33 Isaac Watts, Abuse of the Emotions in Spiritual Life (1746), in Jeffery (ed.), English Spirituality in the Age of Wesley, p. 73.
34 Matthew, 7:3.
35 Hudibras, ed. Henry G. Bohn (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1859), Canto I, Part 1, 207–10, p. 13.
36 Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 258: 8.
37 From his poem ‘Forebearance’.
38 See my ‘The Metaphysics of Justice and the Ethics of Mercy in the Thought of ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib’, pp. 108–46, where the origins of this attitude are traced back to the Persian Sufi chivalric tradition.
39 See Mathnawī, ed. Nicholson, I: 1394–402; II: 3027–45; II: 881–5; IV: 367–8. Ḥāfiẓ’s moral advice to the ascetic in the first three verses of ghazal 78 may be, I think, modelled on Rūmī, Mathnawī, II: 881–3, Nicholson’s comment on which is relevant here: ‘Any one who regards the faults of his neighbours instead of his own resembles the idolater who worships an idol instead of devoting himself to God.’
40 Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 385: 4. Trans. by Bly and Lewisohn, Angels, p. 21. Although Khānlarī’s lectio is rāz (secret), three of his manuscripts read ‘ayb (fault), which is the reading we follow here (this is also Qazwīnī and Ghanī’s lectio).
41 As Lāhūrī relates, the Prophet taught that only Imām ‘Alī (not ‘Umar, Uthmān or Abū Bakr) had grasped that the main condition for salvation lay in ‘revealing the upright virtues [rāst] of God’s devotees and concealing their faults’. Lāhūrī moralizes that ‘indeed, being a dervish totally consists in concealing the faults of people’ (Sharḥ-i ‘irfānī-yi Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, IV, p. 2563). For the full story, see Bly and Lewisohn, Angels, p. 90, n. 81. The emphasis of Ḥāfiẓ’s master on the virtue of abstaining from censure of one’s neighbours is akin to Blake’s view that ‘Mutual forgiveness of each vice / Such are the Gates of Paradise’. Blake’s verse echoes a line in the Dīvān, ed. Khanlari, ghazal 476: 7.
42 Ghanī, Baḥth dar āthār, p. 124; Browne, A Literary History of Persia, III, p. 275.
43 Maḥmūd ibn ‘Uthmān, Miftāḥ al-hidāya wa miṣbāḥ al-‘ināya: Sīrat-nāma-i Shaykh Amīn al-Dīn Muḥammad Balyānī, p. 110.
44 Manṭiq al-ṭayr, vv. 3013–16; trans. Darbandi and Davis, The Conference of the Birds, p. 155.
45 This is the theme of ghazal 183: 2: ‘View my love as the perfection of the mystery of Eros, not as the taint of sin. / You know that everyone without artistic talent ends up as a critic.’
46 Manṭiq al-tayr, vv. 3026–7; trans. Darbandi and Davis, The Conference of the Birds, p. 155.
47 Pūrnāmdāriyān, Gumshuda-yi lab-i daryā: Tā’ammulī dar ma‘nā va ṣūrat-i sh‘ir-i Ḥāfiẓ, pp. 18–19.
48 Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 76: 6. Ḥāfiẓ repeats exactly the same moral message elsewhere (ghazal 67: 10), stating even more bluntly that, ‘eternal salvation lies in causing no soul distress’ (Dilash bi-nāla miyāzār va khatm kun Ḥāfiẓ/ ki rastigārī jāvīd dar kam āzārī-ast).
49 For a good discussion of which see Murtaḍawī, Maktab-i Ḥāfiẓ, pp. 271–5. Mu‘īn (Ḥāfiẓ-i shīrīn-sukhan, I, p. 289) also underlines the ‘deep influence’ of Balyānī on Ḥāfiẓ.
50 ‘Uthmān, Miftāḥ al-hidāya, pp. 112–16.
51 Ibid., p. 112. Note the near identity of terminology here between Balyānī’s dictum, Anṣārī’s epigram (Harchi nay rāḥat, nay ṭā‘at, va harchi nay āzār, nay gunāh) and Ḥāfiẓ’s verse: mabāsh dar pay-i āzār va harchih khwāhī kun / kay dar sharī‘at-i mā ghayr az īn gunāhī nīst! Ḥāfiẓ’s acquaintance with Balyānī’s own Dīvān (unfortunately still unpublished!) is demonstrated by the number of verses where Ḥāfiẓ imitates him, on which see Muḥammad Amīn Riyāḥī in his Gulgasht dar shi‘r va andīsha-yi Ḥāfiẓ, pp. 217–18. ‘Abd al-Ḥusayn Zarrīnkūb’s dogmatic opinion (Az kūcha-i rindān, p. 168) that Ḥāfiẓ actually had no real ‘devotional commitment’ (irādat) to Balyānī is now dated, since he does not mention nor take into account any of these quite demonstrable poetic and pedagogic influences of the Kāzarūnī Shaykh on Ḥāfiẓ. For further discussion of Ḥāfiẓ’s relation to this Sufi master, also see Mu‘īn, Ḥāfiẓ-i shīrīn-sukhan, I, pp. 288–90. The best overview of Ḥāfiẓ’s close relationship to the Sufi tradition of his day (and excellently annotated critical refutation of Zarrīnkūb’s views on the same) is given by the seminal article penned by the Markaz-i Taḥqīqāt-i fārsī-yi Īrān va Pākistān, ‘Gāmī-yi chand Bā Kāravān-i Ḥulla’.
52 ‘Uthmān, Miftāḥ, p. 111. The passage is from Matthew (5:44): ‘Do not resist the one who is evil. But if one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well.’
53 Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 318: 5.
54 Ibid., ghazal 258: 8.
55 Qur’ān, 6:164. This theme is repeated frequently in the Qur’ān; see: 17:15; 35:18, 39:7.
56 Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 78: 1.
57 Muḥammad Dārābī (in his mystical commentary on Ḥāfiẓ, Laṭīfa-yi ghaybī, p. 85) asserts that this couplet alludes to the ḥadīth: ‘This world is farmland of the Next.’ Both Haravī (Sharḥ-i Ghazalhā-yi Ḥāfiẓ, I, p. 364) and Khurramshāhī (Ḥāfiẓ-nāma, I, p. 395) view these two couplets as paraphrasing Qur’ān 5:105 – ‘O you who believe! You have charge of your own souls. He who errs cannot injure you if you are rightly guided. To God you will all return and He will then inform you of what ye used to do.’ Both verses comprise versified paraphrases of the Sufi teachings of Amīn al-Dīn Balyānī to the same effect – see ‘Uthmān, Miftāḥ al-hidāya, p. 139.
58 Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 78: 2–3. Ḥāfiẓ’s ideas and imagery in this ghazal closely imitate ghazals by Nizārī Quhistānī and Khwājū Kirmānī, written in the same metre and rhyme. See Dīwān-i Khwājū Kirmānī, ed. Qāni‘ī, p. 385; and Dīvān-i Ḥakīm Nizārī Quhistānī, pp. 920–1; ghazal 343. See my ‘Sufism and Ismā‘īlī Doctrine in the Persian Poetry of Nizārī Quhistānī’, p. 251, n. 107.
59 See the chapter on faqr in Bukhārā’ī, Farhang-i ash‘ār-i Ḥāfiẓ, pp. 509–23; also cf. Khurramshāhī, Ḥāfiẓnāma, I, pp. 264–6.
60 Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 262: 3.
61 ‘Know that ascetic renunciation [zuhd] is the first station of disciples [murīdān].’ Bukhārī, Sharḥ alta‘ arruf li-madhhab ahl al-taṣawwuf, p. 1219.
62 According to ‘Abdu’llāh Anṣārī, there are three degrees of devotion: to the world, to the hereafter, and to God. The zāhid longs for the second degree (of the hereafter), but the lover / inspired libertine (‘āshiq / rind) is devoted only to God (the third degree), and thus is freed of the world, the hereafter, from mankind, and his own personal self-finitude. See Field 5 (irādat) in Sad maydān, in Majmū‘a-yi Rasā’il Farsī-yi Khwāja ‘Abdu’llāh Anṣārī, ed. Sarvar Mullā’ī, pp. 262–3.
63 Dīwān-i Khwāja Ḥāfiẓ-i Shīrāzī, ed. Anjawī-Shīrāzī, p. 205.
64 In the early Muslim mystical tradition, four degrees of yearning or longing (shawq) for God are mentioned, beginning with renunciation (zuhd), then fear (khawf), yearning for Paradise (al-shawq ilā’ljanna) and, lastly, Love for God (maḥabba li-Lāh), but from Anṣārī’s (d. 481/1089) time onwards, the Sufi tradition in Persia jettisoned and largely rejected this early ascetic ideal of ‘yearning for paradise’ in favour of the pure love of God in the heart (shawq al-qalb). I have outlined this development in my article on yearning: ‘Shawḳ’, EI2, IX, pp. 376–7. See as well Pūrjavādī, ‘Rindī-yi Ḥāfiẓ’, in his Būyi jān, p. 271.
65 Pūrjavādī, ‘Rindī-yi Ḥāfiẓ’, in Bū-yi jān, p. 255.
66 Sharḥ al-ta‘arruf, p. 1220.
67 Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 392: 9.
68 ‘Aṭṭār, Tadhkirat al-awliyā’, ed. Isti‘lamī, p. 190. This same emphasis
on humility is reflected in Nietzche’s saying, ‘Many a one hath cast away his final worth when he hath cast away his servitude’. Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, I, 17, in The Philosophy of Nietzsche, p. 65. Cited by Edinger, Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche, p. 27. See my discussion of Ḥāfiẓ’s view of sin below. As Pūrjavādī points out: ‘The inspired libertine is endowed with “works” but his works are completely different from those of the ascetic. The “works” of the inspired libertine estrange him from his egocentric “self” and bring him near to the beloved, whereas the “works” of the ascetic only estrange him, creating distance between him and his beloved. It is for this reason that Ḥāfiẓ assigns a negative value to all the ascetic’s pious works and practices.’ ‘Rindī-yi Ḥāfiẓ’, in Bū-yi jān, pp. 271–2.
69 ‘Ayn al-Quḍāt Hamadhānī, Tamhīdāt, no. 393, p. 300: 3.
70 Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 117: 6.
71 Ibid., ghazal 50: 9.
72 Ibid., ghazal 431: 7. As Qāsim Ghanī, and following him, Khurramshāhī and Haravī note, this verse paraphrases a saying of the Prophet Muḥammad: ‘In God’s eyes the most beloved of God’s devotees is the poor dervish contented with what he has and satisfied with the daily bread given by God to him.’ Ḥāfiẓ’s line is actually a verse-epigram on Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s ethical teachings, summarizing one of the chapter headings – ‘The Virtue of Being a Dervish and Contentment’, Faḍilat-i darvīshī va khursandī – of his Kīmiyā-yi sa‘ādat, II, pp. 424–5. See Haravī, Sharḥ-i ghazalhā-yi Ḥāfiẓ, III, p. 1791; Khurramshāhī, Ḥāfiẓ-nāma, II, p. 1163. Ḥāfiẓ’s Sufi teachings on contentment (riḍā, qanā‘at, khursandī) are summarized by Khurramshāhī, Ḥāfiẓ-nāma, I, p. 490. Cf. Shakespeare’s verses: ‘Poor and content is rich, and rich enough, / But riches fineless is as poor as winter / To him that ever fears he shall be poor’ (Othello, III.iii), which provide a perfect Christian homologue to Ḥāfiẓ’s verse.
73 Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 75: 8.
74 See Ibid., ghazal 241: 8.
75 Ibid., ghazal 468: 4. In lieu of Khānlarī’s fasḥat, I am following the variant reading of rawnaq found in the commentaries of Haravī and Khurramshāhī, and in the editions of Qazvīnī, Anjavī Shīrāzī and several others. Alternatively, one may translate the verse as: ‘Come, for the productivity of this workshop won’t grow less / Through austerities like yours or indulgences like mine.’ I understand Hāfiẓ as expressing the same message that Alexander Pope (Essay on Man, IV: 135–6) intended to pose in his rhetorical question: ‘The good must merit God’s special care, / But who, but God, can tell us who they are?’
76 Cf. Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 81: 4. The doctrine that there is no virtue higher than lowliness of spirit and humility is too well known among mystics to merit comment here; nonetheless, it seems very relevant here to cite the observation of the English mystic William Law (1686–1761) that ‘a humble state of soul is the very state of religion, because humility is the life and soul of piety… For this reason, no people have more occasion to be afraid of the approaches of pride than those who have made some advances in a pious life. For pride can grow as well upon our virtues as our vices, and steals upon us on all occasions. Every good thought that we have, every good action that we do, lays us open to pride and exposes us to the assaults of vanity and self-satisfaction…’ A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, pp. 228–9. Italics mine.
77 Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 84: 7.
78 ‘Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted’ (Luke, 18:10–14).
79 Būstān-i Sa'dī, ed. Īzadparast, pp. 184–8. The translation has been revised from my own translation of these verses in Nurbakhsh, Jesus in the Eyes of the Sufis, pp. 101–6.
80 Khurramshāhī, ‘Mayl-i Ḥāfiẓ bih gunāh’, in his Dhihn u zabān-i Ḥāfiẓ, pp. 77.
81 The two key verses on this theme in Ḥāfiẓ’s Dīvān are: ‘Between lover and beloved there exists / No veil at all. You, you yourself are / Your own veil: Ḥāfiẓ, get out of the way!’ (Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 260: 9, discussed below) and: ‘In the realm of inspired libertinism, no thought of “self” or “self-opinion” exists. In this religion all thought of self and all egocentric opinions are infidelity’ (ghazal 484: 10). On the notion of selflessness in Persian Sufi poetry, see the beautiful article by Leili Anvar-Chenderoff, ‘“Without us, from us we are safe”: Self and Selflessness in the Dīvān of ‘Aṭṭār’. See also Bukhārā’ī, Farhang-i ash‘ār-i Ḥāfiẓ, pp. 157–60.
82 Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 426: 3.
83 ‘Aṭṭār, Tadhkirat, ed. Isti‘lami, p. 379.
84 Wensinck, ‘al-Khaḍir’, EI2, IV, p. 904.
85 Sharḥ-i ‘irfānī-yi Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, IV, p. 2862. The doctrine is versified in another line by Ḥāfiẓ: ‘Wash your hands clean of the base copper of existence, like men of the Path / till you find the Alchemy of Love and become gold’ (Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 478: 3).
86 Ibid., ghazal 220: 1.
87 Ghazālī, Kīmiyā-yi sa‘ādat, II, p. 260; cited by Khurramshāhī, Ḥāfiẓ-nāma, II, p. 851.
88 For a detailed discussion of the ‘veil of the infidel selfhood’ in Sufism, see my Beyond Faith and Infidelity, pp. 296–9.
89 Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 260: 9. This verse, in which the poet apparently addresses himself, is, as Pūrjavādī notes (‘Rindī-yi Ḥāfiẓ’, in his Bū-yi jān, p. 279), penned as a rebuke of the inspired libertine (rind) to himself.
90 See Furūzānfar, Aḥādīth-i Mathnawī, p. 9 for this and other similar aḥadīth.
91 Maybudī, Kashf al-asrār, VI, p. 440.
92 Cited by Bukhārā’ī, Farhang-i ash‘ār-i Ḥāfiẓ, p. 160.
93 Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 201: 4. I disagree with Haravī (Sharḥ-i ghazalhā-yi Ḥāfiẓ, II, p. 866), who simply interprets the expression you and me (man u tū, also translatable as ‘I and thou’, ‘me and thee’, or ‘mine and thine’) in this verse to mean both the poet and the ascetic together. Such an interpretation ignores the whole literary and technical history of this particular phrase in earlier Sufi texts, where it signifies the false pride of the egocentric selfhood (maniyat) that veils the mystic. ‘Aṭṭār thus writes: ‘Whoever retains a dualistic self-identity [dū’ī] is like a polytheist: the catastrophe we face all comes from I-ness [manī] and you-ness [tū’ī]’ (Ilāhī-nāma, ed. Fu’ād Rūḥānī, v. 2015). Elsewhere, he writes: ‘A myriad indications of hypocrisy still remain within you as long as there is one atom of selfhood left / If you think yourself secure from selfhood [manī], both worlds will act as foes to you’ (Manṭiq al-ṭayr, ed. Shafī‘ī-Kadkanī, vv. 2948–9).
94 Twelfth Night, I.v.89.
95 Cf. Pūrjavādī, ‘Rindī-yi Ḥāfiẓ’, pp. 221f.
96 Twelfth Night, I.v.90. Olivia to Malvolio again.
97 Dīvān-i Ḥāfiẓ, ed. Khānlarī, ghazal 137: 6–7.
98 When in one ghazal (385: 3), Ḥāfiẓ maintains that ‘in our Path [ṭarīqat] it’s pure infidelity [kāfarī] to take offence’, Lāhūrī (Sharḥ-i ‘irfānī, IV, p. 2562) paraphrases the subtle Sufi metaphysical doctrine underlying Ḥāfiẓ’s unitary mystical vision as follows: ‘Our theosophical persuasion [mashrab] consists in keeping faith with and preserving any true bonds of relationship that w
e have formed with everyone, cheerfully bearing the burdens of blame of all and sundry, and not ever becoming distressed. The reason for this is that in our mystical way [ṭarīqat], according to the tenets of our theosophical persuasion, getting offended by attention to the illusion of what’s other [ghayr; i.e. than God] constitutes infidelity [kāfarī] and “hidden polytheism” or “associationism” [shirk-i khafī]. Those who have realized the spiritual station of pure divine Unity [maqām-i tawḥīd-i ṣarf] perceive through direct vision that save God Almighty, there is no other really existing Being and active Agent in existence, and that all other entities, qualities and actions are annihilated, null and void. They comprehend that all the delights that they experience are but radiant reflections cast by the light of absolute divine Beauty [jamāl-i muṭlaq] and consider that every pain and grief that afflicts them to be another ray cast by the light of absolute divine Majesty [jalāl-i muṭlaq]. If they were to become offended by some irritation whilst endowed with such traits of personality, they would thus be allowing someone else to participate and share in the divine Activity – and that would constitute heresy on the Sufi way [kufr-i ṭarīqat] and a “hidden polytheism”.’ Hidden polytheism is discussed below, p. 175.
99 Blake: Complete Writings, p. 754, vv. 27–8.
100 Milton, Paradise Lost, III: 681–4.
101 Khurramshāhī, ‘Mayl-i Ḥāfiẓ bih gunāh’, in his Dhihn u zabān-i Ḥāfiẓ, p. 77.
102 Ibid., p. 68. Elsewhere he observes: ‘Ḥāfiẓ’s had only one sole motivation in haranguing and assailing the Preacher, Ascetic, Sufi and Policeman throughout his Dīvān. That was his struggle against hypocrisy, for these figures were high representatives of the Pharisaical sanctimony and cant which typified his age’ (Ḥāfiẓ-nāma, II, p. 819).
Hafiz and the Religion of Love in Classical Persian Poetry Page 34