Hafiz and the Religion of Love in Classical Persian Poetry

Naught else but love’s my labour: that’s my logo;

So long as I’m alive, don’t offer me another motto.

All face towards love to supplicate in every

Temple under Heaven’s eye. The galaxy

Itself wouldn’t have an earth unless across

The surfaceEros’ water coursed to save its face.

Become a slave to love! All righteous thought consists

Of this, for that’s the task of the heart’s adepts.

The cosmosislove in sum and all the rest deceit;

SaveAmor’s play, all else’s an idle game and sport.^7

Niẓāmī, long before Newton, had posited that the entire scale of creation and Nature

was permeated by a reciprocally acting gravitational force that he named ‘Love’:

Attraction works on human temperament its lure

And that attraction sages predicate of love,

So when you ponder this in depth then you’ll perceive

ThatErosholds the cosmos up: all stands through love,

And if once Eros lose its grip on Heaven’s wheel

The great globe itself would forfeit its bloom and weal.^8

Niẓāmī continues to glorify love in the next verses and describes the fundamental

message of his poetic composition as a summons to Love:

Devoid ofEros, life appeared to me soulless.

I sold my heart and in its place a soul purchased.

I’ve filled the rims and cornices of the globe

WithAmor’s smoke. I’ve made the eyes of reason doze.^9

After Niẓāmī, the next great prophet of the Religion of Love in Persian poetry was
‘Aṭṭār of Nishapur (d. 618/1221 or 627/1229). Like the poets mentioned above, in
line with the Qur’ānic doctrine of love (V: 54), ‘Aṭṭār believed the only commend-
able and worthwhile connection between man and God to be a Lover–Beloved rela-
tionship. Like many other Muslim mystics before him, ‘Aṭṭār emphasized that the
superiority and pre-eminence of Adam over the other angels lay in Adam’s/man’s
love-passion and agony.^10 In fact, in ‘Aṭṭār spiritual teachings, the cure for all psy-
chological and spiritual ailments lies in the transformative suffering and passion of
love (dard).^11 That is why he asks for that passion to be increased:

Give me an ounce of pain, O you

Who cure all pain, for left without

Your pain, my soul will die.

To heretics let heresy apply,

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