A Comparative Study on the Tombstones Containing Occupational Motifs of Isfahan’s New Julfa Cemetery with the Takht-e-Foulad Cemetery

The concepts of life and death are amongst common principles in  all religions and civilizations. Consequently, their related iconography is is present in the tomb carvings.. Tombstones are a testament to people's view of death and the afterlife, where bodies are left to one of the four elements of wind, water, fire and earth to be purified. Tombs are perhaps the beginning of the use of stone in burial rituals, which became the main material because of their longevity and protection of the body and to overcome the fear of ghosts, an eternal resting place for the deceased.
The sacredness and sanctity for the eternal resting place for the deceased, in all that religions, has always motivated the sculptors to carve the tombstones as a work of art showcasing all kinds of motifs and inscriptions. With the advent of Islam in Iran, it became customary for Muslims to place the name and seal of the deceased on their graves, and with the presence of Shia elements and the migration of Armenians to Iran during the Safavid period, the tombstones of Muslims and Armenians were decorated with various motifs (vegetal, geometric, animal, angelic, human, object) and different types of inscriptions. Due to the importance of burial as one of the most important human rituals, and with the growth and expansion of the urban fabric of Isfahan as one of the important centers of government, separate cemeteries were established in many areas of this city. Among them, the Takht-e-Foulad and the Jolfa Armenian cemetery in Isfahan, with their historical antiquity and artistic value, tell the story of the Muslim and Armenian views on the beliefs of life and death, the concept of resurrection and immortality in Christianity and Islam. One of the common decorations in these tombs is the occupation and social status of the deceased during their lifetime, which is manifested in the form of associated tools and instruments, or in the form of a human figure. The communication and interaction of Muslims and Armenians, the closeness of monotheistic religions and their common life experience in Isfahan caused many artistic commonalities over several centuries, which play an important role in recognizing culture, art and the worldview of the concept of life and death in a diverse society.
The present research is qualitative in terms of its purpose, and is done by descriptive-analytical method. Data collection was performed based on field research and library studies. Hundreds of tombstones were photographed by the authors within a few months from Jolfa Mausoleum and Takht-e-Foulad in Isfahan, and the scope of this research includes all Armenian tombs and Takht-e-Foulad in the several acres of these two mausoleums. An attempt was made to comprehensively evaluate and analyze the tomstones by considering different periods from Safavid to Pahlavi, with the diversity of samples of the statistical population. Based on the selective sampling of Takht-e-Foulad and Armenians, 50 tombstones were selected from each and a total of 100 tombstones were studied, which had the largest amount of information on human occupations and could be classified, and analyzed accoedingly. In this research, this question is answered: What is the relationship between human motifs and occupational instruments in the Armenian gravestones and Takhte-e-foulad tomstones, taking into account the basic principles of Islamic and Christian art?
The dominant discourse in Christian art insists on perceiving the supreme essence, which is the incarnation of the supreme imperceptible, that is, God, in a human form and the body of Christ, in contrast to which the discourse of Islam was formed on the basis of monotheism. In the text of religion (Qur'an), there is no document based on the opposition of imagery, and perhaps the presence of some hadiths and comments based on the prohibition of imagery in some religious sciences such as jurisprudence has caused this misinterpretation. The cjristian arts rely heavily on iconography, and the relationship between the believer and God in this religion is based on incarnation; while in Islam, it is  language either spoken or written that creates the connection. As a result, the absence of illustrations in Islam, unlike Christianity, is not because of prohibition, just as the absence of calligraphy and inscriptions in Christianity and its churches should not be interpreted as the opposition of that religion to the use of language;; a misconception that has wrongly introduced Islam as an iconoclastic religion. An important point to keep in mind is that the image in Islam, from the beginning of its appearance, basically did not find an iconic position and did not find a ritual function that would cause iconoclasm to happen like what happened in Christianity. In fact, Islamic art did not contain iconography, because the art forms in the society it originated from, did not contain iconography. One of the most important and fundamental teachings of Christianity is the Incarnation, according to which the Creator expresses and reveals Himself in the form of an incarnated human beingwith absolute likeness.
Narratives such as Jacob wrestling with God had a full presence in the Old Testament; and according to these narrations, at the beginning of the Gospel of John, the incarnation became one of the pillars of the Christian principles. In addition to the Jewish foundations, the presence of Roman civilization was also completely incarnational and among the influencial factors. Unlike Christianity, whose centrality is influenced by the character of the Prophet, Islam does not place the centrality on the Prophet, but on Allah, and the Prophet does not have a divine rank, and Allah is not incarnated, and lowers the meaning, not the form. The lack of a physical incarnation of the divine in the Mount Hira does not establish an absolute prohibitiopn of the image. The iconoclasm of Islamic art does not mean the negation of any facetization in the form of anti-facetism. Islam has no conflict with motifs and images as long as the images do not create illusions of his succession and idolatry. The abstract and allegorical language and expression of the motifs and symbols of Islamic tombstones, such as Takht-e-Foulad, is rooted in this principle and goes back to its sanctity, not to the prohibition of images. The small number of human images on the tombstones of Takht-e-Foulad Muslims, especially the absence of women's occupations (there are no cases of women's occupation), unlike what happens in the Jolfa cemetery with the abundance of images of women and men, not to the text of religion, which is related to the inference.
The religious object of Islam is speech and calligraphy, which is rightly manifested in the stone carvings of Muslim tombstones, with an obvious preference over human motifs. And as evident in Armenian tombs, according to Christian iconography, it is the cross or the Khachkar that has the highest rate of appearance, obviously implying the reverence of this Icon amongst Armenian Christians.
   The carved drawings of the gravestones of Takht-e-Foulad and the Armenians of Jolfa, reflect the fundamentals of art and worldview of the two religions, Islam and Christianity, and are indebted to either’s artistic heritage. The results show that the occupations in the tombs of Jolfa cemetery are mainly the images of men and women doing their work and profession in the form of "iconography", but in most of the tombs of Takht-e-Foulad, with the approach of "iconoclasm", only the tools and instruments of occupations are manifested. Among the religious minorities of Iran, Armenian Christians were considered successful merchants, artisans and artists, and were supported by kings in some eras and had better living conditions, which is well reflected in their tombstones. The Iranian and Armenian traditionalist artists act in harmony with their ethnic and religious codes and principles. More than anything else, the carvings of tombstones are based on religious beliefs and show Christian iconography, and Islamic iconoclasm and their attitude towards life and death and the afterlife. As a result, the carvings of occupations in the Armenian tombs of Jolfa are mostly in the form of motifs of women and men and the narrator of the deceased's profession, and in Takht-e-Foulad cemetery, the occupations are implied mainly in the form of pictograms of tools and implements of occupations, which express the personal characteristics and status of the deceased, individually or combined with other motifs (plants , animals, angels, geometry). Also, despite their fundamental religious differences, the motifs of the tombs of Takht-e-Foulad and Jolfa have many similarities in form and content, which show the interactions and influences of Muslims and Armenians on each other. It cannot be definitely said that Iranian and Islamic culture influenced Armenians more in the formation of these stones, or that they were the heritage of Armenian sculptors. What is significant, is the influence and similarities of religions and their ethnic and cultural characteristics, along with the fundamental differences in the foundations of Islamic and Christian art.