A study of the symbolic motif “div” or Demon in Sani al-Mulk’s illustrations of the book “One Thousand and One Nights” manuscript of Golestan Palace Library

Legends have been included and decorated with various images, since long ago. These images have both decorative and narrative aspects. Understanding the components and their relationships in images to reach structure is one of the ways to reach meaning. Repetition of symbolic elements from very distant times to late times, first of all, requires an explanation of how it was formed and the meaning it has included. The iconography method in the interpretation of works of art tries to show the connection between the image and the text after the detailed description of the image with a comparative method and to analyze the meaning of these images by revealing the repeated structural pattern in different cultures.

"Demons" are beings with surreal characteristics, whose unique characteristics and powers have made them special in Iranian (Persian) legends and literary works, paintings, and illustrations. Their abilities and thier powers such as: flying, turning into a human and a bird, the ability to change shape, etc. The book "One Thousand and One Nights" by Abdul Latif Tasuji or "Thousand Tales" is originally one of the old Pahlavi texts, which was translated into Arabic after Islam and by adding legends to it, it became known as "Alf Laila and Laila" or “Arabian Nights”. This book is illustrated by Abul Hasan Ghafari who is often known as Sani al-Mulk. Indeed, He supervised the illustration of a famous "One Thousand and One Nights" manuscript, which can be viewed today in Tehran in the Golestan Palace Library. Common to all the editions of the Nights is the framing device of the story of the ruler Shahryar being narrated the tales by his wife Scheherazade, with one tale told over each night of storytelling. This book includes various symbolic features in the context of legendary narratives both in the narrative and in the illustrations presented.

The following research, using the iconography method in descriptive-analytical research, investigates the visual and surreal characteristics of the “Div” -demons- in the legends of One Thousand and One Nights and the degree of fidelity of the illustrator of the book (Sani al-Mulk) to the text. In this regard, after identifying the visual and surreal characteristics of demons in pictorial and fictional examples, we will compare and classify them; Then we try to investigate the expressive relationship between the supernatural characteristics of ”Div”-demons- and the behavioral characteristics of demons in the framework of the theoretical foundations of the research. Also, we intend to evaluate (positive and negative) legendary creatures like demons based on their symbolic identification by referring to visual and verbal evidence. The results of this research show that demons, giants, monsters, goblins, and fairies are all considered to be from the same family, and their positions change according to different situations. The appearance of these creatures does not have the same characteristics in any narrative; These legendary creatures have the ability to change their faces, and the interesting thing is that none of the available evidence indicates the completely negative characteristics of these creatures.