them both to the harshest re-evaluation. Following the precedent set by Sanā’ī
and ‘Aṭṭār in this respect, he took the character of the inspired libertine (rind),
which occupied a lowly, dishonourable social rank in the echelons and ranks
of contemporary society, out from under the stairs, adopting it to be his own
particular persuasion and rite of faith. From the antecedent mystical tradition
Ḥāfiẓ took the theosophical outlook on the ‘Perfect Man’ [insān-i kāmil] or
‘True Man’, and with his own creative genius and mythological imagination
attached this concept to the notion of the distracted and footlooserind, calling
the thirstyrinda saint [walī].^328And in this fashion, the inspired libertine in Ḥāfiẓ’s poetry became elevated to one
of the most exalted spiritual ranks in his religion of love (madhhab-i‘ishq),^329 as will
be seen from the ensuing discussion.
TheArtofEroticContemplation(shāhid-bāzī)
Lift up the tulip-cup: its eyes’ drunken narcissus gaze,
And set on me the label ‘pervert’. With so many judges
That are set over me, O Lord, who should I take to be my judge?^330- Ḥāfiẓ
From the foregoing study, we see that the termrindin its simple outer, literal sense
has two main connotations: (1) a clever, cunning and crafty person – an ‘artful
dodger’ in Dickens’ sense, or a ‘rogue’ in the Shakespearean sense; and (2) a person
with a reckless, nonconformist, devil-may-care attitude unrestrained by any ties of
conventional social morality.^331 However, the interiorsymbolicsignificance of the
term, properly qualifying this rogue or libertine with the adjective ‘inspired’, is only
revealed once we examine the metaphysical, erotic and ethical bases of the term.
The inspired libertine’s antinomian ethic, orrindī, is described by Ḥāfiẓ as a kind
of ‘art’/‘virtue’ (hunar). The erotic ethic ofrindīinvolves two contemplative disci-
plines practised by thefedelid’amore, respectively calledshāhid-bāzīandnaẓar-bāzī.
The termshāhidmeans both ‘seer’ and ‘witness’, and as a technical term in
Sufism,shāhid-bāzī(cavorting with she/he who is a Witness) is the art of contem-
plation of the divine in the mundane-human, beholding the divine in the mirror of
human beauty, the latter bearing ‘witness’ to the former, theshāhidthus becoming
an ‘icon of beauty’ or ‘divine demonstration’, one who bears ‘witness’ to the pres-
ence of divine. In this sense,shāhid-bāzīmeans ‘sporting with beauty’s icon’ or
‘cavorting with mortal forms of beauty that are demonstrative of divinity’. In the
words of Henry Corbin: ‘Theshāhiddenotes the being whose beauty bears witness to
the divine beauty, by being the divine revelation itself, the theophany par excel-
lence. As the place and form of the theophany, he bears witness to this beauty of the
divine Subject Himself; because he is present to the divine Subject as His witness, it
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