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otherhand,asophomoricfool,thearchetypalidiotwhobelieveshimselfwise,whose

characterisagaindepictedbyanotherofShakespeare’spuritans:thesanctimonious

steward Malvolio inTwelfthNight, described as ‘a pedant that keeps a school i’th’

church’.^22 All such pretension is despised in Ḥāfiẓ’s creed of love, whence the poet

advises:

Don’tkissanythingexceptthesweetheart’slip

Andthecupofwine,Ḥāfiẓ;friends,it’sagravemistake

TokissthehandheldouttoyoubyaPuritan.^23

Alluding to some of the central doctrines of his theology of love, he contrasts his
own passionateengagementin the Faith of Love (madhhab-i‘ishq) to the desiccated
Muslimpietyof‘thereasonableascetic’(zāhid-i‘āqil):

Thehotbrandwhichwehavepressedonto

Ourlunaticheartsissointenseitwouldsetfire

Tothestrawpilesofahundredreasonableascetics.^24

Here,hehasinmindatypeofreligiouspedant,whosepedantryconsistsnotmerely

inanarrow-mindedinterpretationofIslamicjurisprudence,butinintolerancefor,

and ignorance of, the higher religion ofEros.^25 This verse expresses the classic dis-

tinction in Sufi religious phenomenology between love and reason ‘the contrast’,

as Annemarie Schimmel points out, ‘betweennomos-oriented religion anderos-

orientedreligion.Ontheonehand,wefindareligionwhichisboundbythelawand

where the law, thesharī‘a –and ... the‘aql, intellect–leads human beings on a

strictlyprescribedwayinwhichsalvationisguaranteed,God-willingofcourse;and,

ontheotherhand,theSufiwayoffeeling,ofexperiencingtheimmediatepresence

ofGodalreadyhereandnow.’^26 Ḥāfiẓianaestheticsdictatesthesacralityofhuman

love and beauty. In his religion of love all mortal beauty reflects and exemplifies

divine loveliness, since only in the mirror of the former can the latter be contem-

plated.Butthelovelessascetic,whodoesn’tunderstandhowandwhyitisthatthe

wine of divine beauty must be served up in the cup of human love and loveliness,

alwaysrejectslove’screed,andsoonlyevokesḤāfiẓ’sderision:

Ohascetics,goaway.Stoparguingwiththose

Whodrinkthebitterstuff,becauseitwasprecisely

Thisgiftthedivineonesgaveusinpre-Eternity.^27

Fault-findingandtheAscetic’sBlinkeredReligiousZeal

InḤāfiẓ’slexicontheascetic(zāhid)isalsosynonymouswithakindofundeveloped

or degenerate religious piety.^28 A puritan with a rigidly literal exoteric religious

ḤāfiẓandtheReligionofLoveinClassicalPersianPoetry