Ideal models and original patterns in Persian thought are based on numbers that play a significant role in the creation of universe. According to Persian mythology, the universe was not created at once but gradually and in different stages. The entire creation was made in six stages, each having its own specific time span. The sky was created in forty days, water in fifty-five, earth in seventy, plants in twenty-five, sheep in seventy-five, and the first human being in seventy." After the creation of the sky, twelve big stars and 6,480 smaller stars were created and constellations were placed in seven heavens.

      With the emergence of Islam and its beliefs, new changes appeared in relation to numbers. Though the new religion gave a different description of the universe, still many of the ideal numbers were kept and thus numbers like seven, twelve, and forty continued to be respected. In addition to the old numbers, however, other numbers gained significance. Leading such numbers was number One, the First, which explained the unity of existence. The First is the origin of all things; it is the birth, the beginning, the center, and the point. Even the Last is found through the First,“4 and without the First there would be no end. Eventually One became the most meaningful number and functioned as the first step of a ladder that would take men and women to heaven." Even dervishes, who considered 356 spiritual guides for each epoch (that figure corresponds with the number of days in a lunar year), divided this number by 300, 40, 7, 5, 3, and 1, giving One the most significant role of "Qotb-e Alam" (the center of universe). Thus they believed that in every period only one "Qotb," or the master of the universe, comes into being.

      The number four and the square also had great significance. According to the Prophet's description of heaven, an immense mother-of-pearl dome rests on a square with four corner pillars. Thus the four principles of life - the First (Awwal), the Last (Akkir), the Manifest (Zahir), and the Hidden (Batin) - corresponded to four corners of heaven." The number three and the triangle also had a specific interpretation. The triangle is the first form to enclose space. The triangle represents the action of the intellect on the soul, and thereby brings about the movement of the intellect in descending, horizontal, or ascending motion

       Equilibrium or balance was also reached through numbers, and the secret of the universe lay in the balance that existed between the seven layers of heaven and earth. In order to gain immortality, Bahramshah ordered his architect, Shideh, to build a palace with seven domes on earth, which would correspond to the seven domes of heaven.

      Numbers and repetitions of geometrical forms such as squares and triangles had significant meanings for the mystics and for their discipline and training. Unlike the arabesque, which plays with a surface, geometric forms fill it to completion. Form dwells in its geometry; the Sufi dwells in the stations of his spiritual progress.50 The spiritual states, as Divine gifts, come and go, playing with the feelings of the mystic's form, whereas stations fill it completely. It is only then that a further station can be reached." Every station has its own science and, like geometric forms, it has a beginning and an end, which relates to the laws of similitude and symmetry. In this, each one is expressive of a personality of the numbers to which it relates and to which it gives expression only in closed form. Just as geometry brings order and structure to the seeming chaos of nature, so too the spiritual stations act as organizing forms for the soul. If left only with spiritual states, without the possibility of the permanence amid change, the mystic would easily lose control.

        In contemporary Western art, geometry and geometrical forms have also had an important role. In the midst of the innovations of the modern schools, many artists based their work on geometric abstraction. A group of Dutch artists calling themselves De Stijl (from the name of the journal they founded in 1917) went so far as to say that nothing is more real than a line, a color, a surface. They would accept no painting containing any suggestion of an outside reference. Those who resisted were eventually compelled to resign.

        Numbers and repetitions of geometric forms, which are the basis of gabbeh design, force the viewer to ponder for a long time and to venture to find a key to the mystery of these forms. The key and the hidden secrets, however, have long been buried with the founders and weavers of gabbehs. It may never be known what was in the mind of the weaver when choosing forty houses in a checkered gabbeh, or three, four, or five lozenges in another rug, or three, five, or seven squares within each other in a concentric design. This impenetrable secret goes back to women whose silent mysticism was expressed in the woven gabbehs.