Thematic Reading of the Inscriptions on the Wooden Doors of Kashan's Blessed Tombs

Kashan city is one of the religious cities of Iran, which has been intertwined with the love of Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon him) since the beginning of the Islamic period. With regard to the problem statement,  there are many blessed places in this city that are decorated with various architectural decorations such as plastering, wall painting, muqarnas work, wooden doors and windows, tiling and verses, which have contributed the most in terms of examples in the contemporary period, while the Timurid ,Safavid, Qajar, and Pahlavi periods also have many significant examples. Among the arrays related to architecture, inscriptions are of special importance, because they provide information about people's culture and beliefs and provide a basis for further knowledge. The following article was created with the purpose of reading the theme and content of the inscriptions on the wooden doors of Kashan's blessed Bekaa. These doors are used as entrance doors, interior doors or shrines, and their inscriptions are executed with wooden arts such as inlay, mosaic, and painting on wood, so these questions are raised: What is the content of the inscriptions on the wooden doors of Kashan's blessed tombs and what themes and information does it contain?  The type of basic research and its method is descriptive-analytical.  Information has been obtained through library and private field studies. The findings have been identified in thirty-nine wooden doors with inscriptions, and the sampling method of the works was first all the available cases. The result of this study showed that of the findings that have been recognized in thirty-nine inscribed tombs 5% are Timurid, 21% Safavid, 15% Qajar, 10% Pahlavi and 49% belong to the period of the Islamic Republic (contemporary). The contents of the inscriptions have been identified and analyzed in seven groups: Qur'anic, historical, encomium and praise, narrations, martyrdoms, divine names, and the names of the founders or builders. According to the researches, historical themes, Quranic themes, divine names, encomium and praise, and the names of builders and founders are seen in all periods, but martyrdoms have been seen only in the contemporary period, and narratives have also been seen in all periods except the Pahlavi period.  Another case is the way of using and inserting the names of the builders and founders of the studied doors, so that from the Timurid period to the Pahlavi period, it is often indirectly associated with nicknames, and they are mostly inserted on the lower parts of the doors, so that they are less visible, but in the contemporary period, the names of founders or builders are written without title and explicitly, and the place of insertion was not important for them, which shows the humility and modesty of traditional artists and their reflection on their works, as well as the more haste and less taste of contemporary artists, such as: "Mehr king build this door  in the history of the servant of Sultan Ali Mahmud Maulana Hasan" on the south door of the mausoleum of Sultan Ali bin Muhammad Baqir (peace be upon him) in the Safavid period and "the act of Master Hasan Tasalloti of Kashan" on the eastern porch of the mausoleum of Sultan Mahmud (peace be upon him) in the contemporary period.  Also, unlike the contemporary era, where all the years of creation are stated directly and clearly, traditional artists in some of their works have used the material of the date of creation of the work and by replacing dates and figures in the form of poetry, they have added to the delicacy of the poems and their mastery of order while they showed the prose.  Another notable case is the wooden arts of making inscriptions; in all the works, inlays are used, and only one work is painted and four works are done using the mosaic method. The texts of the inscriptions are mostly executed in the frames and the spacers, and this can be due to the fact that these places are more visible and also the horizontality of the Persian and Arabic alphabets. The Thuluth script is the most common among the examples and it was used in all periods, and the Nastaliq script was also added to the works from the Qajar period.