Research Paper – Hafiz

Khajeh Shamseddin Mohammad Hafiz, one of the world’s most renown poets of all time was born in Shiraz, south-central Iran. Little is known about the stages of his life. It is thought that the birth of Hafiz was anywhere between 1310-1325 A.D, which would have made it around the same time as the great English poet; Geoffrey Chaucer. The title Hafiz is a title given to those in society who memorize the Quran; which he had done this when he was a youngster. Hafiz did not come from a wealthy and known background. He worked at a bakery as a young adolescent. He was thought to be fairly ugly and not the best suitor for a beautiful woman of high ranking. However, it was known that Hafiz had astonishing talents when it came to poetry. It is not easy to be a well renown Poet in the land of Persia at the time, since it was and still is a land and culture of poets and beautiful poetry. Hafiz had significant impact on Iran, it’s people and more importantly on the world. “In the western world, many notables including Emerson, Goethe, and Garcia Lorca, composer Brahmas and even Nietzsche were deeply affected by him” (Sajjadi, and Mahdavi 2233). Goethe went as far as to say that Hafiz was the “God of poets” (Sajjadi, and Mahdavi 2234). He believed that according to Hafiz’s “notion of unity there is no disconnection between West and East” (Sajjadi, and Mahdavi 2234). This was a very beautiful and unifying image of the world that Hafiz and like-minds saw. The poets that had significant influence on Hafiz were Saadi of Shiraz who was a Sufi spiritual teacher, Farid-udin Attar, Jalal-udin Rumi and of course others. Hafiz himself turned out to be a great poet not just back in his time, but also for thousands of years to come. His burial site which he had turned into a beautiful garden, became a locals’ and tourist destination. People of all backgrounds and ages would and still go to visit Hafiz and to remember him by reading his deep poetry. Poetry is a predominant part of the Iranian culture and it is used in everyday language, by everyday people. The Farsi language itself is a poetic language like none other. It’s vast dictionary of many different words to explain such unique experiences and feelings is beyond extraordinary. Hafiz and like-poets such as Rumi have had their works translated into almost any language. Yet, despite the best poetic translators job well done, no translation has ever come close to their original beauty. Hafiz was not just another poet, he was a poet of spirituality. It is why for thousands of years to follow, people have followed his poetry as though he was some sort of a prophet. Hafiz’s poetry worked as an embodiment of a journey of a human being to ascend to the perfect Love, the perfect Beloved – the love of God – which was in truth human beings’ ultimate mission in life. 

Although specifics of Hafiz’s life are unknown, specifically the early stages, there is some information about his journey into poetry and reaching the ultimate love of God. He was known to have married in his twenties and had one child. His wife is referred to as Shakh-e-Nabat as a result of her incredible beauty. Many of Hafez’s poems were addressed to her (Shahriari 1).  He worked at a bakery as a young man and one day, 

one of the workers who delivered the bread was sick, and Hafiz had to deliver the bread to a certain quarter of Shiraz where the prosperous citizens lived. While taking the bread to a particular mansion, Hafiz’s eyes fell upon the form of a young woman who was standing on one of the mansion’s balconies. Her name was Shakh-e-Nabat which means “branch of sugarcane”. Her beauty immediate ly intoxicated Hafiz and he fell hopelessly in love with her. Her beauty had such a profound effect on him that he almost lost consciousness. At night he could not sleep and he no longer felt like eating. He learnt her name and he began to praise her in his poems (Smith, 32).

Hafiz had heard that Shakh-e-Nabat had been promised to wed the prince of Shiraz and came to a realization that his love for her was hopeless. Regardless, her beauty had filled his mind and he constantly thought of her. 

Then one day he remembered the famous ‘promise of Baba Kuhi.’ Baba Kuhi was a Perfect Master-Poet who had died in Shiraz in 1050 A.D., and had been buried about four miles from Shiraz, at a place called ‘Pir-i-sabz,’ meaning ‘the green old man,’ on a hill named after Baba Kuhi. The promise that Baba Kuhi had given before he died was that if anyone could stay awake for forty consecutive nights at his tomb he would be granted the gift of poetry, immortality, and his heart’s desire. Hafiz, interested in the third of these three, vowed to keep this vigil that no one had yet been able to keep (Smith 34).

Everyday, Hafiz would work at the bakery and walk past the mansion where Shakh-e-Nabat lived reciting his poetry for her. He kept living this way until the end of the forty day vigil. He had grown weak, yet had a fire in his eyes hoping for the promise of Baba Kuhi to come to life. 

Slowly he dragged his tired, small ugly body towards the mansion of Shakh-i- Nabat. She saw him coming and left the house; on meeting him, she declared that she preferred a man of genius to the son of a king. But Hafiz could not stop, for all that he was conscious of was that he had to light the lamp for the fortieth time and keep awake until morning. He tore himself from her and stumbled to wards the hill. Early the next morning the Angel Gabriel (some say Khizer) ap peared to him. Gabriel gave Hafiz a cup to drink which contained the Water of immortality, and declared that Hafiz had also received the gift of poetry. Then Gabriel asked Hafiz to express his heart’s desire. All the time that this was hap pening, Hafiz could not take his eyes off Gabriel. So great was the beauty of the Angel that Hafiz had forgotten the beauty of Shakh-i-Nabat. After Gabriel had asked the question, Hafiz thought: “If Gabriel the Angel of God is so beautiful, then how much more beautiful God must be.” Hafiz answered Gabriel: “I want God!” On hearing this, Gabriel directed Hafiz to a certain street in Shiraz where there was a shop selline, fruit and perfumes that was owned by a man named Mohammed Attar. Gabriel said that Attar was the Perfect Master, a God-realised soul, who had sent Gabriel for Hafiz’s sake, and that if Hafiz would serve Attar faithfully, then Attar promised that one day Hafiz would attain his heart’s desire (Smith, 35).

Of course, the influence of Attar and other Sufi poets at the time on Hafiz was fairly high. He spent most of his life, forty years, being the disciple of Attar and trying to still attain his heart’s ultimate desire. It is noteworthy to mention the significance of forty in poetry. The number forty is considered to be a religious number of days in which human beings cleanse themselves of worldly desires.  After forty years of the hardship of waiting and the constant poetry writing, he had his ultimate wish come true. His Beloved had finally come to him. In ghazal 217 couplets 1, he writes: 

Praise be to God what wonderful wealths’ given to me tonight; 

Because my Divine Beloved came to me, quite suddenly, tonight. 

Hafiz’s main works include “Divan-e-Shams” which consists of over 45,000 “ghazals” which consists of more poems and tales to teach and share specific life lessons. The conventions of the ghazal, 

consist of a prescription for the poem’s length, the use of the poet’s pen name (esm-e taḵalloṣ or simply taḵalloṣ) in the last or the penultimate line as his signa ture, and a few other prosodic features (such as monorhyme and rhyme in the opening couplet) which have become typical of this poetic form, though they were never exclusive to it. By the 8th/14th century, deviations from this pattern had become exceedingly rare; however, these “rules,” so prevalent in poetic practice, were never properly discussed by writers on poetics, who continued to use the term ḡazal in its generic sense of “love poetry” (“Hafiz’s Poetic Art”).

The literary background of ghazals are similar to that of sonnets in English literature, which have been used since the early middle ages. “The ghazal is the primary medium of expression used by Hafiz of Shiraz.  For centuries he has been praised for his incomparable mastery of the form” (“The Ghazal Form”, 1). The form of ghazal was not exclusive to Hafiz, yet he made it his own. He managed to make a difficult form of poetry more intriguing and prolific. Hafiz uses different literary devices to encourage different thought processes. He takes various roles as a poet to make that happen. In some poems, Hafiz is like a playwright who is acting all the parts: the lover, the disciple, the master and the guide, the voice of God and sometimes even the Reader. Often I, you, he or she and Hafiz refer to the same person (Ladinsky, 42). He also uses his name often throughout the poetry, as perhaps a form of signing the poems. “God is referred to as the Friend, the Beloved, the Beautiful one” (Ladinsky, 42). 

Hafiz constantly discusses love and madness as though they are almost the same thing. His love for the Beloved is so passionate that it borders madness. He is mad for the Beloved and would do anything to achieve that desire. In a ghazal translated in English, he writes: 

I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing Light, of your own Being! 

This specific ghazal refers to what Hafiz discusses throughout most of his poetry. He speaks constantly of this love for the Beloved being so deep, more that any other kind of love, despite its beauty and perfection, it will fail to come close to the love of the Beloved. He is saying that he wishes he could show us, the readers, that love of the Beloved that is actually right within us; a part of what we already are. It is ironic because as human beings, we are out in our societies looking for different “loves”. Whether it be a material love or extreme love and fascination with certain people. Hafiz has this exact extreme form of love and fascination for Shakh-e-Nabat and despite that love, he finds a love beyond even that of Shakh-e-Nabat’s. He refers to this “gambling” we have to do as human beings. We gamble the loves of this material mother earth, in order to get something much greater; the love of the Beloved. Hafiz is a poet of love; all different kinds and levels of love. He writes: 

All I know is Love, and I find my heart infinite and everywhere, I hear the voice of every creature and plant, every world and sun and galaxy – signing the Beloved’s name! 

It is important to note that the first person he uses here is not just him, he is bringing him and the reader, which is equal to him together and stating that this Love is within all of us and is incalculable. He refers to the “voice of every creature, every world and sun and galaxy”, putting emphasis on the fact that it is all equal and one, sharing the same Love that is within all of us, yet greater than all as well. 

In the Persian culture, poetry has much significance. It is similar to that of opera for the Italian culture. It is a part of daily, regular conversations and social gatherings. Despite the influence of poets such as Attar, Saadi and Rumi, Hafiz had his own special significance on not just his own life and coming into being, but more importantly the significance he made onto the world of poets. He was referred to as the “God of poets” by Goethe and inspired him to write his own version of the Divan. He believed that him and Hafiz were soul twins. The reason for this type of magnitude was Hafiz’s message. Everything surrounds love in this world we live in as human beings; despite Hafiz. We have a love for everything – our significant others, our material belongings, even our families. Therefore, human beings will forever have a connection and understanding with “love” that is just innate, making it more of a curiosity to find the love of the Beloved that Hafiz so often talks about. His message carries much importance because it is what we all as humans are meant to do; let go of all different kinds of love and to be so in love with finding the love of God; which in time and effort we all can have. Hafiz says that we do not need to look everywhere for it, when it is right within us and therefore anywhere we want. Similar to many other poets and prophets, he also believes that we are created in the image of God and all his good attributes and qualities are confined in us. That is the perfect Love. 

In conclusion, Hafiz lived a life of an incredible process of learning and understanding. Ladinsky points out that Hafiz discusses the idea of the perfect Love. This idea that human beings can achieve the perfect love is extraordinary, however, it is shared by many spiritual systems; union with the father, God realization, the highest development of consciousness. Hafiz says that the one who attains this “God realization” would be referred to as a “perfect master”. Ladinsky informs us that the perfect master embodies a perfect understanding of the beauty and harmony of the universe. 

A perfect master experiences life as an infinite and continuous flow of divine love, swirling in, around and through all forms of life and all realms of creation. It is an experience of total unity with all life and all beings. A perfect master personifies perfect joy, perfect knowing and perfect love and expresses these qualities in every activity of life (Ladinsky, 56).

Hafiz inspires us to take this road and journey to finding, knowing and understanding the perfect Love. He “describes some of the preparations required for the inner journey of love. He urges us to let go of habitual negative attitudes and unnecessary attachments, which only weigh us down. To make this journey, we must be light, happy and free to go dancing! (Ladinsky, 58). Hafiz’s teachings and message spread out to the world though his poetry, is not only significant for living a well-lived life but a beauty in and of itself. It is what we all as humans need to be and embody, in order to have a unified world with nothing but the perfect Love within it. 

Works Cited 

Ḥāfiẓ, and Daniel James. Ladinsky. I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy: Renderings of Hafiz. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

“Hafez Iii. Hafez’s Poetic Art.” Encyclopedia Iranica. 2002. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.

Newell, James R. “The Ghazal Form.” The Songs of Hafiz. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2016. <http://www.thesongsofhafiz.com/ghazal.htm>.

Sajjadi, Seyed Mahdi, and Zainab Mahdavi. “The Comparative Study: Aesthetic and Love in Hafez and Goethe’s Poetry in Order to Awaken and Bring Perfection in Global Education.” Academic Journals – Education Research and Reviews 8.23 (2013): 2233-240. 10 Dec. 2013. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.

Shahriari, Shahriar. “Biography of Hafiz.” Hafiz on Love. N.p., 1995. Web. 22 Apr. 2016. <http://www.hafizonlove.com/bio/>.

Smith, P. (1986). Divan of Hafiz.  Melbourne: New Humanity Books. Copyright 1986 Paul Smith.