Hafiz and the Religion of Love in Classical Persian Poetry

ThePrinciplesoftheReligionof

LoveinClassicalPersianPoetry

HusaynIlahi-Ghomshei

translatedbyLeonardLewisohn

It’s a matter of creed for me: goblets of wine,

My love’s lips just like rubies, this is my doctrine

I won’t forsake. Puritans, I offer you apologies.

Ḥāfiẓ^1

TheGenealogyoftheReligionofLoveinPersianPoetry

From ancient times Persian literature has featured many references to the ‘Religion
of Love’ (dīn-i‘ishqormadhhab-i‘ishq), represented as being the only true faith, the
creed most acceptable in the eyes of God. In classical Persian poetry, the most
famous verses where this concept seems to have first been vocalized are by Rūdākī
Samarqandī (d. 329/940):

What use is it to serve one’s turn to face

The Mihrab in your prayers, when all your heart

Is set upon the idols of Taraz and of Bukhara?

What God accepts from you are love’s transports,

But prayers said by rote He won’t admit.^2

Rūdākī’s younger contemporary, the Sufi martyr Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj (d. 304/922),
when asked which religious creed he followed, in the same vein pronounced: ‘I fol-
low the religion of my Lord’ (Anā ‘alā madhhabī rabbī).^3 Ḥallāj’s bold claim was
embraced by many of the later Sufis, such as his follower ‘Ayn al-Quḍāt Hamadhānī
(executed 526/1132) who alluded directly to the ‘Religion of Love’ in this key pas-
sage in hisTamhīdāt:

The lovers follow the religion and the community of God. They do not follow

the religion and creed of Shāfi‘ī or Abū Ḥanīfa or anyone else. They follow the

Religion of Love and the Religion of God [madhhab-i‘ishqwamadhhab-ikhudā].