The study of the representation of the Devil in the Persian paintings of the story of Adam and Eve

The stories of holy Quran and their relevant paintings have been a work subject for the Iranian painters in several time periods of ancient art and artworks in Iran. In this regard, the story of Adam is kind of the historical stories that have been subjected for different eras of the Persian paintings. It also has to be mentioned that each time periods does have the specific different images for their representations of this story. This story is one of the types of stories that has been subjected in almost all religions in different forms and origins, even in non- Semitic religions, as a story of first human creation or Adam creation. The presence of different special images in this stories such as devil, snake, peacock, and angles is a key factor to think of the Adam story as a symbolic subjects in different arts especially historical paintings and could reveals the need of assessing them is seems to be essential. The Devil is kind of the creatures that have been used in different forms in different religions for years and has been known as an evil and harmful force against human spirit. In Islamic arts and its related texts, the images of Devil are showed in different representations such as old man, angle, demon and snake or in a company with an assisting animal such as snake and peacock. Therefore, this study is aimed to assess the different representations of Devil in Persian paintings and find their roots in historical texts and pictures and their relation to the Islamic texts, holy Quran, and other mysticism texts and references. In this regard, we have used the comparative historical-descriptive method to assess the different resources from the literature and also from the religion texts for their representations of the Devil. The results of the study have shown that some of these representations are originated from old ancient texts and religions before the Islam era. Furthermore, it is revealed that some of them are originated from the mysticism texts and from some mystics' point of views to the Devil that have been showed in their oral stories or in their books and unofficial texts. In another part of the results of the study, it is revealed that the paintings of devils as snake or accompanying by another animal such as snake is also associated to the human creation mythic stories and correspondingly connection of the snake with evil in different cultures and believes. In another part of the study, findings were showed that the painting of devil as an old man could be rooted in the stories of the devils in mythic texts and histories and mystics' point of views to the Devil that is presented differently. But, about angles or the demon faces for the devil they can be by some means originated form the pint of views of devil which probably is based on some Islamic texts and also from the people believes that think the devil is the same to demon