A Reexamination on Relation between the Islamic Arts and Mysticism on the Historical Evidences

Many scholars have suggested that, in the Islamic culture, there was a firm and deep relation between the arts and the Islamic mysticism. As the Sufi poets tried to present their mystic intuitions in poems, the Islamic artisans and craftsmen tried to realise their mystic findings in there are works artefacts, buildings, calligraphy, paintings, music, etc.
Such an assertion is based on two premises:(1) The non-modern Islamic milieu was full of spirituality in spite of many reports about villainous acts in it;(2) The art works which we have inherited from the non-modern Islamic culture are of spirituality enough to lead us to
somehow contending the spiritual character of their creators, or, at least, the spiritual milieu and the context in which they were created. But in fact the efforts for showing reliability of the premises are not enough. We know that a good number of the Islamic artists were Sufi but all of them were not so. Hever the less we can also find many
historical instances showing that the milieu was full of mysticism as well as the prominent effective artists were Sufi or, at least, had Sufi trends. Moreover, in the Islamic society, the men who had public acceptability, i.e. the moral leaders, were Sufi or had somehow
relation with Sufism and mystic cycles. In this article, the present author introduces many instances from the Persian literature and historic texts to show the relation between Sufis and art, as well as the relation between the Iranian Muslim artists and mysticism.