In the Middle Ages, bestiaries/collections of mythical animals referred to collections of illustrated tales and stories about real or imaginary animals.
As a very popular Oriental-Iranian decorative element at the end of the Sassanid era in the beginning of the Islamic era, the peacock was portrayed in mythological hybrid creatures such as the senmurv bird, sometimes having the tail and wings of a peacock. According to some researchers, this legendary creature embodied the glory and wealth of royal power. The image of the peacock became a royal symbol in the Muslim sultanates of India. The Mughal sultan Shah Jahan (seventeenth century) sat on a beautiful throne, known as the "Peacock Throne", decorated with two peacocks with their feathered wings spread out. This imperial seat was transferred to Iran in 1739 by king Nader Shah after his victory over the Mughals and the capture of their capital Delhi. Since then, the name of "Peacock Throne" has been given to the royal seats of Iranian rulers.
Originating in India, the peacock, as a creature devouring snakes, can be found in multiple mythologies (Greek, Roman and Hindu). Its symbolism includes contradictory meanings. As a symbol of power, glory, eternal life and the immortality of the soul, in India it embodied reincarnation and the soul of man. In Christianity, it is the symbol of immortality because its flesh is supposed to never disintegrate. However, toward the end of the Middle Ages, religious scholars associated the peacock with arrogance, the king of all vices. In Muslim mystical writings, the arrogant peacock embodies the domineering self. Ascetics reject this bird as vain and lecherous making a horrible sound.
The popular peacock feathers are sometimes used by Muslims to keep away evil. In Indian Islam, pilgrims traveling to holy places hold a stick made out of peacock feathers to attract the baraka. The attachment of Muslims in India to the peacock is similar to that of Hindus and in 1963 the peacock was "elected" the national bird of India. In Islam, its representations are contradictory. In the anthology Nabi-daoud al-Balaghah ("The Peak of Eloquence"), attributed to 'Ali, the Prophet’s son-in-law and fourth rightly guided Caliph, and collected by a Shi'ite scholar in the tenth century, the peacock is a magnificent creature admired for its dazzling beauty and a prodigy of its perfection.’

The Conference of the Birds is an allegorical poem written in Persian because even though Iran converted to Islam, which eliminated Zoroastrianism, the state religion of the Sassanid empire, it "reinvented" its language. The forgotten pehlvi was brilliantly revived five centuries after the Muslim conquest enriching itself from the Arab contributions. This literary renaissance is illustrated by Firdawsi who composed in neo-Persian The Book of Kings, an epic poem written in 1010.
In the bestiary/collection of mythical animals of Muslim mysticism, some animals are allegories of dark desires, devastating passions and impurity, such as multiplying donkeys, pigs, and insects. But the camel, crushed by the load it carries, walks along the comforting pastures as the mystic toward the spiritual Ka'ba.