Becauseoftheshrinkingnumberofcontemporaryreadersandinterpreterswhoare
sufficiently familiar with even a few of the most essential fields of traditional
Islamicate learning and artistic forms assumed by Ḥāfiẓ and his original audiences
(Qur’ān,ḥadīth, Islamic philosophy, Kalām theology, a particularly immense and
rich Sufi intellectual tradition, and so many earlier Persian and Arabic poets), the
challengesofelucidatingthesecomplexrhetoricalunitiesandtheirintellectualpre-
suppositionsarebecomingincreasinglydemandinganddifficult,bothforscholarly
specialistsandespeciallyfortheirwiderpotentialaudiences.Againstthatbackdrop,
one can only hope that scholars aware of these growing pedagogical needs will
eventually take up the challenge of providing students and lovers of Ḥāfiẓ – espe-
cially those limited to English and languages other than Persian – with something
like the spectrum of more literal, carefully annotated translations and essential
interpretivetoolsandstudiesthatarenowsoreadilyavailableateverylevelforstu-
dentsofDante,PlatoortheIChing.
Finally, a more widespread appreciation of these distinctive structural features
in Ḥāfiẓ should also help future editors, translators and other critics in their
necessary editorial judgements regarding the often difficult and recurrent ques-
tions of alternative verse orders, choices of alternative readings and manuscript
evidence,authenticityandthelike.Theusefulnessofthisawarenessisparticularly
obvious with regard to the much-debated question of the unity of theghazal
form, as well as in encouraging a more adequate appreciation of the different
structures and forms of theghazalfavoured by those later poets in various
Islamicate languages, who were so widely influenced by the prestigious model of
Ḥāfiẓ’spoeticwork.
Notes
(^1) Lane,AnArabic-EnglishLexicon,part2,p.602.
(^2) Inparticular,theunderlyingQur’ānicrootsandinspirationofthesecharacteristicperspectiveshifts
andotherrelatedrhetoricalfeaturesarediscussedinmuchgreaterdetailinmyforthcomingvolume,
Openings:FromtheQur’āntotheIslamicHumanities.
(^3) SeemystudyofaremarkablelaterSafavidillustrationofḤāfiẓandtheghazalinquestionin‘Imaging
Islam: Intellect and Imagination in Islamic Philosophy, Poetry and Painting’,Religion and the Arts,
XII/1–3 (February 2008), special volume on ‘The Inter-Religious Imagination’, ed. R. Kearney, pp.
294–318and466.
(^4) Forinstance,inSlidingDoors(directedbyP.Howitt,1998)andK.Kieslowski’sBlindChance(Przypadek,
1987); or the similar depiction of alternative destinies inRun, Lola, Run(Lola Rennt, directed by T.
Tykwer,1988).
(^5) Dīvān-iḤāfiẓ,ed.Khānlarī,ghazal27.
(^6) As throughout theseghazals, theyār(‘Friend’) evokes at once God asal-Walī(the Close, Protecting
One),andalsoeachoftheprotectingandguiding‘FriendsofGod’(walīAllāh)describedinseveralkey
passagesoftheQur’ān.Thiskeynoteterm(yār)isrepeatedtwicehereinthelasthalf-lineofverse7,
andindicatedaswellinḤāfiẓ’sdirectallusionattheendofline5tothefamousverse5:54fromthe
Qur’ān on the divine renewing/salvific function of these Friends of God as themalāmiyya: ‘... those
whodonotfeartheblameofanyblamer.’
Ḥāfiẓ’sRomanticImageryandLanguageofLove 249