Tile work/Jame Mosque Isfahan 16th centurry

Very interesting artwork. Looks like a crytic puzzle. Is there a message? Nice. FS

Thank you for your interest, I took this picture for 30 years ago with a Linhof Master Technica on 4X5 B&W Tri-x negative.  following is the meaning and history of this art work:

One of the most studied square panel on the western iwan, uses calligraphy to celebrates the name of  Ali the first of Shiet Imams .  According to Oleg Grabar in  The Great Mosque of Isfahan (New York University Press 1990) it contains in the four corners the pious quatrain: “As the letter of our crime became entwined [i.e., grew so long], [they] took it and weighed it in the balance against action. Our sin was greater than that of anyone else, but we were forgiven out of the kindness of Ali.” Grabar notes that the central part of the panel is nothing else than the plug of the artisan who was diligently involved in restoring the mosque in the 17th century, Muhammad ibn Mu’min Muhammad Amin.This is an  example of “a simple design rotated 45 degrees which acquires two separate values, one as a carrier of geometric forms filled with (by the time of the panel) antiquarian writing, the other one as a violator of the sequence of both writing and architecture by forcing one into rare contortions to read the writing”. The southern iwan  which had got additional decorations by Sayyid Mahmud-e Naqash in 1475/76 sports a similar but definitely Timurid swastika-like panel, with its ample arabesque and floral motifs.

Best regards Sadegh