Ancient history as Straight Dope columns go, I know, but in the interest of stuff that’s wrong on the net just eye-bleedingly wrong not standing without mention, I had to say something.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/633/whats-the-origin-of-the-paisley-design
Cashews are a new world fruit tree whose kernal is used as a nut. Paisley designs predate that by a whole lot, depending on what you want to call a paisley, ranging from Asia Minor to South Asia and even Southeast Asia.
Boteh (Botteh, Paisley). Aryan Silk & Trade
for example.
Or even, clicky-clicky the various footnotes cited at:
Looks like Cecil single sourced this from a jerk who thinks everything is sexual (which it might be) and about nuts (which it might be) and likes cashews. Which are not the best nuts (damned poisonous to a great many people), or from that part of the world at that time.
Sorry…
Paisley as we know it, mostly, is derived from the India trade fabrics, where it was known as a mango design in southern parts of South Asia.
I rather like the notion from the Tigris/Euphrates area that it originated from cut figs, though. That’s just a personal bias. It looks much more like a cut fig than a cut mango to me.
But, um. No, no cashews. Sorry.