These beautiful tiles adorn one of the Safavid era Iwans found in the Old Courtyard (Sahni Atiq) of the Imam Reza Shrine.

Although these tiles are beautiful, there is a unfortunate bitter side to them. If you observe closely you will notice two dates on these tiles, one is 1059 Hejri Qamari (1649 AD) and the other is 1405 Hejri Qamari (1985 AD). Why are there two dates more than 300 years apart on one calligraphic inscription? The reason is the original Safavid mosaics of this iwan and many other parts of the shrine were needlessly and most unfortunately destroyed and replaced in the 1970’s and 80’s with new tiles bearing the same designs and calligraphic texts.

The new tiles are beautiful, but the original tiles were both beautiful and historic artifacts.