Decorations are an integral part of Islamic art. Islamic art is formed based on decorations to accurately represent nature. Decorations in Islamic art have emerged as three main elements including: Islamic pattern, geometric pattern and calligraphy (inscription) and two secondary elements: animal motifs and human motifs. These motifs may be engraved separately or in combination with each other. Among these decorative elements, the role of Slimi has a special place. In fact, this role is considered one of the noblest and most original creative elements of Islamic art in Iran and the Islamic world. This role is used not only to decorate religious places and objects, but also to decorate everyday items. The role of Islimi as a fundamental role has a special place in the history of decorative arts of the world.
Due to the fact that the Islamic pattern is the most important pattern used for decorations by artists, but compared to other decorative elements such as khatnagareh (inscription) and garh (geometric patterns), it has been less researched and analyzed. The oldest document that is currently available that uses the word 'Islimi' belongs to "Zaradeh" which was prepared by the librarian of Sultan Baysanghar Mirza (802-837 AH) during the Timurid period. This "offered" is actually a working report on the state of the royal library, it is currently kept in the library of Topkapi Museum in Istanbul (Khazaei, 1398, 125). Sadeghi Beyk Afshar, an artist and writer of the Safavid era, who was once the librarian of Shah Abbas, in his book "Qanun al-Sour" which he wrote around the end of the 10th century of Hijri, considers Islimi as one of the seven main painting. Qazi Mir Syed Ahmad Manshi Qomi in his book Golestan Art describes the decorative elements of painting and gilding as seven principles, the first of which is "Islamic" (Manshi Qomi, 132, 1366). In the preface of Dost Muhammad, Bahram Mirza considers Motif As-Islimi to be the invention of Imam Ali (A.S.) (Khazaei, 1398, 119).
Although Europe's attention to Islamic art has its roots in the Renaissance and the Middle Ages, in the 19th and 20th centuries, this category received more attention and many articles were written about geometric decoration in Islamic architecture. In these studies, the term "Arabesque" is used to express Muslim decorations and they consider it the gem of the unity of Islamic visual culture (Necipoglu, 1995, 87). Several different definitions for arabesque have been expressed in such a way that most consider it equivalent to all decorative elements such as calligraphy, plant motifs, geometric motifs and even iconography. Some people have mentioned it only for plant motifs. In Islamic art, the Islamic motif is a single form of a plant ornament, in which the rhythmic leaves are attached to wavy or spiral stems and along each other, they induce repetition and the desire to move.
It seems that the special place of Iranian art in the origin and evolution of motifs has not been evaluated in choosing the word Arabesque. This issue could be due to the fact that this term was chosen by orientalists, who focused more on the cultural elements of the western Islamic world, including Morocco, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain, than on Iran and the eastern lands.
Although many studies have been conducted by orientalists in the field of Islamic decorative arts, the first person to seriously investigate the Islamic pattern under the title "Arabesque" was Alois Riegel (1858-1905), an Austrian art scholar in the book The quality of style was published in Berlin in 1893 (Riegl, 1992). The subject of arabesque was followed later by the articles of researcher Dimand (Dimand, 1937 & 1952). Studies about Islimi in the entries of the two editions of the Encyclopedia of Islam by Ernst Herzfeld (1938) and Ernst Kühnel (1960) and some recent publications such as Necipoglu (Necipoglu, 1995) and Khazaie (1999) continued. has been found.
It should be noted that the role of Islam did not suddenly appear at the time of the emergence of Islam, but the origin of this role was rooted in pre-Islamic art. In the same way that the artists of the first centuries of Islam based their innovations on the foundation of pre-Islamic art. The origin and continuation of the artistic development of this role before Islam has been widely described and expressed by Orientalists, and most of them refer its origin to Greco-Roman (ancient classical) art. Alois Riegl refers the origin of the salami motif to a plant that has its roots in ancient (Greece) palm and ivy decorations (Riegl, 267, 1992). Ernst Herzfeld claims that its origin is certainly derived from classical foliage decorations (Herzfeld, 363, 1938). Ernst Kühnel traces the origins of the Islimi motif to the Late Classical period, noting that it acquired its typical form in the 3rd century AH under Abbasid rule (749-1258 AD) and was fully developed in the 5th century (Kühnel , 561, 1960). Arthur Pope suggests that the Iranian Slimi pattern does not represent any real object in nature at all, but is taken from the beautiful Greek architectural ornament, Anthemion (Palmetto) (Pope, 39, 1356).
Islimi Motif was born from the idea of Bali-shaped motifs before Islam - Sassanid. In the Islamic era, the role of the wing is simplified to such an extent that it often lost its identity and became an abstract form that we know today as Islami. In the following, he describes and explains the different stages of the role of Balishaq until reaching the role of Slimi.
It seems that the use of these Bali-shaped motifs was not only decorative, but had religious significance. It was said that this spiritual connection with the "divine wisdom of ancient Iran" is fully evident in Iranian art before Islam (Sehrvardi, 2018, 1377). This connection caused the Sasanian wing pattern to be present among the decorations of the Islamic forehead long after the fall of the empire. Patterns with two symmetrical wings or palm wings are one of the most original and honorable forms among pre-Islamic patterns. The most obvious one is the role of an angel, which is achieved by adding two wings to the body of an earthly human. This angel has holiness and is considered a symbol of the extraterrestrial world. The role of Fereshte is one of the services of Iranian artists in the history of ancient art, which was given to the world of art. The role of the angel without changing its form and even its meaning continues to make its way from ancient art to Islamic art.