Hafiz and the Religion of Love in Classical Persian Poetry

Love too has much grace and chic and charm,

And her side too must not be forsworn.^319

The deliberate concealment of one’s virtues and good deeds, and exposure of one’s
vice and faults – the invition of condemnation from the common herd by themalā-
matī–is one of Ḥāfiẓ’s perennial themes, as these two verses attest:

Don’t expect obedience, promise-keeping, or rectitude

From me; I’m drunk. I’ve been famous for carrying

A wine pitcher around since the First Covenant with Adam.^320

* * *

The name of Ḥāfiẓ has been well inscribed in the books,

But in our clan of disreputables, the difference

Between profit and loss is not all that great.^321

Ḥāfiẓ’s most famous poem in which he flaunts his bacchanalian ethics and erotic
spirituality in the face of formalist Muslim clerics while celebrating the mystical
theology of the Path of Blame, begins with these three key verses:

I’m well known throughout the whole city

For being a wild-haired lover; and I’m that man who has

Never darkened his vision by seeing evil.

Through my enthusiasm for wine, I have thrown the book

Of my good name into the water; but doing that insures that

The handwriting in my book of grandiosity will be blurred.

Let’s be faithful to what we love; let’s accept reproach

And keep our spirits high, because on our road, being easily

Hurt by the words of others is a form of infidelity.^322

Hujwīrī’s exegesis ofmalāmatīphilosophy in hisKashf al-maḥjūbilluminates the
theosophical teachings and meaning underlying Hāfiẓ’s verses quite well:

It has been decreed by God that whoever discourses about Him, He makes the

butt of the world’s abuse. Simultaneously, He preserves their consciousness

from being preoccupied by that blame. This is a result of divine jealousy – for

thus God protects His friends from paying attention to anyone save Him lest

the non-initiates catch a glimpse of the beauty of their spiritual state. It also

protects those devotees from self-regard and the hubris of self-consciousness.

Hence, they don’t become puffed up about themselves and succumb to

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