accessible aspect and common theme of his discourse, we need therefore to remember that he did
not regard the “Object of praise” himself [mamdūḥ] very highly when he wrote in the panegyric
genre, for he saw no need to act in a manner contrary to his own natural inclinations.’(^245) As Fouchécour (HafizdeChiraz, introduction, p. 15) stresses, ‘in Ḥāfiẓ’sDīvānthe literal meaning is
always subordinate to the metaphorical one. Metaphor is the realm in which the poet develops his
thought.’
(^246) The main problem in using theDīvānfor sourcing biographical details is that such an approach often
leads to deliberate neglect of theological, mystical, ethical and homiletic dimensions in those verses
themselves, thedictaof which are moreoverexemplanot to be taken literally. Thus, Zarrīnkūb was
honest enough to concede that his own historically oriented approach has serious drawbacks since: ‘in
some cases the expression of the poet appears to be so vague and arcane that one cannot ever inter-
pret its meaning in a literal sense. It is true that there are a few verses that directly allude to the poet’s
patron and object of praise [mamdūḥ] whom he celebrates with the qualities of a beloved [ma‘shūq] –
and how many of his beloveds are in fact just a king or vizier! – but in many places his language is
extremely vague and deceptively multifaceted [rindāna], because of which one cannot interpret his
words ... in which simple references to historical circumstances are situated cheek by jowl with the
most complex theosophical and mystical mysteries ... to mean simply what they literally profess.’Az
kūcha-irindān, p. xiv.
(^247) Dīvān-iḤāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī,ghazal150: 5.
(^248) Ibid.,ghazal292: 2. In this context, Ḥāfiẓ’s disdain of worldliness belongs squarely to thecontempti
mundiorzuhdiyyagenre of the Sufi theoerotic lyric (ghazal) and hasabsolutelynothing to do with an
espousal of ‘the doctrine of unreason’ or ‘intellectual nihilism’ (!) as Arberry weirdly speculated (Fifty
PoemsofḤāfiẓ, introduction, pp. 29, 31). On this genre (dhammal-dunyā) in Sufism, see Ritter,Ocean,
chap. 2 (‘The World’); in Ḥāfiẓ (cf. the termistighnā), see Mu‘īn,Ḥāfiẓ-ishīrīn-sukhan, I, pp. 473–4. Cf.
John Donne: ‘What fragmentary rubbidge this world is / Thou knowest, and that it is not worth a
thought; / He honours it too much that thinkes it nought’ (‘The Second Anniversary’, pp. 82–4).
(^249) Dīvān-iḤāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī,ghazal163: 10.
(^250) Ibid.,ghazal110: 4.
(^251) Ibid.,ghazal40: 10.
(^252) Ibid.,ghazal355: 9.
(^253) R.W. Emerson,Journals, 1847; quoted inWorks, VIII, p. 417. I am grateful to Farhang Jahanpour for pro-
viding this reference in his ‘Hafiz and Ralph Waldo Emerson’ (unpublished typescript), p. 6.
(^254) Dīvān-iḤāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī,ghazal324: 3.
(^255) Ibid.,ghazal324: 11.
(^256) Ibid.,ghazal35: 4; see Isti‘lamī’s refutation of the interpretation of this poem as a panegyric:Dars-i
Ḥāfiẓ, I, p. 159 (ghazal34).
(^257) Muḥammad Isti‘lāmī,Dars-iḤāfiẓ, I, pp. 53–4.
(^258) Shelley, ‘A Defence of Poetry’, in Kwasny (ed.),TowardtheOpenField, p. 56.
(^259) Dīvān-iḤāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī,ghazal264: 7. Also cf.ghazal477: 4.
(^260) Mentioned more than 80 times in theDīvān, ‘perhaps no other word in the entireDīvānof Ḥāfiẓ is
more difficult to define’, observed Khurramshāhī, ‘and yet by far the most significant and construc-
tive thesis advanced by Ḥāfiẓ lies embedded within the termrind’ (Ḥāfiẓ-nāma, I, p. 403). Likewise,
Pūrjavādī reflects: ‘The primordial postern into the universe of Ḥāfiẓ’s thought isrindī, which is the
veritable key to the door of the philosophy of Persian spirituality’ (‘Rindī-yi Ḥāfiẓ’,Bū-yijān, p. 219).
(^261) ‘The Visionary Topography of Hafiz’, pp. 224–5.
(^262) See the essays by M. Sells and R. Woods in Barnard and Kripal (eds),CrossingBoundaries.
(^263) I am referring to the fashionable view that conceptualizes therindas merely a ‘debauchee’, and
sees theqalandaras but a ‘dissolute hoodlum’, Ḥāfiẓ’s praise of therindbeing viewed as simply ‘his
championing of an anti-culture low-life’, conceiving that ‘to read anything other than social outcasts
and men of ill-repute in Hafez’srendandqalandaris to miss the point ... byrendHafez did not mean
anything other than a derelict, an embodiment of sin and dissoluteness occupying the basest position
ḤāfiẓintheSocio-historical,LiteraryandMysticalMilieuofMedievalPersia 65