The Arabic word which is transliterated into English as “riad” or “riyadh” originally signified a garden or courtyard/ enclosed garden/patio of the formal, Islamic, so-called “paradise garden” type.
In current common usage “riad” (in Morocco, especially) is the word for a house/guesthouse/building in which its heart is such an open-aired but otherwise fully enclosed patio/courtyard.
Most such riads were originally the houses of wealthy merchants, built within the walls of a city’s “medina” – what is now its “old”/“walled” city.
The pictured example is surely one of the most exquisite.
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