Hafiz and the Religion of Love in Classical Persian Poetry

ḤāfiẓintheSocio-historical,LiteraryandMysticalMilieuofMedievalPersia 55

Therindaccording to the terminology of this noble company [the Sufis] signi-

fies a person who has shaved off all the attachments of the realm of illusory

multiplicity – whether these pertain to the Necessary or possible Being and

their Divine Names, Attributes, pre-determined archetypal prototypes, char-

acteristics and qualities along with all their various concrete aspects – with

the carpenter’s plane [randa] of annihilation and obliteration [maḥwufanā’]

from the reality of his self. In this manner he has freed himself of everything.

Thus he becomes the crown of the world and mankind. No other creature

attains the summit of his exalted degree.^406

As we can see, in Ḥāfiẓ’s lexicon terms such asrind,zāhid,qalandar, and so forth,
have meanings quite contrary to what they seem to literally represent. They are
symbolic references encoded in poetic language to express the realm of experience
of the heart’s initiates,^407 reflecting both the mystical themes of romantic experi-
ence (rindī) on the Sufiviapurgativa(with the plane of spiritual practice shaving
clean the psyche of the impurities of material existence), which are in turn derived
from the literary tradition of themalāmatiyya,qalandariyyaand the ‘Religion of Love’
topos in classical Persian poetry.

Notes

(^1) Zarrīnkūb,Azkūcha-irindān, p. xii. For an extended discussion of his date of birth, see ‘Alī Akbar
Dihkhudā, ‘Ḥāfiẓ Shīrāzī’,Lughat-nāma, vol. 5, pp. 7490–1. Qazvīnī believed him to have been born in
715/1315 (see Mu‘īn,Ḥāfiẓ-ishīrīn-sukhan, I, p. 139).
(^2) Limbert,ShīrāzintheAgeofHafez, pp. 108–18; Zarrīnkūb,Azkūcha-irindān, pp. 9ff.
(^3) A.J. Arberry,Shīrāz:PersianCityofSaintsandPoets.
(^4) Ḥāfiẓ heaps scorn on these corrupt charitable endowments in one place in hisDīvān(ed. Khānlarī,
ghazal45: 4). Also, cf. Zarrīnkūb,Azkūcha-irindān, p. 7, citing Qazwīnī’sNuzhatal-qulūb, p. 138.
(^5) As Zarrīnkūb observes: ‘Judging by what can be seen from hisDīvān, Ḥāfiẓ’s age was a time full of cor-
ruption and sin, hypocrisy and crime.’Azkūcha-irindān, p. 38.
(^6) Ibid., p. 8.
(^7) Sa‛dī,Kulliyāt-iSa‛dī, Furūghī, p. 726; cited by Jahramī, ‘Mākhaz-i andīshahā-yi Sa‛dī: Rūzbihān Baqlī
Shīrāzī’, p. 101.
(^8) ‘Isā b. Junayd Shīrāzī,Tadhkira-yiHazār-mazār.
(^9) A good overview of these sites is given by Betteridge, ‘Ziārat:Pilgrimmage to the Shrines of Shīrāz’.
(^10) Annemarie Schimmel, ‘The Ornament of the Saints’, p. 105.
(^11) On the tombs of Shīrāz, see Betteridge, ‘Ziārat:Pilgrimmage to the Shrines of Shīrāz’.
(^12) Cited by Arberry,Shīrāz:PersianCity, p. 62.
(^13) Zarrīnkūb,Justujū’īdartaṣawwuf-iIrān, p. 226.
(^14) Cited by Zarrīnkūb,Azkūcha-irindān, p. 11.
(^15) Cited by Arberry,Shīrāz:PersianCity, p. 52.
(^16) Cited by Zarrīnkūb,Azkūcha-irindān, p. 10.
(^17) Dīvān-iḤāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī,ghazal274: 1, 4.
(^18) Shahr-i‘ishq,Dīvān-iḤāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī,ghazal261: 5.
(^19) Zarrīnkūb,Azkūcha-irindān, pp. 11, 22.