Hafez
Khwajeh Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi (also spelled Hafiz) (خواجه شمسالدین محمد حافظ شیرازی in Persian) was a Persian mystic and poet. He was born sometime between the years 1310-1337 in Shiraz , Persia (Iran), son of a certain Baha-ud-Din. His lyrical poems, ghazals are noted for their beauty and bring to fruition the love, mysticism, and early Sufi themes that had long pervaded Persian poetry.
Life
Very little credible information is known about Hafez's life, particularly its early part; there is a great deal of more or less mythical anecdote. Judging from his poetry, he must have had a good education, or else found the means to educate himself. Scholars generally agree on the following:
His father Baha-ud-Din is said to have been a coal merchant who died when Hafez was a child, leaving him and his mother in debt. It seems probable that he met with Attar of Shiraz, a scholar, and became his disciple. He is said to have later become a poet in the court of Abu Ishak, and so gained fame and influence in his hometown. It is possible that Hafez gained a position as a teacher in a Qur'anic school at this time.
In his early thirties Mubariz Muzaffar captured Shiraz and seems to have ousted Hafez from his position. Hafez apparently regained his position for a brief span of time after the Shah Shuja attempted to regain the throne. But shortly afterwards Hafez was forced into self-imposed exile when rivals and religious characters he had criticized began slandering him. Another possible cause of his disgrace may have been a love affair he had with a beautiful Turkish woman, Shakh-e Nabat, about whom Hafez wrote a number of romantic poems. Hafez fled from Shiraz to Isfahan and Yazd for his own safety.
At the age of fifty-two, Hafez once again regained his position at court, and possibly received a personal invitation from Shah Shuja, who pleaded with him to return. He obtained a more solid position after Shah Shuja's death, when Tamerlane ascended to the throne.
It is generally believed that Hafez died at the age of 69. His tomb is located in the Musalla Gardens of Shiraz, Iran, and remains a popular tourist destination, with millions of Persians and other visitors making the pilgrimage to Hafez's tomb each year.
Hafez, unlike most artists, obtained immense fame and fortune during his lifetime, and, never one to be particularly humble, he wrote his own epitaph:
- I have never seen any poetry sweeter than thine, O Hafez,
- I swear it by that Koran which thou keepest in thy bosom.
(Translation by Edward Granville Browne.)
Works and influence
There is no definitive version of his collected works (or diwan); editions vary from 573 to 994 poems. Only since the 1940s has a sustained scholarly attempt been made - by Mas'ud Farzad, Qasim Ghani and others in Iran - to authenticate Hafez's work, and remove errors introduced by later copyists and censors. However, the reliability of such work has been questioned, and in the words of Hafez scholar Iraj Bashiri.... "there remains little hope [in Iran] for an authenticated diwan".
Although often denounced by more orthodox and fundamentalists Muslims for being a hedonist who celebrated the pleasures of earthly world as much as the spiritual world, Hafez greatly influenced subsequent Persian poets, and, in translation, left his mark on a number of important Western writers of the 19th-century, such as Goethe. His work was first translated into English in 1771 by William Jones. Few English translations of Hafez have been truly successful. His poetry is notoriously ambiguous, and interpreting him requires care and scholarship, the search for his words' literal and symbolic meanings, all of which is difficult to do for Western scholars studying a now ancient form of the Persian language. Additionally, Hafez often refers to contemporary events and figures without providing any background; his poetry assumes implicitly that the reader has a thorough understanding of Persian literature and history, and much Hafez scholarship continues to focus on explicating all the allusions in his works.
In a study inspired by Edward Said's work on Orientalism, the critic Julie Meisami has commented on the history of Hafez translations. She remarks on how the investment of the western scholars, in seeing the east in particular ways, necessitated by their historical moment noted by Said, is exemplified in the changes made in the image of Hafez through European translations that have answered both to cultural needs and profit considerations.
Sample Translations
The meaning behind the poetry of Hafiz must, as with all art, be decided by the patron and observer of the work. Though credited as being "The Interpreter of Mysteries," there remain many mysteries regarding Hafiz that have yet to be solved. As the poet himself had said:
- Am I a sinner or a saint,
- Which one shall it be?
- Hafiz holds the secret of his own mystery...
One of Hafez's greatest fondnesses was for wine, so when the Muzaffarids captured Shiraz in 1353 and declared prohibition it is no surprise that Hafez wrote a mournful elegy for the loss:
- Though wine gives delight, and the wind distills the perfume of the rose,
- Drink not the wine to the strains of the harp, for the constable is alert.
- Hide the goblet in the sleeve of the patchwork cloak,
- For the time, like the eye of the decanter, pours forth blood.
- Wash the wine stain from your devish cloak with tears,
- For it is the season of piety, and the time for abstinence.
(Translation by Edward Browne.)
Of course, Hafez's fondness for wine was overshadowed by that of love:
- I said I long for thee
- You said your sorrows will end.
- Be my moon, rise up for me
- Only if it will ascend.
- I said, from lovers learn
- How with compassion burn
- Beauties, you said in return
- Such common tricks transcend.
- Your visions, I will oppose
- My mind's paths, I will close
- You said, this night-farer knows
- Another way will descend.
- With the fragrance of your hair
- I'm lost in my world's affair
- You said, if you care, you dare
- On its guidance can depend.
- I said hail to that fresh air
- That the morning breeze may share
- Cool is that breeze, you declare
- With beloved's air may blend.
- I said, your sweet and red wine
- Granted no wishes of mine
- You said, in service define
- Your life, and your time spend.
- I said, when will your kind heart
- Thoughts of friendship start?
- Said, speak not of this art
- Until it's time for that trend.
- I said, happiness and joy
- Passing time will destroy.
- Said, Hafiz, silence employ
- Sorrows too will end my friend.
(Translation by Shahriar Shahriari.)
- I have learned so much from God
- That I can no longer call myself
- a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew.
- The Truth has shared so much of Itself with me
- That I can no longer call myself
- a man, a woman, an angel, or even a pure soul.
- Love has befriended Hafiz so completely.
- It has turned to ash and freed me
- Of every concept and image my mind has ever known.
The work of Hafez is inspired by the Sufi teachings of his time, in which passionate love and the drinking of (forbidden) wine are metaphors for ecstatic religious states that cannot be otherwise described.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- E.G. Browne. Literary History of Persia. (Four volumes, 2,256 pages, and twenty-five years in the writing). 1998. ISBN 0-7007-0406-X
- Will Durant, The Reformation. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957
- Jan Rypka, History of Iranian Literature. Reidel Publishing Company. ASIN B-000-6BXVT-K
External links
- Like A Life Giving Sun - short poem by Hafez
- Hafiz, Shams al-Din Muhammad A Biography by Prof. Iraj Bashiri, University of Minnesota
- Hafiz Poems - Translated G.Bell
- Hafez Poems - Translated by Shahriar Shahriari
- Hafez Project - Search the content of Hafez poems.
- Love and reason with Hafez
- Hafiz's Tomb in Shiraz
- Comprehensive set of scholarly entries about Hafez, on the Encyclopædia Iranica (Columbia University).
- 500 original Hafez Shirazi Ghazaliyat in Persian
- Hafiz of Shiraz: New Nightingale, New Rose
- The Songs of Hafiz
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