Journal of Researches in Islamic Architecture

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Immovable inscriptions are considered as one of the most important works and among the historical documents in cultural assets of our dear country, which were installed on selected parts of historical buildings and outstanding monuments and were always noticeable. The role of inscriptions as the basic and effective tools is important in terms of manifesting and implication of educational and educative also the identity, construction date, founder, names of masters and artists of the building, especially its architect, and other information that may change based on the importance and situation of the building. The inscriptions show an integration of other arts, the most important of which is calligraphy and we can find its importance in the verses descended to our prophet (Muhammad, peace be upon him) -the first in Alagh Chapter the first chapter descended to prophet- that reminds the human that from whom has he learned writing and the second in Ghalam Chapter, swear to pen and what it writes. In this study, we intend to have a research about immovable inscription documents of Tabriz Historic Bazaar Complex using descriptive- analytical method documented by field studies and have a review on importance and characteristics of script and calligraphy in bringing inscription art to its highest peak and decipher the contents hidden in them. Here, Tabriz Historic Bazaar with the area of more than 27 hectares and more than 160 architectural elements is the greatest national registered work and the largest brick conjunct roofed historical complex of the world (registered in World Heritage List of UNESCO as “Tabriz Historic Bazaar Complex” in 2010). Tabriz Bazaar as a complete urban block (with different commercial, religious, cultural, educational, health, sport and residential complexes) is a unique sample of urban development elements of Islamic era. As most of famous historians and tourists have described it and told. Marco Polo reports on variation of goods and commodities made in Tabriz in the second half of Hijri century (1271) and mentions the great hidden wealth in Tabriz Bazaar and continues the residents of Tabriz made their living through trading and providing of different commodities. Beside the historical documents we witness the stone, plaster and tile inscriptive documents in different parts of Tabriz Historic Bazaar Complex that prove the identity and authenticity and existence of the complex with their different contents. These inscriptive documents have an important role in saving of information and communication of thoughts, ideas and human civilization from previous generations to the present generation. So, the described importance of deciphering of inscription documents’ contents as immovable documents in Tabriz Historic Bazaar resulted in making a research on them in order to analyze their contents and concepts beside documentation of their shapes. On the whole, the thing that expresses the contents and concepts of an inscriptive document is detected through an intermediate art called “script”, which is in fact an art or tool to register and write the mentalities and thoughts using the signs that are familiar to eyes. In fact, from the moment that human attempted to draw what he thinks, he took steps to the world of script and writing, from the paintings on the walls of caves up to Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic lines and its evolution during the history until invention of script and calligraphy and transferring it on inscription documents. The scripts used on Iranian inscription documents are divided into two categories: script in pre-Islamic era and script after accepting Islam by Iranians. The inscript documents studies here are relevant to the second type of script (script after accepting Islam). This study deals with deciphering of the shape and contents of inscript documents and their concepts and a description of the building, place of installation of inscript documents and deciphering of their contents are hinted in this study and the results obtained from analysis are mentioned. The present research is a field study and deciphering of forms are conducted using “Charmebardari” -a technique for primary sampling of designs and scripts of inscriptive documents and architectural decorations- at the end using computer software. At the end the results obtained from interpreted concepts of inscriptive documents’ deciphering contained very important and valuable information about the society at the time of creating that inscription document which can be categorized in two groups: the first group encompasses the spiritual concepts and the second group encompasses the applied concepts and each group is divided into subgroups and components (diagram1). Drawing the analytical diagram of the mentioned concepts we can clearly understand the existence of precise principles and order, which are intelligently applied in management of cities during Islamic era and have shown the society a transcendental way with wisely integration (in spiritual and applied concepts) of world and other worldly issues in order for accomplishment of those objectives taking advantages of the primary and basic principles of Islam. Here, the religious architecture, as a whole, and inscriptive documents, as a part of it, have been able to be a manifestation of God in the space of Islamic architecture with their dual application both in their own nature and with words contained in them.

Keywords: Immovable Inscriptive Documents, Script &amp, Calligraphy, Deciphering the Contents of Inscriptions, Tabriz Historic Bazaar.

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