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who have ‘passed beyond existence’ into a realm where the limitations of the
illusory Selfhood, with its ‘me’ and ‘thee’, are abolished. Such ‘libertines’ are not
lowlife substance abusers giggling time away on hashish, nor common dope addicts
huddling among the dregs of society, but transcendentalists who have not
only transcended themselves, but have dismissed the Angel of Death from their
dominion.^65
In exactly the same manner as Rūmī, Ḥāfiẓ (supposedly a hedonist and founding
father of libertine teachings in Persian poetry) also clarifies that he eschews self-
indulgent antinomianism (mubāḥāt) in one important verse:
Heart-friend, I guide you well along Salvation’s way:
Neither by sin vaunt iniquity nor hawk austerity.^66TheSinofRepentanceintheReligionofLove
Although Repentance (tawba) is normally listed as the first stage of the Sufi path, in
the religion of love, repentance came to be considered a reprehensible vice and
terrible sin. In aghazalwhose rhyme phrase is ‘I have repented’ (tawbakardam),
Rūmī thus quips:
In the sacrament of penitence’s sin
and in the exercise of penance’s crime,
Neck-deep I lay, but now of all that sin
I make amends: my penance was the crime.^67In hisMathnawī, Rūmī describes how the black slave Bilāl, one of the earliest con-
verts to Islam, was tortured by his Jewish owners for his new faith. The Prophet’s
wealthy companion, Abū Bakr (who eventually emancipated Bilāl), advised him to
conceal his beliefs from his cruel overlord. Bilāl, however, was unable to dissimulate
and hide his fervour for God, despite being stretched out in the hot Arabian desert
sun and beaten with clubs capped with thorns until he bled. In the following verses,
we hear Abū Bakr advise Bilāl to ‘repent’ of his indiscretion, and how Bilāl rejects
repentance:
Again, he said, ‘Repent!’ Again, at once
he did, butEroswhisked away repentance.
Repentance of this ilk he carried on,
till penance caused him detestation.
He spoke his faith out loud, his flesh gave up
to Fortune’s frowns, adversity, hardship.
‘My penitential vows, Oh Prophet, you
oppose, yet every vein is full of you!ḤāfiẓandtheReligionofLoveinClassicalPersianPoetry