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Color in Safavid Architecture: The Poetic Diffusion of Light

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Nader Ardalan
Nader Ardalan*
Affiliation:
Mandala Architectural Associates, Tehran
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Extract

My aim in this lecture shall be to situate the world of color within the traditional context of the Islamic culture of Persia; to explore the conceptual motivations that provoked its intense crystallization and saturation during the Safavid era; and to ultimately follow this world of color as it is annihilated into nothingness within the presence of Absolute Light. We will therefore witness the conceptual birth, life and death of color as a cyclical yet timeless, metaphysical expression of the Absolute within the world of phenomenal forms.

Tis light makes color visible; at night

Red, green and russet vanish from thy sight.

So too the light by their contraries are shown.

From the dark jungle as a lion bright

Color from the viewless Spirit leaps to light.

Rūmī

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 1-2: Studies on Isfahan: Proceedings of the Isfahan Colloquium, Part I , Spring Winter 1974 , pp. 164 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1974

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References

Notes

1. al-dīn Rūmī, Jalāl, Rumi, Poet and Mystic, trans. Nicholson, R.A. (London: 1964), p. 118.Google Scholar

2. al-dīn Rūmī, Jalāl, Mathnavī, trans. Nicholson, R.A. (London: 1925-40), commentary Book I, p. 89.Google Scholar

3. See Ardalan, N. and Bakhtiar, L., The Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Persian Architecture (Chicago: 1973).Google Scholar

4. See Nasr, S.H., Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines (Cambridge: 1964), p. 5.Google Scholar

5. See. Schuon, F., Transaendent Unity of Religions, trans. Townsend, Peter (London: n.d.), p. 84Google Scholar and Nasr, S.H., Three Muslim Sages (Cambridge: 1964), p. 83.Google Scholar

6. See Coomaraswamy, A., Christian and Oriental Philosophy of Art (New York: 1956).Google Scholar

7. Burckhardt, Titus, An Introduction to Sufi Doctrine (Lahore: 1959), p. 66.Google Scholar

8. Corbin, Henry, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabī (London: 1969), p. 304.Google Scholar

9. Smith, Margaret, al-Ghazzālī the Mystic (London: 1944) p. 174.Google Scholar

10. Ibid., p. 144.

11. The gnostic (irfānī) writings of the twelfth century thinker, IbnᶜArabi, have had a profound influence on subsequent esoteric thought and are lucidly explored in the works of Izutsu, T., The Key Philosophical Concepts in Sufism and Taoism--Ibn Arabī and Lao-Tzu, Chuang-Tzu, 2 vols. (Tokyo: 1966)Google Scholar and H. Corbin, op. cit.

12. Ibid., p. 83.

13. Quran 24:45.

14. This commentary has been partially translated by Whinfield, E.H. in The Mystic Rose Garden (London: 1880).Google Scholar

15. Smith, Margaret, Readings from the Mystics of Islam (London: 1944), p. 79.Google Scholar Suḥravardī is a twelfth century thinker who created the Illuminist school of Sufism. See S.H. Nasr, Three Muslim Sages, op. cit. and his article on Shihab al-dīn Suḥrawardī in A History of Muslim Philosophy, Sharif, M.M., ed. (Weisbaden: 1944).Google Scholar

16. Arberry, A.J., Classical Persian Literature (London: 1958), p. 78.Google Scholar

17. See Niẓāmī, Haft Paykar, trans. Wilson, C.E. (Tehran: 1924).Google Scholar

18. Ardalan, op. cit., p. 134.

19. See Titus Burckhardt, Alchemy, trans. William Stoddart (London: 1967).

20. Ibid.

21. Many different color systems have been used in the multiple spiritual methods employed by the Sufis. Simnānī (thirteenth century), for example, used the same seven colors, but arranged them differently than Niẓāmī with the result that he moves from sandalwood, blue, red to white and then proceeds upwards to yellow, luminous black and finally emerald green. See Corbin, Henry, “Physiologie de l'Homme de lumière dans le Soufisme Iranien,” Ombre et lumière (Paris: 1961).Google Scholar

22. Ardalan, op. cit.

23. This is from the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistos See Burckhardt, op. cit.

24. The Safavid period is the apogee of a long development which reaches back centuries, and to the introduction of new intellectual perspectives into Islamic civilization. Four schools of thought gradually approach each other during this period: the Illuminist school of Suḥrawardī, the irfānī school of IbnᶜArabī, the peripetetic school of Ibn Sīnā and the school of theology of al-Ghazālī. See Nasr, S.H., Science and Civilization in Islam (Cambridge: 1968)Google Scholar, Three Muslim Sages, op. cit., and his article in A History of Muslim Philosophy, op. cit., pp. 904-960.

25. Nasr, A history of Muslim Philosophy, op. cit., pp. 904-960.

26. Ibid., pp. 932-960.

27. Pope, A.U. and Ackerman, Phyllis, eds., A Survey of Persian Art, 14 vols (London: 1965), p. 1872–1897.Google Scholar

28. See Burckhardt, Alchemy, op. cit.

29. For a development of this testimony, see Nasr, S.H., Ideals and Realities of Islam (London: 1966).Google Scholar

30. See Izutsu, op. cit., p. 1.

31. ᶜAbdal Raḥmān Jāmi, Lawā'ih. A Treatise on Sufism, trans. Whinfield, E.N. and Qazvini, M.M. (London: 1914) p. 2.Google Scholar

32. al-Ghazālī, Mishkāt al-ānwar, trans. Gairdner, W.H.T. (London: 1924), p. 88.Google Scholar

33. Abu al-Mawāhib al-Shādhīlī, Illumination in Islamic Mysticism, trans. Jurji, E.J. (London: 1938).Google Scholar

34. Izutsu, op. cit.