Hafiz and the Religion of Love in Classical Persian Poetry

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Don’tkissanythingexceptthesweetheart’slip

Andthecupofwine,Ḥāfiẓ;friends,it’sagravemistake

TokissthehandheldouttoyoubyaPuritan.^120

Even if drinking does itself constitute a fault of character, what real harm does it
wreak?Inanycase,who’sreallyfaultless?ThepoetchallengesthePharisee:

SowhatifnowandthenIdrinkacuportwoofwine?

Frombloodofgrapesthewinecomes–notfromyourveins!

Whatkindof‘vice’isthisfromwhichthese‘faultsandflaws’arise?

Andifwinehasitsflaws,well,tellme,where’sonefaultlessman?^121

Elsewhere, elaborating the metaphor of the incendiary nature of nomocentric
Muslim religiosity when stripped ofEros, he describes the Muslim pharisees and
ascetics as letting the wildfire of their passions spread among their congregations,
while allowing religious raptures degenerate into unrighteous rage, by their zeal
thusdestroyingtheveryfoundationoffaith:

Thefireofasceticrenunciationandhypocrisy

Willeventuallyconsumetheharvestofreligion.

Ḥāfiẓ,throwoffyourSufirobeandgoonyourway.^122

As we have seen, Ḥāfiẓ is quite vocal about the spiritual shortcomings of the
fundamentalistzāhids.Heassailstheemptyformalismoftheirfaithinnearlyevery
ghazal, fulminating against their preoccupation with their neighbour’s faults and
refusaltoacknowledgetheirown,satirizingtheirhalf-bakedreligiouszealinsensi-
tive to erotic spirituality, upbraiding their hypocrisy and sanctimony, conceit and
egotism.
Inwhatfollows,IwillexploreanotheraspectofḤāfiẓ’scounter-ethic:hispositive
theology of sin, which constitutes the poet’s wicked, anti-clerical riposte to the
puritan’sreligiosepietism.

‘SomeRisebySinandSomebyVirtueFall’:

Ḥāfiẓ’sPositiveTheologyofSin

The literary and spiritual doctrines that sustain the poet’s positive theology of sin
canbetracedbacktothediverseIslamicspiritualtraditions.^123 Toshowthis,letus
first revisit the verse cited several pages back which introduced the sybarite rake
assoundoffaith,thoughleadinganunconventionallifeconstruedtobe‘sinful’by
narrow-mindedpuritans:

ḤāfiẓandtheReligionofLoveinClassicalPersianPoetry