Hafiz and the Religion of Love in Classical Persian Poetry

There is no room in me forculpamea,

for penance, penitence or penalty!

All sacraments of penance such as this

I scorn. Who’d ever spurn eternal bliss?!

ForErosis a mighty force: I’m trounced

by his imperious might; I’m crushed;

InEros’ bitter, vinegary furor

I’m sweet and luscious – savoury as sugar.’

... To be a lover, yet act with patience,

sangfroidto hold to vows of penitence,

This is, great soul though you indeed may be,

a senseless, comical absurdity:

For patience’s but a snail,Erosis a dragon;

the latter all divine, the former only human.^68

Here we see Love considered to be a ‘sacred sin’ that is paradoxically the source of
all piety and religious belief. According to this erotic creed, the quintessence of
Islam lies in committing the ‘divine crime’ of love, and to repent of love is sin and
heresy. A good flavour of these wildly passionate sentiments that permeate all clas-
sical Persian poetry in general, and underpin Sufi erotics in particular, can be found
in these three verses by, respectively, Rūmī, Sa‛dī and Ḥāfiẓ:

Alas, what sin or crime is this, of which

Repentance of its but vile wickedness?

Behind, I’d dodge but cannot flee away;

Before, I’d come yet there’s no place to stay.^69

Go tell all men, go let the folk

Be told that I’m a lover and a drunk.

This name and fame, I boast of it,

I’m proud to say all vows I’ve broke...^70

The bedrock of our famous repentance seemed

To be tough as granite. Look, the delicate

Glass cup has split the repentance at the first blow.^71

The most famous illustration of this critical attitude towards the ascetic ideals of
‘repentance’ in classical Persian poetry is found in ‘Aṭṭār’s story of the pious Sufi
master Shaykh Ṣan’ān, mentioned above. Following the promptings of a dream,
Ṣan’ān travelled with a large band of disciples from Mecca to Byzantium. There,
seeing an unveiled Christian girl in a window, he was smitten by love. She disdained
him at first, forcing him to spend sleepless nights on her doorstep. Eventually,
however, she relented and accepted him as her lover, but to test the sincerity of his

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