Hafiz and the Religion of Love in Classical Persian Poetry

proceeding without God’s grace and mercy on the spiritual path, and berated for
following‘therudeworkingsofyourfancies’.FormalistandHypocrisy,whocannot
graspthatbyobedienceto‘lawsandordinancesyouwillnotbesaved’,finallyarrive
atthefootofMtDifficulty.Butinsteadoftakingthenarrowwaythatlayupthathill
–‘thesteepandhighpath’thatleadstoMtSion–theytookbywaystotheleftand
right of the hill, ways that culminated in Danger and Destruction, where both per-
ished.^14 Alluding to the Ascetic–Puritan’s benighted understanding of the realm of
theSpirit,inthefollowingverseḤāfiẓdeliversasortofPersianSufiesquerepriseto
Christian’sreproachtoFormalistandHypocrisy:

Ifthezealouspuritanneverfoundtheway

TopenetrateintoRomance’suniverse,it’swell–

He’sforgiven–sinceLove’sabusinessthathinges

Oninculcationandtutelage.^15

Exactly like those two other stock characters in Ḥāfiẓ’s repertoire, the Counsellor

and the Shaykh,^16 thezāhid, while extroverted in his formalist rites of piety, is full

of censorious zeal, dogmatically railing at and cursing his fellow Muslims because

they differ from him in ceremonies and phrases. Ḥāfiẓ pours scorn and ridicule on

bothoftheseformalistfigures:

Thecounsellorspokecontemptuouslytome;

Hesaid:‘Wineisforbidden,period.’‘Iagree

Withyou,’Isaid.‘AlsoIdon’tlistentoeveryjackass.’

Theangryshaykhsaid,‘Go,don’tstayhere.

Andgiveuplove.’‘There’snoneed,brother

Forafighthere;Isimplywon’tdothat.’^17

To mock the ascetic, Ḥāfiẓ backhandedly compliments him as being a ‘reasonable’

maninoneverse,^18 butonemustrememberthatinthepoet’sreligion,obedienceto

‘lunatics’constitutesthesolesignofreligiousfaith:

Abovehomageandobeisancetolunatics

Donotseekformorefromus,foroursect’smaster

Professedallintellectualismtobewickedness.^19

By way of poetic allusion (talmīḥ), the ‘master’ of Ḥāfiẓ’s ‘sect’, who thought intel-

lectualism was wickedness and sin, here refers historically to Luqmān Sarkhasī,

oneofthegreatestwisefoolsinthehistoryofPersianSufismandthemasterofthe

ascetic–libertine Sufi sage Abū Sa‘īd ibn Abī’l-Khayr (357/967–440/1048).^20 Since in

Ḥāfiẓ’sfaith,‘madlovealonecomprisesthewaytounionwiththeBeloved,travers-

ingthePathbymeansofreasonisnecessarilysinful’.^21 Thepuritanasceticis,onthe

ḤāfiẓandthePersianSufiTradition 161