Panel Discussion | ‘The Garden of Mystery’ by Shabistari and the Influence of Sufism in Contemporary Visual Arts 2023

About This Festival

Introduced by Mariam Neza, Programme Manager and Curator of Arts and Learning, Asia House

Panellists: Dr Ladan Akbarnia, Curator, Islamic Collections, British Museum Dr Sussan Babaie, Andrew W. Mellon Reader in the Arts of Iran and Islam, The Courtauld Institute of Art Dr Leonard Lewisohn, Senior Lecturer, Iran Heritage Foundation Fellow in Sufi Literature, Exeter University and Dr Taha Afshar, exhibiting artist.

The Garden of Mystery exhibition opens at Asia House on Tuesday 21 November in celebration of the 700th anniversary of Gulshan-i Raz, one of the greatest works of Persian (Sufi) poetry, written in the early 14th century by Mahmoud Shabistari. The group of paintings relate to the tenets and ideas referred to throughout the poem.Taha Afshar, Monir Farmanfarmaian and Y.Z Kami through their works of art invite us to contemplate spiritual ideas of unity, love, and our relationship with our heart, as Shabistari has done through his seminal work.

Gulshan-i Raz (Persian: گلشن راز‎‎, “Rose Garden of Mystery”) holds a unique position in Persian Sufi literature. Written in c. 1317 by Mahmoud Shabistari (d. c. 1339), less than one hundred years after the deaths of Attar, Ibn ali-‘Arabi and Rumi, it take the form of answers and questions put to him by a fellow mystic. The questions raise metaphysical enigmas and controversies that were at the heart of spiritual enquiry of that time and still have relevance today.

It is now considered to be one of the greatest classical Persian works of the Islamic mystical or spiritual tradition known since the early 9th century in the West as Sufism. From the opening verse, the poet delves straight into recurring themes of the poetry: the heart, soul, contemplation and illumination.



به نام آنکه جان را فکرت آموخت

چراغ دل به نور جان برافروخت



In the name of Him who taught the soul to think,

And kindled the heart’s lamp with the light of soul.



The spiritual themes presented in his poetry mirror ideas explored by not only poets such as Maulana Rumi, Jami, and Mansur al Hallaj, and preachers, but also Persian and Western Renaissance artists architects and calligraphist. Different elements of Sufi tradition and culture also impacted on the Romantics, several Modernists and a selection of post-war and contemporary artists such as the mystical portraiture of Maïmouna Guerresi, and the paintings and sculptures of London based Shirazeh Houshiary whose work has consistently drawn on Sufism, fo