Eight-Pointed Star Tile with a Gazelle

13th-14th century

In the medieval Iranian world, the deaths of Sufi shaykhs led to the building of tomb complexes; these became sites of veneration as well as spaces for prayer, teaching, and living. Star tiles with figural motifs are not unusual in popular religious complexes of Shi^ca Muslims. This tile, depicting a deer and framed by a border with a luster-painted inscription, would have formed one unit of a star-and-cross tile dado that may have embellished such a Sufi shrine. It includes texts from two poets, the first, unidentified, and the second apparently by the twelfth-century mystic Awhad al-Din Kirmani. The pairing of mystical inscriptions with luster created a shimmering effect that must have greatly enhanced the mystical and sensory experience of the Sufi pilgrim.