54
However, only when he is utterly detached from his ‘self’ does he reach the sec-
ond degree of Romance – that is, ofrindī– which is the level of ‘being a beloved’
(ma‘shūqī). It is from this level that the selfless discourse of the inspired libertines
issue forth.^400
At the third and highest degree, the lover attains divine Unity. There, he discov-
ers Absolute Love itself, becoming detached from all created being, freed from self-
hood, indifferent both to both praise and blame, and even detached from the
beloved her/himself. In sum, there are three spiritual levels through which the
inspired libertine gradually ascends: ‘At the first stage ofrindīis the degree of lover-
hood [‘āshiqī], transcending the created material realm. The second stage is that of
being a beloved [ma‘shūqī], which transcends duality, and the third degree is that of
Love [‘ishq] and divine Unity [tawḥīd].’^401
From this overview of the romantic vision of the inspired libertine, it is clear that
from Ḥāfiẓ’s erotocentric perspective,rindīdenotes the lover’s awareness of the
‘Fine Arts’ ofAmor, which comprise his gnosis of the beloved/Beloved, his discern-
ment of the aesthetics of erotic contemplation and the erotic gaze (shāhid-/naẓar-
bāzī) on the physical plane, and finally his cognizance of Love’s metaphysics.Rindīis
thus the mystic romantic’s personal conviction and creed during his progress and
ascension towards the world of Absolute Love. Thisviapurgativaand ascension of
the lover into ‘the height of Love’s rare Universe’^402 is an experience quite different
from the rough encounter with the Mafioso thugs and hoodlums in the back-alleys
of medieval Shīrāz by Sa‛dī’s dervish. Instead of being robbed of one’s material pos-
sessions by hoodlums in the material marketplace, the mysticrindundergoes a
process of spiritual denudation, in which the landscape of his heart is cleared of all
attachments and filled with God. For this reason, only the inspired libertine/rake
(rind) who has endured blame, not the puritan ascetic who follows religious rites by
rote, achieves salvation in love’s religion, as Ḥāfiẓ states:
The ascetic had too much pride so could never soundly
Traverse the Path. But the rake by way of humble entreaty
And beggary at last went down to the House of Peace.^403The termrind, it is useful to remember in this context, is derived fromranda, the
‘carpenter’s plane’. In his commentary on Shabistarī’sGulshan-i rāz(Garden of
Mystery), Muḥammad Lāhījī (d. 912/1507), drawing on this etymology, describes the
inspired libertine (rind) as ‘one who has cast away and shaved off all the forms of
multiplicity and determined forms of being with the carpenter’s plane of self-
obliteration and self-annihilation [randah-imaḥwvafanā’]...’.^404 The habitation of the
inspired libertine is the Tavern of Ruin (kharābāt), where he cannot be qualified by
any spiritual or temporal description (awṣāf). He is free from the concrete proper-
ties (aḥkām) of being, having become emancipated from all ties of the world in all its
confusing multiplicity.^405 Echoing Lāhījī’s definitions, Lāhūrī likewise explains that:
ḤāfiẓandtheReligionofLoveinClassicalPersianPoetry