Sport is always a good theme to have in your armoury as a reserve for when the big themes are not in the headlines. And golf is both hugely popular globally and also happens to have been invented in Scotland. Of course, in the beginning the courses were mainly sculpted by nature, but the new Loch Lomond course that opened at the time of this piece was sculpted by man and apparently quite beautiful. All in all then, a suitable case for a treatment.

No doubt the Queen’s visit for the official re-opening of the Lighthouse today will bring the sightseers out on to Glasgow’s city streets, but perhaps greater crowds will be drawn to Loch Lomond for the golf, set amidst the grandeur of our natural landscape. Charles Rennie Mackintosh may well have had a keen sensibility for architecture, but in nature we see the hand of a much more awesome designer in action.

In fact, nature in all its power and glory can be quite frightening for the fragile creatures that move through it, so we humans have always created buffer zones, where nature is tamed a little, and groomed for human comfort and delight, where thorny scrub is transformed into grass carpet, and plants are artfully positioned to tease our aesthetic sensibilities.

Of course, to enjoy a walk in a cultured landscape there is no real need for the distraction of trying to hit a little white ball into a hole. But some of us need a justification to do the things that we like, and most of today’s competitors will spend a lot less time hitting balls than they do walking down the fairways.

Muslims have always had a fascination for the grooming of nature, and the particular delights of the garden as an image of Paradise are constantly referred to in Qur’an. So from the lakeside gardens of Shalimar to the walled gardens of the Alhambra, muslims throughout history have done their best to provide an earthly echo of what awaits us in the world to come.

Qur’an says: “Have We not made the earth as a cradle and the mountains as pegs? And We created you in pairs, and appointed sleep for your rest. And We appointed night for a garment, and day for a livelihood, and built above you seven firmaments, and appointed there a blazing lamp. And We send down out of the rain-clouds water cascading, that We may bring forth thereby grain and plants, and gardens luxuriant.”

I’m sure the golfers would prefer the blazing lamp to cascading water today - but it is Scotland - it’s just God’s way of keeping the fairways green.