely the fluidity of landscape as the dynamic interplay between physical setting and cultural perception of that setting by those that inhabit/shape it. Additionally, reducing the meaning of landscape to visual scenery, narrows the role of landscape architecture to ‘beautification’, thus denying the expanded role of the profession as addressing issues of “ecological sustainability, quality and health of landscapes, collective memory, heritage and culture, and territorial justice” (https://www.iflaworld.com/the-profession ). A better word is mashhad. Though similarly rooted in the Arabic source, sight, mashhad evolved to imply ‘setting’, for example, a stage setting, implying interaction between viewer and viewed. Mashhad captures the underlying meaning of landscape as a tangible product and a process of production, dynamic and open-ended meaning, rather than a static product, as in scenery.



Consulting with a linguist confirms that mashhad is more appropriate than the conventional mandhar. The confirmation encouraged us, members of IFLA-Middle East, to use mashhad in the Arabic translation of IFLA’s new definition of landscape architecture 1. IFLA’s approval,
however, necessitates certified translation, which will invariably resort to the dictionary translation of landscape as scenery. For now, the word mashhad can serve as a basis for generating a dialogue by landscape professionals and scholars of Arabic Culture and history of ‘landscape’ and its meaning in Arab speaking cultures.
 
Place, (Arabic makan), is another concept that overlaps with ‘landscape’ (Tuan 1995) but that has been successfully incorporated into mainstream Arabic discourse on socio-spatial production. Landscape, however, embraces more than just people and the shaping of space. Landscape implies, as well, nature and natural resources. The uniqueness of landscape lies in that it is ‘part nature part culture’ (Tilley 2006).
 
The second half of the professional title, ‘architect’, is also challenging. There is more than one Arabic translation for architect, mi’mar, muhandis mi’mari and muhandis imara (muhandis, is the Arabic word for engineer). And because landscape architecture qualifications are offered by faculties of agriculture and sciences as well as by faculties of architecture and engineering, the professional title conferred varies between the two, respectively, ‘landscape engineer’ and ‘landscape architect’ (Makhzoumi 2022). To circumvent these variations, IFLA National Associations in Iran and Lebanon replace ‘architect’ with broader terms – the Iranian Society for Landscape professionals (ISLAP) and the Lebanese Landscape (LELA). Even if academic programs agree on ‘landscape architect’ as the professional title, which is debatable, the process will entail approvals by their institutions as well as consent from state authorities at the ministerial level. No easy feat.
 
To conclude, many challenges face landscape architects in the Mashrek and Maghreb Al Arabi, respectively, the Middle East and north Africa, where the profession is slowly being recognized. Though the focus of my reflection was linguistic, the search for an Arabic word for ‘landscape’, I hope, serves to engage professionals and scholars across disciplines to dialogue bigger challenges and to contribute to a landscape architecture narratives that are not ‘borrowed’ or imposed, but rooted in local culture and heritage and that are responsive to the potentials and limitations of local/regional ecologies in countries of the global south.
  
 
Citations
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