The Role of Religious Concepts in the Nastaliq Inscriptions of Safavid Monuments

Problem Definition:

 The usage of inscriptions in the Safavid monuments has been expanded and diverse, and the initial study of these works shows that the Safavid artists often used Thuluth and Kufic inscriptions to write religious themes and Nastaliq for non-religious inscriptions. However, this is not certain as Nastaliq inscriptions that contain religious themes exist.

The present research has been carried out with the aim of identifying and categorizing the religious themes used in Safavid Nastaliq inscriptions. In other words, the main question of this research is that what is the status of religious themes in the Nastaliq inscriptions during the Safavid dynasty?

This research follows a descriptive and analytical method. The research data are based on library studies and field findings. The case studies are belonging to the Safavid era in Iran, with all historical monuments being considered in this period. In this research, all available samples were studied and after collecting data, the religious themes used in the samples were classified.

The results of this investigation, based on the study of the contents of about 250 Nastaliq inscriptions in 140 Safavid monument, indicate that 33 of them contain religious themes (about 13%). In other words, about 87% of Nastaliq inscriptions contain non-religious themes. In addition, the results indicate that the religious themes used are as follows: praying phrases (14 items in 19 works), Quranic verses (4 verses in 9 cases), and Hadith (2 hadiths in 5 inscriptions). Also, among the Nastaliq religious inscriptions in Safavid era, the most frequent is the prayer of "Nad Ali" (4 items) and the Hadith "Madinat al-Ilm" (I am the city of the knowledge and Ali is its entranceway) (3 items), which confirms and emphasizes the existence of Shiite tendencies in the formation of the mentioned works.