Persian Poetry in Painting: Rumi, Hafez, Saadi and Khayyam

Persian poetry gave Persian painting most of its subjects. The Encyclopaedia Iranica says Ferdowsi's Shahnameh and Nizami's Khamsa were the most frequently illustrated literary works in Persian painting, and court painters also illustrated Attar, Saadi, Jami and Hafez, while later artists turned the verses of Hafez, Rumi and Omar Khayyam into calligraphy pictures and illustrated books.

This page takes the great poets one by one, names the painted copies that museums hold, and ends with the painters in our gallery whose work carries Persian verse. It is part of our guide to contemporary Iranian and Persian painting.

Key takeaways

• The Encyclopaedia Iranica says Nizami's Khamsa and Ferdowsi's Shahnameh "were the most frequently illustrated literary works" in the Persian art of the miniature.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art calls its Mantiq al-Tayr of 1487, Attar's poem of the birds, "one of the most important illustrated manuscripts from Timurid Persia".
• The Encyclopaedia Iranica says the 16th century was the high point for illustrated copies of the Divan of Hafez, and that the largest group was made in Shiraz, the finest of them in the 1580s.
• Jami's works were illustrated while he was still alive, which the Encyclopaedia Iranica says sets him apart from most other major classical poets.
• According to the Encyclopaedia Iranica, at least 220 artists have illustrated or decorated editions of Khayyam's Rubaiyat since Elihu Vedder's illustrated edition of 1884.
• The Aga Khan Museum in Toronto marked the 750th anniversary of Rumi's death with an exhibition that ran from May 13 to October 1, 2023.

How poems became pictures

Many classical Persian paintings were made as pages of books. A calligrapher copied the poem, and a painter filled spaces left in the text with scenes from the story. Our page on Persian miniature painting explains how these pages were made and how the court workshops worked. A painted page shows the moment in the poem that the verses beside it describe.

Painters treated two kinds of poem in different ways. Long narrative poems in couplets, called masnavi, tell stories, so a painter can pick a scene. The Shahnameh, the Khamsa, Attar's poem of the birds, Saadi's Bustan, Rumi's Masnavi and Jami's Haft Awrang are all long story poems. Short poems, such as the ghazals of Hafez and the quatrains of Khayyam, have no single story. Painters of lyric poems either showed a scene that one line suggests, such as a tavern or a garden party, or they wrote the verse itself as the picture.

The Encyclopaedia Iranica entry by Chad Kia on Jami and Persian art explains why Sufi poems became popular with painters in the 15th century. Sufism is the mystical tradition in Islam; the Metropolitan Museum of Art describes its followers as people who "pursue the Sufi path of God". The Timurid princes of Herat honoured Sufi teachers, and books with Sufi content rose among the texts they ordered to be illustrated. Herat under Sultan Hosayn Bayqara, who ruled from 1470 to 1506, became the centre of literature and book production in the Iranian world, and this was the period of the painter Behzad.

The poets at a glance

Eight Persian poets, their best-known works, and how painters have used them

Poet	Dates	Main work	How painters use it	Source
Ferdowsi	935 to 1020 (Britannica gives his death as 1020 to 1026)	Shahnameh, the Book of Kings, finished in 1010	Battles, kings and heroes in illustrated copies; one of the two most illustrated books	Britannica; Encyclopaedia Iranica
Nizami Ganjavi	1141 to 1209	Khamsa, five narrative poems	Love stories such as Layla and Majnun; the other most illustrated book	Encyclopaedia Iranica
Attar	Born 1145 or 1146, died 1221	Mantiq al-Tayr, the Language of the Birds	The birds gathering for their quest, and the short tales inside the poem	Encyclopaedia Iranica; Metropolitan Museum of Art
Saadi	Born 1210, died 1291 or 1292	Bustan (1257) and Golestan (1258)	Moral tales; Behzad's paintings in a Bustan of 1488	Encyclopaedia Iranica
Rumi	Died 1273	Masnavi	Teaching stories, court scenes in copies, and modern installations	Encyclopaedia Iranica; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Aga Khan Museum
Hafez	Born 1315, died 1390	Divan, a collection of lyric poems	Garden and tavern scenes, tinted drawings, verse on objects, and calligraphy pictures	Encyclopaedia Iranica; Harvard Art Museums
Jami	1414 to 1492	Haft Awrang, seven narrative poems	Sufi tales painted in court manuscripts, some in his lifetime	Encyclopaedia Iranica
Omar Khayyam	1048 to 1131	Rubaiyat, a collection of quatrains	Few old manuscripts; hundreds of illustrated editions after 1884	Encyclopaedia Iranica; Britannica

The dates for several poets are uncertain in the sources. The Encyclopaedia Iranica gives Hafez's birth as "ca." 1315 and his death as "ca." 1390, says Saadi was born "ca." 1210, and says Khayyam's death date is disputed. The table gives the years those sources use.

Ferdowsi and Nizami

Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, the Persian national epic of kings and heroes, is the subject of its own page: the Shahnameh in painting. It covers the best-known stories and the great illustrated copies, from the Great Mongol Shahnameh to the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp.

Nizami Ganjavi lived from 1141 to 1209 in Ganja, west of the Caspian Sea. The Encyclopaedia Iranica entry by Domenico Parrello lists the five poems of his Khamsa: the Makhzan al-Asrar, Khosrow and Shirin, Layla and Majnun, the Haft Paykar and the Eskandar-nama. The same entry says his stories "have provided the Persian art of the miniature with an abundance of subject matter". Our page on the Khamsa of Nizami in painting tells those stories and names the painted copies.

Attar and the Language of the Birds

Farid al-Din Attar was born in Nishapur in 1145 or 1146 and died there in 1221, according to the Encyclopaedia Iranica entry by Benedikt Reinert. His best-known poem is the Mantiq al-Tayr, the Language of the Birds, often called the Conference of the Birds in English. Attar himself gives 1177 as the year he finished it, though the Iranica notes that this verse is missing from some manuscripts.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art tells the story this way. The birds gather to choose a king. The hoopoe says the Simorgh, a mythical bird that lives behind Mount Qaf, is the most worthy. The birds cross seven valleys: quest, love, knowledge, contentment, unity, wonder and poverty. Only thirty birds arrive, and each sees its own reflection in the Simorgh. The Met explains that the birds stand for people on the Sufi path, the hoopoe for the Sufi master and the Simorgh for God. Our page on symbols in Persian painting explains the Persian wordplay on si morgh, "thirty birds".

The Met owns one of the few illustrated copies of the poem. Its essay by Yumiko Kamada says the manuscript was begun in the Timurid court workshop in Herat and dated April 25, 1487, and that some of its paintings are often attributed to Behzad. More than a hundred years later it came to Shah Abbas, whose painters remounted it and added a frontispiece and four new paintings. Shah Abbas gave it to the Ardabil shrine in 1608 or 1609. One of the added paintings, The Concourse of the Birds by Habiballah of Sava, painted in or near the year 1600, is the only illustration in the book that shows the main story. The other illustrations show the short tales the hoopoe tells along the way.

Saadi: the Bustan and the Golestan

Saadi of Shiraz was born in or near 1210 and died in 1291 or 1292. The Encyclopaedia Iranica entry by Paul E. Losensky says the two most reliable dates in his life are the completion of his two best-known books: the Bustan, finished late in 1257 after some 30 years of travel, and the Golestan, finished a year later in 1258. The Bustan is a verse book of moral stories in some 4,100 couplets, and G. Michael Wickens writes in the Encyclopaedia Iranica that its title means something like "fragrant herb garden". The Golestan, which Saadi wrote a few months later, mixes prose and verse.

The most famous painted Saadi is a Bustan made for the library of Sultan Hosayn Bayqara in Herat, with a text dated 1488. The Encyclopaedia Iranica entry on Jami and Persian art says four of its paintings are "undisputedly" by Behzad. One shows Zulaykha trying to seduce Yusuf, the Joseph of the Bible and the Qur'an. The scene follows Saadi's text, but the palace Behzad painted, with its bolted rooms, is the one Jami describes in his own poem Yusuf and Zulaykha. So one painting joins two poets. Our page on Persian miniature painting says where this manuscript is held today.

Rumi and the Masnavi

Jalal al-Din Rumi died in 1273. The Encyclopaedia Iranica entry by Jawid Mojaddedi calls his Masnavi his "magnum opus", a teaching poem in which a story is told and its lesson is drawn out, often with sudden changes of voice. Michael Chagnon, a curator at the Aga Khan Museum, calls Konya, in present-day Turkey, "the city where Rumi spent most of his life". The museum's 2023 exhibition followed his early life in Central Asia, his experience of displacement and migration, and his work as a Sufi teacher.

Illustrated copies of the Masnavi are less common than copies of the Shahnameh or the Khamsa, but museums hold them. The Metropolitan Museum of Art owns a six-book Masnavi dated 1488 to 1489. The Met says its frontispiece shows mounted hunters with swords, bows and arrows, and that other paintings show receptions and feasts. The Aga Khan Museum showed one of two known folios from an illustrated Masnavi thought to have been made in the royal library in Tabriz in the 16th century. It illustrates one of the last stories in the poem, about the nature of vision and why a person should not trust the eyes alone.

Rumi's stories still prompt new art. For its Rumi exhibition the Aga Khan Museum commissioned three installations. Simin Keramati, whom the museum calls an Iranian-Canadian multidisciplinary artist, made The Elephant in the Dark, an interactive work based on one of Rumi's best-known tales. Hangama Amiri, an Afghan-Canadian artist, made a textile installation about displacement. Our page on Persian calligraphy in painting describes how the sculptor Parviz Tanavoli rooted his heech works in Rumi's poetry.

Hafez and the Divan

Shams al-Din Mohammad Hafez was born in Shiraz in or near 1315 and died there in or near 1390, according to the Encyclopaedia Iranica entry by Baha al-Din Khorramshahi. In his overview of the poet, Ehsan Yarshater writes that if a Persian home has one book of poetry, it is likely to be the Divan of Hafez, and that many of his lines have become proverbs. The Divan is also used to tell fortunes, a custom we describe on our page about Yalda night.

Painted copies of Hafez

The Encyclopaedia Iranica entry by Priscilla P. Soucek on Hafez and the visual arts traces the painted Hafez century by century. Among the earliest are two anthologies now in Paris. One, from the years close to 1450, has pairs of verses written diagonally across the page. The other has two paintings, one of a woman with a young child and one of a couple under a flowering tree.

The 16th century was the high point. The most celebrated copy was made for Sam Mirza, a son of Shah Esmail, and most scholars date it to 1527, following Stuart Cary Welch. Its four paintings include two signed by Sultan Mohammad. Harvard Art Museums holds one of them, Earthly Drunkenness, which Harvard dates to 1530 or close to it, painted in Tabriz and signed "The work of Sultan Muhammad". Harvard's record says the page is jointly owned with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Later in the century, workshops in Shiraz produced the largest group of illustrated Hafez manuscripts, with scenes of gatherings in mosques and taverns. The Iranica describes these as commercial books made for buyers with means, with no dedication to a patron.

In the 17th century, illustrators turned to lightly tinted drawings of couples. The Encyclopaedia Iranica names two such books from the 1660s: one in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin with 490 tinted drawings in 500 folios, and one in the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul with 558 illustrations on 578 folios. In the late 18th and 19th centuries, painters in Kashmir made two-level pictures: the poet reciting below, and above him a scene from a story the verse only mentions.

Hafez on objects and as calligraphy

Verses by Hafez also appear on metalwork. The earliest known example the Iranica gives is a jug completed in 1461 to 1462, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, ringed with two complete ghazals. In the 20th century, the Iranica says, painters used his verses to make "word pictures" in place of figures. It names the paintings Hossein Zenderoudi made for a 1988 anthology of twelve ghazals called Dance of Life, built from layers of calligraphy, sometimes with geometric shapes or a crescent moon. Our page on Persian calligraphy in painting covers this modern calligraphy art.

Jami and the Haft Awrang

Abd al-Rahman Jami lived from 1414 to 1492 and spent most of his life in Herat. The Encyclopaedia Iranica entry by Chad Kia says his writings are "among the most frequently illustrated in the history of Persian manuscript painting", and that his works were illustrated during his lifetime, which "distinguishes him from most other major literary figures" of the classical period. His Haft Awrang, the "Seven Thrones", is a set of seven narrative poems with strong Sufi content, modelled on Nizami's Khamsa. The Iranica counts at least two hundred manuscripts of it in collections around the world.

The most elaborate is the Haft Awrang in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, with 28 paintings made between 1556 and 1565. It was ordered by the Safavid prince Ebrahim Mirza, governor of Mashhad. The Iranica says several calligraphers worked on it over nine years. It also says some of its paintings include figures the text never mentions, such as a man playing a flute, which scholars read as Sufi symbols. A painter illustrating Jami could add meaning to a scene as well as record it.

Omar Khayyam and the Rubaiyat

Omar Khayyam was a mathematician and astronomer as well as a poet. The Encyclopaedia Iranica entry on his life says his birth has been calculated as May 18, 1048, from his horoscope, and that his death date is disputed. Britannica gives his dates as 1048 to 1131. The Rubaiyat is a collection of quatrains, four-line poems, attributed to him.

The Rubaiyat has a different history in art from the other poems on this page. The Encyclopaedia Iranica entry by William H. Martin and Sandra Mason says old manuscripts of the quatrains were "seldom if ever illustrated", in part because of doubt about which verses he wrote. The earliest known illustrated version dates from the years close to 1500 and includes a painting attributed to Behzad. The push to illustrate came from the West, after Edward FitzGerald's English version was published in London in 1859. The first fully illustrated Western edition appeared in Boston in 1884 with drawings by the American artist Elihu Vedder. By the end of 1909 there were more than 100 illustrated or decorated editions of FitzGerald's text, by over 50 artists, including Edmund Dulac. The same entry says editions published in Iran usually print the Persian quatrains with translations and illustrations by modern Iranian artists.

Khayyam also has a place on our page about Nowruz in Persian art, because the astronomer Mohammad Heydari-Malayeri credits him with the 33-year leap-year cycle behind the Iranian solar calendar.

Verse inside the picture

Poetry also appears in Persian painting as writing. Calligraphers copied single verses on album pages, and painters set lines of poetry in panels above, below or around a scene. A common arrangement is verse written in cloud-shaped spaces on a gold ground. Another is chalipa, verse written diagonally across a panel, the arrangement the Iranica describes in one of the earliest Hafez anthologies. Our page on Persian calligraphy in painting explains nastaliq, the hanging script used for Persian poetry, and the modern painters who made letters into images.

Persian poetry in our gallery

Kamal al-Din Ghotb, who has practised Persian painting for 41 years, paints in the classical miniature tradition in oil and gold on paper, and each of his five paintings listed for sale carries Persian verse. The product page for Siyavash Passing Through the Fire, a scene from the Shahnameh, describes an illuminated arch with "its band of nasta'liq verse set in white cloud-reserves on gold" and cartouches of Persian verse along the foot of the page. Naghsh-e Khial sets a battle "inside columns of Persian verse". Muraqqa: The Blue Robe frames its piper with couplets in nastaliq, and Muraqqa: The Gold Shamseh has "diagonal chalipa couplets" on a lilac ground. The product pages leave the poets of these verses unnamed. See all of his work in the Kamal al-Din Ghotb collection.

Several contemporary painters we work with name Persian poetry among their inspirations. The artist page for Marjan Mousavi says her acrylics "draw on the natural world and Persian lyrical traditions" and lists Persian lyrical poetry and Rumi. The page for Roshan lists Sufi poetry and Persian miniature painting. The page for Ziba Vishteh lists "Persian poetry's treatment of absence", and the page for Nahira lists Persian poetry beside the Canadian landscape and the human figure in contemporary dance.

Frequently asked questions

Which Persian poems were illustrated most often?

Ferdowsi's Shahnameh and Nizami's Khamsa were the most frequently illustrated literary works in Persian painting, according to the Encyclopaedia Iranica. Painters also illustrated Attar's Mantiq al-Tayr, Saadi's Bustan, Rumi's Masnavi, Jami's Haft Awrang and the Divan of Hafez. Jami's writings, the Iranica adds, are among the most frequently illustrated in the history of Persian manuscript painting.

Who painted The Concourse of the Birds at the Metropolitan Museum?

The Concourse of the Birds at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was painted by Habiballah of Sava in or near the year 1600. The painting was added to a copy of Attar's Mantiq al-Tayr dated 1487, after the manuscript came to Shah Abbas. The Met says it is the only illustration in that book showing the main story, the birds gathering for their quest.

What is Attar's Language of the Birds about?

Attar's Language of the Birds, the Mantiq al-Tayr, tells of birds who set out to find a king. Led by the hoopoe, they cross seven valleys to reach the Simorgh, and the thirty who arrive see themselves in it. The Metropolitan Museum of Art explains that the birds stand for people on the Sufi path and the Simorgh for God.

Which painter illustrated Saadi's Bustan in 1488?

Behzad painted four scenes in a Bustan of Saadi made for the library of Sultan Hosayn Bayqara in Herat, with a text dated 1488. The Encyclopaedia Iranica calls the four paintings undisputedly his. One shows Zulaykha's attempt to seduce Yusuf, set in a palace that follows Jami's description in his own poem Yusuf and Zulaykha.

Are there illustrated manuscripts of Rumi's Masnavi?

Illustrated manuscripts of Rumi's Masnavi exist in several museums. The Metropolitan Museum of Art owns a six-book copy dated 1488 to 1489, with a hunting scene in its frontispiece and paintings of receptions and feasts. The Aga Khan Museum in Toronto showed one of two known folios from an illustrated Masnavi thought to come from the royal library in Tabriz, in its 2023 Rumi exhibition.

How did painters illustrate the Divan of Hafez?

Painters of the Divan of Hafez showed scenes that single lines suggest, such as garden parties, taverns and sermons in mosques. The Encyclopaedia Iranica says the 16th century was the high point, with the largest group made in Shiraz. Later illustrators drew tinted couples, and Kashmiri painters showed the poet reciting beneath a scene from an older story.

What is Sultan Muhammad's Earthly Drunkenness?

Sultan Muhammad's Earthly Drunkenness is a painted page from a Divan of Hafez, made in Tabriz in or near 1530 and signed "The work of Sultan Muhammad". Harvard Art Museums records that the page is jointly owned with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Encyclopaedia Iranica says it comes from a celebrated copy made for Sam Mirza, a son of Shah Esmail.

Why are old manuscripts of Khayyam's Rubaiyat rarely illustrated?

Old manuscripts of Khayyam's Rubaiyat were seldom if ever illustrated, the Encyclopaedia Iranica says, partly because of doubt about which quatrains Khayyam wrote. The earliest known illustrated version dates from the years close to 1500. The large wave of illustrated editions came much later, after Edward FitzGerald's English translation appeared in London in 1859.

Who first illustrated FitzGerald's Rubaiyat?

Elihu Vedder, an American artist, made the drawings for the first fully illustrated Western edition of the Rubaiyat, published in Boston in 1884 on FitzGerald's third edition. The Encyclopaedia Iranica says at least 220 artists have illustrated or decorated Khayyam's verses since then, among them Edmund Dulac, Gilbert James and Willy Pogany.

What is the Freer Haft Awrang?

The Freer Haft Awrang is a luxury copy of Jami's seven narrative poems in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington. The Encyclopaedia Iranica says it has 28 paintings made between 1556 and 1565 for the Safavid prince Ebrahim Mirza, governor of Mashhad, with several calligraphers working on it over nine years.

Which VanArtHub paintings include Persian verse?

Kamal al-Din Ghotb's five miniatures for sale at VanArtHub all include Persian verse. Siyavash Passing Through the Fire has nastaliq verse in cloud-shaped spaces on gold, Naghsh-e Khial sets a battle inside columns of verse, and Muraqqa: The Gold Shamseh has diagonal chalipa couplets. The product pages do not name the poets whose lines are written there.

References

1. KAMSA OF NEZAMI (English: the Khamsa, or Quintet, of Nizami). Domenico Parrello, Encyclopaedia Iranica. Last updated 23 October 2012; Internet Archive copy of 6 September 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. Nizami's dates, the five poems, and the Khamsa and Shahnameh as the most illustrated works.
2. ATTAR, FARID AL-DIN. Benedikt Reinert, Encyclopaedia Iranica. Published 15 December 1987; Internet Archive copy of 26 September 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. Attar's dates and the year 1177 for the Mantiq al-Tayr.
3. The Mantiq al-tair (Language of the Birds) of 1487. Yumiko Kamada, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Published 1 June 2010; Internet Archive copy of 21 April 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. The story of the poem, the history of the Met manuscript and The Concourse of the Birds.
4. SAʿDI. Paul E. Losensky, Encyclopaedia Iranica. Last updated 3 August 2015; Internet Archive copy of 16 September 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. Saadi's dates, the completion of the Bustan and the Golestan, and Jami's dates.
5. BUSTAN. G. Michael Wickens, Encyclopaedia Iranica. Published 15 December 1990; Internet Archive copy of 24 August 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. The length of the Bustan, the meaning of its title and its order relative to the Golestan.
6. JAMI iii. And Persian Art. Chad Kia, Encyclopaedia Iranica. Published 15 December 2008; Internet Archive copy of 21 September 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. Sufi texts in Herat, Behzad's Bustan of 1488, the Haft Awrang manuscripts and the Freer Haft Awrang.
7. RUMI, JALAL AL-DIN viii. Rumi's Teachings. Jawid Mojaddedi, Encyclopaedia Iranica. Published 8 September 2014; Internet Archive copy of 17 April 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. Rumi's death date and the Masnavi as a teaching poem.
8. Masnavi of Jalal al-Din Rumi. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Undated collection record; Internet Archive copy of 18 February 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. The Met's illustrated Masnavi of 1488 to 1489.
9. Rumi. Aga Khan Museum. Exhibition held 13 May to 1 October 2023. Accessed 27 September 2026. The exhibition's themes and the three commissioned installations.
10. New exhibition on Rumi at the Aga Khan Museum. Medievalists.net. Published 12 May 2023. Accessed 27 September 2026. The Aga Khan Museum's illustrated Masnavi folio from Tabriz and the 750th anniversary.
11. HAFEZ i. An Overview. Ehsan Yarshater, Encyclopaedia Iranica. Published 15 December 2002; Internet Archive copy of 7 September 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. The Divan in Persian homes and its use for fortune-telling.
12. HAFEZ ii. Hafez's Life and Times. Baha al-Din Khorramshahi, Encyclopaedia Iranica. Published 15 December 2002; Internet Archive copy of 1 September 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. Hafez's dates of birth and death.
13. HAFEZ xii. Hafez and the Visual Arts. Priscilla P. Soucek, Encyclopaedia Iranica. Published 15 December 2002; Internet Archive copy of 29 August 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. Painted Hafez manuscripts from the 15th to the 20th century, verse on metalwork and Zenderoudi's word pictures.
14. Earthly Drunkenness (painting recto; text verso), illustrated folio from a manuscript of Divan of Hafiz. Harvard Art Museums. Undated collection record. Accessed 27 September 2026. Date, place, signature and joint ownership of Sultan Muhammad's page.
15. KHAYYAM, OMAR i. Life. Hosayn Masumi Hamadani, Encyclopaedia Iranica. Published 8 August 2017; Internet Archive copy of 24 September 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. Khayyam's calculated birth date and the dispute over his death date.
16. KHAYYAM, OMAR vi. Illustrations of English Translations of the Rubaiyat. William H. Martin and Sandra Mason, Encyclopaedia Iranica. Published 15 July 2009; Internet Archive copy of 5 July 2025. Accessed 27 September 2026. Early manuscripts, FitzGerald, Vedder and the count of illustrators.
17. Nowruz. Charles Preston, Encyclopaedia Britannica. Last updated 29 June 2026; Internet Archive copy of 2 August 2026. Accessed 27 September 2026. Ferdowsi's dates and the year of the Shahnameh, and Khayyam's dates.
18. A concise review of the Iranian calendar. M. Heydari-Malayeri, arXiv. Published 27 September 2004. Accessed 27 September 2026. Khayyam's link to the 33-year cycle of the Iranian calendar.
19. Marjan Mousavi, Roshan, Ziba Vishteh and Nahira. VanArtHub. Undated. Accessed 27 September 2026. The inspirations listed on each artist page.
20. Kamal al-Din Ghotb. VanArtHub. Undated. Accessed 27 September 2026. The descriptions of verse panels on his product pages.

Checked 27 September 2026. If something here is out of date, write to us and we will correct it.