Hafiz and the Religion of Love in Classical Persian Poetry

186

nosincanresistbeingconsumedbytheexistenceofgnosis:infact,themore

firewood [i.e. sin] there is, the higher, hotter and brighter becomes the fire.

NowIwouldhavetowriteanentirebookinordertoexpoundthistopicfully,

but this much is enough for one who is intelligent, wise and spiritually

informed.

God Almighty has created the gnostic [‘ārif] for the sake of sinning [gunāh

kardan], as the Tradition (that expresses this idea best) states ‘If you did not

sin, God would have to create another company of sinners to sin, that He

might forgive them.’^167 In another tradition it is related that one of the

prophetsoftheearlytribesofIsraelentreatedGod:‘OGod,thispeopleofmine

sin excessively. Rectify them!’ God sent him this revelation: ‘If they did not

sin, I would have to create another community to sin, so that I could show

themmercy.TheseseasofMercyareallforthesakeofsinners.Ihavecreated

thesinners,anddidtheynotexist,sinwouldnotexist,soallwouldbeinvain.’

Therefore, the sin of the gnostic believer [mu’min-i‘ārif] can be likened to

firewoodandgnosiscomparedtofire.Aslongasfireisthere,whatdangercan

firewood present? For when the fire is lit, the firewood is made naught.

How should fire burn fire? The fire requires wood to give off light,

needingitasfuel,sothatpeoplemayderivebenefitfromit.Whetherthereis

a whole bushel of firewood or a hundred or a hundred thousand bushels, it

mattersnot:thequalityoffireisthesame–althoughthemorefirewoodthere

is, the higher and brighter dances its flame, and the more combustible the

fireis.^168

The same phenomenon of gnosis produced through the fire of sin is expounded in
theKashfal-asrārbyMaybudī,whodepictsAdam,prototypeofallhumanbeings,as
having been ‘first scorched by the fire of divine guidance [in Paradise], then [cast
outofParadise]cookedintheovenofthepunishmentofAdamsinnedanddisobeyed
hisLord(Qur’ān XX: 121), from which the sustenance of love generated by the fire
[ofhissin]wasvouchsafedhim’.^169 Thefiresofsinonlygeneratewisdomandgno-
sisforAdam-the-lover,archetypeoftheenlightenedlibertine.Inapoemmodelled
after(andwritteninthesamerhymeandmetreas)theworkofthegreatestPersian
bacchanalian poet Nizārī Quhistānī (d. 721/1321),^170 Ḥāfiẓ expresses this classical
Sufidoctrineasfollows:

Mylifeisablackbook.Butdon’trebukeadrunk

Likemetoomuch.Nohumanbeingcaneverread

Thewordswrittenonhisownforehead.

WhenḤāfiẓ’scoffincomesby,it’llbeallright

Tofollowbehind.Althoughheis

Acaptiveofsin,heisonhiswaytotheGarden.^171

ḤāfiẓandtheReligionofLoveinClassicalPersianPoetry