Hafiz and the Religion of Love in Classical Persian Poetry

withtheformula,‘TheWrittenDecreecannotbeerased’,butconcludeswith,‘For

divinebusinessisnolightmatter’.

The Sufi concept of predestination in no way militates against the idea of

achievementoftheultimateblissofbeingwithGodintheEmpyreanbeyondthe

malignant influence of the planets. But the whole question of predestination in

Islamhasbeenthesubjectofmuchdebateanddiscourse,as–whenweremember

Jansen, Calvin or, for that matter, James Hogg, the ‘Ettrick Shepherd’, he of the

Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner,tosaynothingofStAugustine–

hasChristianity.Mycontentionisthat,sofarasSufipoetryisconcerned,thereisno

needforusfurthertoflounderinambiguityorargument.

AsfortheuniversalityofḤāfiẓ’sappealforoversixcenturies,itshouldbenoted

thathisdictionis,infact,ordinarycolloquialPersian,withwordsandphrasesthat

can be translated into such colloquialisms as the English ‘sure’ and ‘OK’;^15 but in

ḤāfiẓitiscolloquialPersianraisedtothelevelofhighliterarydiction.Yet,howfar

hisusageconsistsofordinaryconversationalPersian,ascommontodayasitever

was,mustnotbeforgotten.ThePersianlanguagehaschangedlesssincethedeath

of the poet Rūdakī in 940–1 AD than has English since that of Chaucer in 1400;

Chaucer,ofcourse,wasḤāfiẓ’scontemporary.

Asforsectarianism,thedivisionswhichcanruincivilizations,Ḥāfiẓliftshisverses

aboveanysuchconflictingpositions.WhetherornothewasaSufihasbeenmuch

discussed.Hisrefusaltobeidentifiedwithanyparticularsect,onemightevensay

religion,isnotatallalientogenuineSufism.ItisprobablethathewasaSufi,butof

aspecialkind;ofhiscontemptforfalseSufishisversesbearampletestimony.Some

yearsagoitwasinterestinglysuggestedbythelate‛Alī‛AṣghārḤikmatthatḤāfiẓ

wasinfactanUwaysīSufi.AnUwaysīSufiacknowledgesnolivingPīroreasilyrec-

ognizable ancestral guide, those guides to whose guidance exponents of Sufism

attachsuchverygreatimportance.Hefollowsaspiritualguideofamoreethereal

kind.InthecaseoftheUwaysī,thisguidewasUwaysal-Qaranī,hewhoinlegendis

saidtohaveinspiredtheProphetMuḥammad.HenceḤāfiẓ’sreferencestothesacred

breaththatemanatesfromtheYemen;thatistosay,fromtheregionwhereUways

al-Qaranīissupposedtohavelived.Inthiscontext,andinthatofḤāfiẓ’sbeingabove

sectariandivisions–orforthatmatteranydivisionsatall,^16 includingsocialandsex-

ual–itistobenotedthatthePīr(notnecessarilyapersonalPīr)ofwhomhefre-

quentlyspeaksisthePīr-iMughān,theMagianElder;thatistosay,aGuideoutside

theMuslimfold,andwhofiguresdramaticallyinthefive-baitMasnavīcitedabove:^17

AndiftheMagianElderweretospreadafire,

Idon’tknowwhoselampwouldbekindled.

withitsobviousMagianorZoroastrianassociations.InDrKhānlarī’sversionthere

is no reference to the ‘Magian Elder’, while in a manuscript dated 846/1442–3, a

copyofwhichisintheauthor’spossession,theversedoesnotoccuratall.Khānlarī

hasforhisverse4:

Foreword:ḤāfiẓofShīrāz xiii

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