Althoughmalāmatīconceptions are generally alien to Western philosophical ethics,
in certain Gospel sayings such as ‘Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when
they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out
your name as evil...’, a quasi-malāmatīsentiment – that one must live above the
world and consider all worldy employments as things not to be desired but only
endured and suffered, with the censure of the vulgar considered as an inevitable
trial to be endured on theviapurgativa– is proclaimed.^307 The anti-social attitudes,
and the licence of affected shamelessness in SufiMalāmatīteachings, have also often
been compared to the school of Greek Cynics, Diogenes of Sinope’s teachings in par-
ticular. However,malāmatīethics are in this respect far more akin to the moral phi-
losophy of Roman Stoicism. Seneca’s saying,Malisdisplicerelaudariest(‘To displease
the wicked is to be praised’), for instance, which distinguishes between the
ignominy of a ‘glory’ that depends on the judgement of the illiterate masses and
true ‘renown’ whose acclaim derives from the judgement of wise men, professes a
Sufi sort of indifference to name and fame that expresses themalāmatīethic per-
fectly. Paraphrased by Ben Jonson as ‘To be dispraised is the most perfect praise’,^308
Milton set Seneca’s saying to verse in hisParadiseRegained:
For what is glory but the blaze of fame,
The people’s praise, if always praise unmixed?
And what the people but a herd confused,
A miscellaneous rabble, who extol
Things vulgar and well weighed, scarce worth the praise,
They praise and they admire they know not what;
And know not whom, but as one leads the other;
And what delight to be by such extolled,
To live upon their tongues and be their talk,
Of whom to be dispraised were no small praise?^309Following the English school of Radical Religious Dissent, William Blake, in stating
in his Proverbs of Hell, ‘Listen to the fool’s reproach! It is a kingly title!’ – seems to
have been imparting a kind ofmalāmatīinstruction – perhaps echoing Milton’s
views here.^310
Sufis of all orders professedmalāmatīdoctrines in common. The dangers of
hypocrisy, pride, unctuous self-righteousness and being wise in one’s own conceit are
constant themes in classical Sufi manuals.^311 The merging ofmalāmatīethical doctrine
into the repertoire of the Persian Sufi poetry is evidenced by the fact that figures such
as the inspired libertine (rind), vagabond (qalandar) and brigand (‘ayyār) all originally
possessed negative social values, but reappeared with positive connotations accorded
them by the Sufi poets. In the same spirit the Sufi poets celebrated infidelity and
heresy, and extolled Buddhism, Zoroastrianism and Christianity as symbols for
higher, esoteric modes of faith.^312 Ḥāfiẓ’smalāmatīethic is entirely based on this
logopoetic Sufi symbolic language; his self-inculpation and penchant for incurring the
ḤāfiẓintheSocio-historical,LiteraryandMysticalMilieuofMedievalPersia 39