SOURCE: "Ambiguity: A Study in the Use of Religious Terminology in the Poetry of Hafiz," in Intoxication, Earthly and Heavenly: Seven Studies on the Poet Hafiz of Shiraz, edited by Michael Glunz and J. Christoph Burgel, Peter Lang, Inc., 1991, pp. 8-39.

[In the following essay, Burgel argues that Hafiz's ghazals resist an easy understanding and must be examined as part of a large, complex, and ambiguous context.]

I. The difficulty of understanding Hafiz correctly does not lie in his lexicon or his grammar. He does not use rare or difficult words and his phraseology is simple and very clear. There is hardly any single verse of ^*Hafiz posing a problem in itself. However, there is also hardly a ghazal not posing a problem of meaning and, consequently, of interpretation. In other words, the obfuscation of meaning is created by the juxtaposition of verses that seem to contradict each other, be it by their moral implications or by their belonging to different ontological layers.

What makes Hafiz so difficult, then, is the complexity of his poetic universe. What is the message of this poet? We hardly face this problem when reading, say, Sa'di or 'Umar Khayyam, 'Attar or Rumi, even though they count among the main forerunners of Hafiz, and Hafiz' poetry bears many traits that can be traced back to the works of those predecessors.

Let us give just one striking example for the obfuscation of a seemingly clear meaning through juxtaposition. The following verse seems to convey a clear Islamic message, concerned with the ritual water, or perhaps mystical wine:

There is a difference between the water of
  Khizr, which is in the darkness,
And our water, the source of which is Allahu
 akbar.
(KH 40,9)

Allahu akbar—"God is the greatest!" is the Islamic battle-cry. The water springing from it could thus even refer to the blood of martyrs of the Holy War or, at any rate, Islamic values ranging above the "Water of Life" which is hidden in darkness and guarded by Khizr (in other verses, Hafiz calls his poetry "Water of Life," which shows the problem of elucidating one verse by another of his verses). At any rate, the religious message of the verse seems to be indisputable. Yet, it is totally put into question by the preceding verse of the ghazal:

Shiraz and the water of Ruknabad and the
  pleasant zephir-
Don't blame it, it is the mole in the face of
 the seven climates!

Here, the atmosphere is that of an outing in the vicinity of Shiraz with implications blameworthy in the eyes of the addressee, whom we may easily imagine to be the "ascetic" or a preacher in the mosque (see below). Furthermore, the verse immediately reminds the reader of the famous verse in the "Fair Turk" ghazal, where a similar scene is described, with wine this time expressly mentioned:

Cup-bearer, bring the remaining wine, since in
 Paradise you'll not find
the banks of Ruknabad's stream or Musalla's
  rose garden.
(KH 3,2)

But it must also be mentioned that the Persian word translated here by "remaining" is ambiguous and could be rendered—this is the official reading—by "everlasting" or "eternal," even though this meaning seems to contradict the context.

The question of what was the intrinsic meaning of his poetry apparently already intrigued his contemporaries and it has continued to be an issue throughout the centuries up to the present day.¹ There are, at least, two opposite schools, one that takes his verses at face value, which makes him predominantly an advocate of enjoying life and love, the other that reads his poetry as the enciphered message of a mystic or a gnostic.

The mystical or "gnostic" ('irfani) reading was, and still is the one mainly propagated in Persia; today, it is even the official interpretation of the ruling class;² and this is understandable, for it is by such exegesis that one takes the edge off Hafiz' attacks on the representatives of exoteric Islam, i.e. the mollahs, the influential class of Hafiz' time and ruling class of present-day Iran and other Islamic states.

The non-mystical interpretation was favoured in sober Sunnite Turkey, its outstanding protagonist being the Turkish-writing Bosnian scholar Sudi whose commentary influenced the Viennese orientalist Hammer-Purgstall in his German rendering of the divan.³

This, again, was to unleash Goethe's enthusiasm for the "Holy Hafiz," his Eastern "twin," as he labelled him in one of his poems.⁴ With this first and complete translation of Hafiz' ghazals into a European language, the poet's name became known to Occidental intellectuals and the problem of how to read him, how to define his message, started being discussed at least among some Western orientalists.

Goethe perceived the element of insincerity in the mystical exegesis of verses talking of wine and drunkenness, the tavern and the cup-bearer, the beautiful lad who would rob the heart of every beholder, if all this was to refer to religious truths, if the cup-bearer was to be a metaphor for Muhammad and the wine for Islamic gnosis. He discussed the problem in two poems of his "Westostlicher Divan." In the poem "Offenbar Geheimnis" ("Open Secret") Goethe rejected the reduction of meaning to the mystical sphere as a dubious trick, without however denying that there is a true mystical dimension in Hafiz' poetry:

They have called you, o holy Hafiz,
The mystical tongue.
And have not recognized, these scholars of the
 word,
The value of the word.
They call you mystical, because reading you
They think foolish things,
Pouring out in your name
Their impure wine.

You, however, are mystically pure,
While they don't u understand you.
For, without being pious, you are redeemed.

This is what they don't want to admit.

In the next poem, "Wink" ("Hint"), Goethe corrected himself by emphasizing that poetical language is never single-layered:

And yet, they are right, those whom I scold,
For that a word is not a simple ("onefold")
  value,
Should go without saying …

Friedrich Rückert, the German poet and orientalist and one of the most illustrious translators of oriental poetry ever to have lived followed Goethe in this view. Using an ingenious pun he described the nature of Hafiz' poetry as evoking "something metaphysical" (ubersinnliches) when he talks "about something sensual" (über Sinnliches) and vice versa, so that the secret of its poetry is "unübersinnlich"—one of Rückert's many word-coinings meaning something like "inextricable by thought."⁵

Goethe and Rückert, and, in their wake, Hans Heinrich Schaeder, who found that Hafiz' style was marked by an intentional oscillation,⁶ were thus closer to the kernel of the problem of Hafiz' poetry than were later authors, who often fell victim to the temptation of simplifying its meaning or reducing it to one particular layer. This holds true for some minor German poets of the past such as Daumer and Bethge who imitated Hafiz and reduced his message to shallow hedonism, as well as for some Iranists of this century who pigeonholed him instead of admitting his problematical in-between.

Thus, Lescot believed that, basically, Hafiz' poetry was panegyrical and that occasional mystical overtones were hardly more than a tribute to the taste of his time.⁷ Two other scholars, Hillmann and Rehder, denied that there was a mystical element, at all.⁸ Braginskiy, a Sovyet Iranist of the Marxist school, stylized Hafiz into a revolutionary poet.⁹

Much more differentiated is what Arberry wrote in the introduction to his Hafiz anthology. He sees the gist of Hafiz' message in a "philosophy of unreason," a "doctrine of intellectual nihilism," even though this latter term does not really reflect Arberry's decription of Hafiz' spiritual attitude, which includes "precious moments of unveiled vision," in which man "will perceive the truth that resolves all vexing problems."¹⁰

Incidentally, again under the influence of Marxism, together with structuralism, Hafiz' message was reduced to actual nihilism by the Polish scholar Skalmowski (now Louvain), who arrived at the strange conclusion that the poet's epithet "the Tongue of the Invisible" (lisan ulghayb) actually meant "the Tongue of Nothingness" (Die Zunge des Nichts). Furthermore, Skalmowski holds the Beloved in Hafiz' poetry to be a metaphor for the reader and adjusts the meaning of the rest to this central constellation, a hardly plausible idea.¹¹

H. Broms' effort to illuminate our poet by aligning him with the European symbolists seems to me similarly unsuccessful, since the obscurity in Hafiz does not result from the invention of new, unheard-of metaphors, but from the arbitrary play on, and mixing of, various generic traditions.¹²

Hafiz' fan-like oscillation led—or rather misled—Wickens, a scholar whose merit is usually indisputable, to perceive ten different layers of meaning in one single poem, the famous ghazal about the "Fair Turk."¹³ Strangely enough, however, he overlooked the most important and evident meaning of the poem, the message of love; this provoked a caustic criticism from another British Iranist.¹⁴ On the other hand, some fruitful new departures were made in recent times in order to cope with the many contradictions in Hafiz' poetry. Julie Meisami pointed out the various addressees and different speakers or "voices" in Hafiz' ghazals; through this stratagem, as in a ritual, the main types of a medieval (and, to a large extent, still contemporary) Muslim society were put on stage.¹⁵

Claire Kappler looked for code-words or principle verses in a poem to which the remaining verses then would have to be subordinated and interpreted accordingly. She proposes to apply this method also on the larger scale of the whole divan. This is an interesting idea that is, however, not devoid of a certain arbitrariness.¹⁶

The present writer has made various attempts to come closer to a true understanding of Hafiz' poetry, emphasizing amongst others the opposition of Reason and Love¹⁷ and the importance of the concept of rind. Even though its original meaning is something like "rogue" or "scoundrel," this term has a totally positive connotation in Hafiz: it refers to a character opposed to the hypocrisy of the clergy, somebody who "does not care" (la ubali) what people say about him, who drinks wine, but does not harm anybody.¹⁸

I also pointed out that, apart from the hedonistic, mystical, and panegyrical layers of meaning there exists a poetological one. More than once, Hafiz uses "wine" as a metaphor for poetry, which opens a new dimension in a number of verses, e.g. those in which the image of the friend appears in the wine-cup. The Friend/Beloved might here be understood—not as the reader, but rather as the male muse, whom our poet addresses alternatively as hatif ("the inner voice"), as Surush (a Zoroastrian angel), and as Hafiz, when this name is given to a figure separate from the lyrical I, the alter ego of the poet. There are even some lines in which he compares his poetry to a beautiful bride, whom he, as her wooer, unveils. To present a long epical poem to a prince as a well-bred virgin was a common device in Persian poetic tradition. However, these aspects are rather like momentary flashes and cannot be extended to the whole of Hafiz' poetry; they are not a general clue for decoding his message.¹⁹

In what follows I shall approach the problem from a somewhat new angle, I shall proceed from the tension between the sacred and the profane, the frequent and quite particular use of a religious terminology, trying to lay bare the "message" implied in this linguistic stratagem.²⁰

II. Hafiz does not, I think, advance any radically new idea. Traces of all his main conceptions can be found in his predecessors. The cult of love, one of his major topics, may be followed back to early Arabic poetry and ultimately to Neoplatonic and Christian thought. Efforts to sacralize love occur already in poets of the so-called 'Udhri school. Minstrels like al-'Abbas ibn al-Ahnaf or Bashshar ibn Burd used religious language to express their feelings (see below).

On the other hand, love had become a central notion in Islamic mysticism. The love of the "friend" appeared in mystical poetry, at the latest since Sana'i. The "friend" is usually seen as a symbol for God. But in the case of Djalal ud-Din Rumi he is of flesh and blood. Rumi does not refrain from singing his praise in the language of—surely sublime, but nevertheless unmistakably sensual—erotic poetry.²¹ On the other hand great mystics like al-Halladj and Ibn 'Arabi propagated the idea that love is the central secret, the very substance of any religion, manifesting itself not only in the love of God or an earthly relection of it, but in social behaviour, human relations in general.

Let us quote just a few verses from various periods in order to highlight this tradition of sacred love or use of sacred language in speaking of love: Djamil, one of the outstanding early 'Udhrite poets, sang of his beloved Buthaina:²²

She is the full moon and the (other) ladies are
 stars,
And how great is the difference between full
 moon and stars!
She excels mankind in beauty just as
"The night of Power" excels a thousand
 months.²³

This is a clear allusion to Sura 97: the Night of Power in which the first revelation of the Koran was sent down "is better than a thousand months."

In the 3./9. century al-'Abbas ibn al-Ahnaf, the minstrel at the court of Harun al-Rashid used many religious references in his praise of his beloved fauz:²⁴

O you who ask about Fauz and her shape!
Look up to the moon, if you don't see her!
It is as if the Paradise was her abode,
and she came to mankind as a divine sign and
  example.
God did not create the like of her on earth.
I don't reckon her to be a human creature.²⁵

If the beloved being is so celestial, it is small wonder that the act of loving her should be regarded as a kind of adoration or even religion itself. Several Arabic poets have made this point in various ways. Ibn Hazm, the author of the famous "Necklace of the Dove," the gracious manual on courtly love, drew the parallel between monotheism and true love:

I love you with a love that knows no waning,
whereas some of men's loves are midday
 mirages.
I bear for you a pure, sincere love, and in
  [my] heart
there is a clear picture and an inscription
  [declaring] my love for you.
Moreover, if my soul were filled by anything
 but you, I would pluck it
out., ²⁶

And again, in another poem, he emphasizes:

He who claims to love two lyingly commits
 perjury,
just as Mani is belied by his principles.
In the heart there is no room for two
  beloveds,
nor is the most recent of things always the
  second.
Just as reason is one, not recognizing
any creator than the One, the Clement,
Likewise the heart is one and loves only one,
though he should put you off or draw you to
  him.²⁷

Another Andalusian poet, al-A'ma at-Tutili ("The Blind Man of Toledo"), compares his beloved to the Kaaba in one of his muwashshahat:²⁸

Oh Kaaba to which all hearts journey forth!

And he proposes that his tears should serve as pebbles (for the ceremony at Mina, the so-called stoning of the Devil), his heart as victim (for the 'id al-adha, the "sacrificial feast"), in other words, he proclaims his readiness to sacrifice his life, if necessary, and die the death of love, thus enacting the old 'Udhrite attitude of total love in a new Islamicized guise.²⁹

The absoluteness of love claimed in these and similar verses could easily take on heretical overtones, e.g. in the following verse of Bashshar ibn Burd addressed to his beloved 'Abda:

I had no Lord except God, o 'Abda,
until your face became my Lord!³⁰

The emphasis on true love being the love of one man for one woman conveys an implicit criticism of Islamic sex morals is, at any rate, totally at variance with the hadith (utterance of Muhammad): "The best of my community are those with the biggest number of wives."³¹

The "religion of love" itself in such verses could thus be understood as something like a counter-movement, a counter-religion to orthodox Islam. Likewise, it furnished arguments and metaphors for Islamic mysticism, in which, however, absolute love was no longer the love of a human being, but of God, even though it could be experienced on a preliminary level; in other words, human love could be interpreted as a symbol, or a prelude of, "the bridge" leading to the heavenly love,³² with carnal union foreshadowing the mystical union; a mystical "friend" could, as Shams ud-Din from Tabriz did for Djalal ud-Din Rumi, represent the manifestation of the divine in a human body.

III. All these potential developments of the idea of love had taken place and shape and entered Persian poetry long before Hafiz. The same holds true for other concepts, all more or less linked with the religious sphere, that we meet in his poetry.

One is the recourse to Zoroastrianism as an escape from asceticism, the legal aspects of orthodox Islam. This is, of course, rather an Iranian element. We find a pristine vestige of it in one of the earliest remnants of new Persian poetry, a line attributed to the poet Daqiqi, one of the forerunners of Firdawsi. At the end of a bacchic poem, he confesses having chosen four things of the world: ruby lips, the sound of the harp, purple-coloured wine, and the religion of Zoroaster.³³

The strange neighbourhood of hedonism and the Zoroastrian religion can be explained by the social fact that, like in Christian cloisters, wine was available also in the dayr-i mughan, the convent of the Magians. Those who drank wine in an Islamic society would, of course, arouse the suspicion of the pious. They were given unfriendly names such as "ruffian," scoundrel" (qalandar, 'ayyar, awbash, qallash) or the already mentioned "rogue" (rind).³⁴ Yet, instead of being ashamed they "did not care"³⁵ and they even adopted these names as honourable epithets and boasted of their rindi, their qalandardom. Actually, qalandari became the name of a mystical order, and great mystical poets like Sana'i or Djalal ud-Din Rumi did not hesitate to call themselves rind and qalandar.³⁶

Here are some typical lines by Sana'i showing the mixture of these elements:³⁷

Saqi, give wine, since nothing but wine breaks
  fasting,
So I may rid myself for some time of that
  delusive asceticism!
The riches of the family of man do not have
  any value,

The kingdom of Parvez must be regarded as
  the road's dust.
The religion of Zoroaster and the rule of
  qalandardom
Should now and then be made the provisions
  of the lover's journey.
Throw all the (earthly) means into the fire and
  sit gaily down!
rindi and not-having are the best things for
  the Day of Resurrection!³⁸

Similar verses occur in the divan and the Mukhtarnama, a collection of quatrains, by the mystical poet 'Attar, particularly in a section entitled "Qalandar and Wine Poems," where one finds e.g. the following quatrain:

In my love of you, I shall change my religion,
I shall become a disciple of Christendom,³⁹
I shall take on the fourfold girdle (zunnar) of
  the Zoroastrians,
I shall leave my (Islamic) turban as a pawn at
the tavern.⁴⁰

If the religion of Zoroaster could serve as an escape from the yoke of the Islamic shari 'a, another form of escapism, developed in mystical circles, was labelled malamatiya, meaning the "people of reproach," those who, intentionally, behaved in an improper, objectionable way, in order, so they argued, to avoid hypocrisy.⁴¹

Another element that has to be mentioned is the coming in use of wine imagery in mystical language. It is certainly a strange phenomenon that the forbidden wine should have become the symbol for mystical intoxication in an Islamic environment. And we must remind the reader that, before this imagery developed with Persian mystics, Arabic tavern poets like Abu Nuwas⁴² had made a totally unholy use of religious allusions, desacralizing Koranic language and Islamic notions and, as it were, sacralizing their bacchanalian debaucheries, in verses that sometimes sound like the frivolous liturgies of a religion of wine and homosexual pleasures.⁴³

I permit the prohibited beaker, for I am rich.
But I shall renounce it, as soon as I am poor.
If my riches soared as high as my pleasure,
I would cause connaisseurs like Cesar and
  Khusraw to fall into oblivion.
Putting my confidence in God, who pardons
  every Muslim,
I do not detach myself from the golden drop,
  as long as I live!
Nor from the pretty eyes of the lustful one,
  who appears to you like as a
basil-stalk, swaying and green,
Girdled in a zunnar and with sick lids over
  his eye-balls,
And lips that are sugar for whoever should
 suck them.
A blind man on whom he, awake or asleep,
 bestows his nearness, will
become seeing.
He falls down, drunken and prostrate before
 the pure one in the chalice,
blessing it, when they mix it, and saying "God
  is great!"⁴⁴

In using the imagery of the tavern for their religious experiences the mystics could thus, at least partly, make use of that language by just reversing its polarity. It was due to their "mightiness" that they were able to do that.⁴⁵ They would, however, usually take care to underscore the purely spiritual quality of their wine and their intoxication. Nevertheless, the linguistic stratagem was certainly not without ambiguity. And the same ambiguity is palpable when divine love is described with the language of sensual love. But both procedures had, so to speak, their model in the Koranic descriptions of the paradise. These heavenly pleasures, including maidens and boys and wine, must certainly surpass their earthly counterparts, but the Koran, obviously in lack of an adequate, truly celestial language, describes them with earthly speech, thus secularizing the Heaven and ennobling the earthly pleasures of the flesh with a divine bliss. Furthermore, we should not forget that the Koran itself introduced the notion of ambiguity in grouping two kinds of verses in the divine revelation, those that are "firm" or univocal (muhkam) and others that are "ambiguous" (mutashabih) (Sura 3,7).

IV. If we ask what Hafiz added to these elements, the answer is probably that, rather than enhancing the inherited traditions by new concepts, he refined them, playing on them with graceful images; he intertwined them so as to weave an ingenious network of allusive relations between these various layers, producing a rich intertextuality, and appealing to the reader's ability to discern his message through the oscillating veil of ambiguous metaphors, puns, allusions, double-entendres. Modifying one of his favorite metaphors we might say that Hafiz invites the reader to behold his smiling face as it appears and fades in the sparkling wine, the water-of-life of his poetry.

We shall now present and, where nescessary, discuss a few of Hafiz' verses in which religious terms are used, an undertaking which has of late become an easy task thanks to the extremely helpful index prepared by Dr. Daniela Meneghini.⁴⁶

Of the 230 verses in which the poet speaks of love we shall for the moment quote only the following:

The temple of Love has a higher portal than
 that of reason,
he kisses its threshold who has his soul in his
  sleeve (is ready to give it
away for the beloved).
(KH 117,2)

We need only confront this with one or two of those verses in which Hafiz praises his beloved in a totally wordly way, to become aware of the difference, the gap between two apparently incompatible poles:

My idol, who did not go to school nor learn
 to write,
became the "problem-instructor" of a hundred
  teachers by one twinkling.
(KH 163,2)

Wine of two years and a sweetheart of
 fourteen,
this is enough for my commerce with small
  and big.
(KH 251,9)

The official commentators of Hafiz have no problems in pinpointing the religious meaning of such verses. Thus, according to them, the former refers to Muhammad's ummiya, his illiteracy, which, according to Muslim tradition, makes the miracle of his prophecy all the more remarkable.

However this may be, it is clear that, in the one case, Hafiz himself uses religious language, whereas in the other he moves in a totally wordly sphere.

The above line (KH 117,2), even though it uses harim for "temple," does not sound particularly Islamic; other verses do; they allude to the main Islamic rites of ablution, prayer, fasting, and the pilgrimage. Like Sa'di and others before him, Hafiz declares his love to be his religion (din).

It is a long time that the passion for idols is
   my religion,
My grieved heart is enlivened by this grief.
(KH 53,1)

This religion of love is clearly opposed to the religion of the ascetic, which figure, in turn, is only a symbol for orthodox, legalistic Islam. In Hafiz' poetry, the Islamic rites are either discarded or given a new function. First of all, the state of purity is no longer achieved by the ritual ablution, but by the ablution of love:

I used tears for the ritual washing (ghusl), for
  the adherents of the path say:
First become pure, and then direct your look
  upon the pure one.
(KH 258,7)

The moment I made the ablution (wuzu) from
 the source of love,
I spoke four Allahu akbar over all that exists.
(KH 21,2)

When a lover does not make his ablution with
 his heart's blood,
His love is not sincere, says the Mufti of
 Love.
(KH 254,4)

In one ghazal, the question of ritual purity is the dominating motif, occurring in three of the six verses of the poem. However, here tears and blood are enhanced by a new and very different element:

The gnostic made his ablution (taharat kard)
 with the clear liquid of wine,
since, in the. morning, he went to the tavern.
Blessed be the prayer and the poverty of those
 who achieved purity
(taharat) from headache by their tears and
 their heart-blood.
Should the Imam of the community ask,
tell him, Hafiz made the ablution (taharat
  kard) with wine.
(KH 128,1,3,6)

If this would seem to sound offensive in the ears of an orthodox muslim (Persian readers became, however, soon accustomed to this kind of speech), it is offensive only because of the hearer's value system, since there is no open contumely in the words used. This is typical of Hafiz' criticism of exoteric Islam, as many of the following examples will confirm.

Ritual purity is the precondition for the correct execution of any ritual act in Islam. No wonder, therefore, that Hafiz extends his playful use of the religious sphere also to prayer and pilgrimage. Let us first consider some verses dealing—and often rather doing away—with prayer. Apart from ablution, they usually concern one of the three other prerequisites of Islamic prayer: the qibla or direction of Mecca, into which worshippers have to turn their faces during prayer, the mihrab, which, in a mosque, indicates this direction, and the sadjdjada or prayer-carpet used by the worshipper to be on clean ground, if he is not in a mosque. All three elements will, as we may easily now predict, either be substituted or receive a new function in Hafiz' religion of love. Most frequent is his concern with the erotic mihrab, the eye-brows of his beloved, a substitution based on a poetic comparison: the eye-brows resemble the vault of the prayer-niche.

Those who have made the ablution with their
 heart-blood,
Will pray before those vaulted mihrab-like
 eye-brows.
(KH 127,4)

The eye-brows of the friend are the mihrab of
 happiness.
Do rub your face there and ask your wish
 from him.
(KH 405,2)

Hafiz, go and prostrate yourself before his
  mibrab-like eyebrow!
For you will never make a true prayer except
  there.
(KH 471)

There is no other mihrab for Hafiz' heart
  than your eye-brow;
In our religion it's not possible to obey
  anybody save you!
(KH 133,10)

It is befitting that Hafiz should long for your
  eye-brow;
The people of the word sit down in the
  corner of the mihrab.
(KH 304,9)

The "people of the word" (ahl-i kalam) are the theologians to whom Hafiz himself belonged. But the reference here is rather to his being a poet. The verse is one of the many examples for a certain pseudo-logical structure that is favoured by Hafiz and other Persian poets and reminds one of the enthymeme, this central figure in Aristotle's rhetoric and in the whole tradition following after it; but it is also an instance of the much discussed definition of poetry as a logical procedure operating with false or untrue premises.⁴⁷ Hafiz argues here that since his beloved's eye-brow is a mihrab, and the people of the word, to whom he himself belongs, usually assemble before a mihrab, why should be not long to sit there? It is a fine example also of that intended, often playful ambiguity lurking everywhere in his poetry. The playful tone can have an element of irony or even sarcasm:

You heathen-heart leaving your tresses
 unveiled, I fear,
The bend of that heart-robbing eye-brow will
 turn away my mihrab.
(KH 404,7)

I'm afraid of my belief being destroyed, for
  the mihrab
Of your eye-brow robs the peace of my
 prayer.
(KH 392,7)

Other verses speaking of ritual prayer contain open attacks on exoteric Islam, as e.g. the following one:

Devout man! Since nothing springs from your
 prayer,—
(Better is) nightly carousal, my secret and my
 longing!
(KH 392,2)

Some very poignant verses concern the prayer-carpet:

There is no generosity in anyone, and time
  for pleasure passes.
The only choice is selling the prayer-carpet
  for wine.
(KH 369,2)

In the lane of the wine-shopkeepers, they
  don't accept it for one cup,—
what a prayer-carpet, that is not worth one
 tumbler!
(KH 147,2)

May the wine-shopkeeper take the frock and
 the prayer-carpet of Hafiz,
If the wine comes from the palm of that
  moon-faced cup-bearer!
(KH 155,7)

Suppose even I'd lay my prayer-carpet on my
  shoulders like a lily,
With the colour of wine on my frock like a
 rose,—would I be a Muslim?!
(KH 213,3)

The motif of the wine-coloured carpet is struck up in the very first ghazal of the divan, and there it is linked with that mysterious figure, the Prior of the Magians, who will occupy our thoughts in a later section of this paper.

The third element belonging to the topic of prayer is the qibla or direction of Mecca to which the prayers have to turn their faces. It goes without saying that it is the beloved who indicates this direction and not the Kaaba or Mecca. The topic of the qibla is thus tightly linked with the Kaaba. The term qibla occurs, however, only twice in the divan of Hafiz, probably because it offered less possibilities of variation than the much more concrete objects "mihrab" and "carpet." In turning to the qibla we thus now turn to the Kaaba.

Whoever comes to the Kaaba in your lane,
Finds himself in the middle of prayer, thanks
  to the qibla of your eye-brow.
(KH 41,8)

Where there is no purity, Kaaba and pagan
 temple are the same;
There is no good in a house where there is
 no innocence.
(KH 213,6)

Similar ideas are developed concerning the pilgrimage, particularly its final stage, when, approaching the Kaaba, the pilgrim has to enter the sacred state (ihram) by putting on the two white towels and renouncing washing, shaving, having sexual intercourse until the ceremonies of the hadjdj—among these are the circumambulation of the Kaaba and the ritual course (sa 'y) between the two places Safa and Marwa on a street in Mecca, both of which have to be executed seven times—are over.

Hafiz, whoever did not strive for love and
 union,
Has entered the ihram for the
 circumambulation of the heart's Kaaba
 without ablution.
(KH 32,7)

Religious ceremonies are useless if love is absent. Hafiz expresses this idea in ever new ways, often with graceful puns.

Why should we take upon us the ihram, if
 that qibla isn't there?
Why should we labour at the sa'y, if Safa is
 absent from the Kaaba?
(KH 82,7)

Here, it is important to know that Safa is not only the name of one of the two places mentioned above,—"Safa and Marwa are among the waymarks of God," says the Koran (Sura 2,158)—but also a word of the Persian language, and one of the code-words of Hafiz' universe at that, meaning "sincerity," or "purity (of the heart)." The meaning thus operates on two levels: Safa is absent from the Kaaba, because the true Kaaba is where the friend is, and purety (safa) is absent from the Kaaba because its guardians, or those performing the ceremonies there, do not have a pure heart.⁴⁸

The heart that after circumambulating the
 Kaaba in your lane came to a "standstill,"⁴⁹
Its longing for that temple is so great, it does
  not want to go to the Hijaz.
(KH 255,6)

Nobody will receive the recompense of
 fasting and of pilgrimage,
save those who visit the dust of the tavern of
  love.
(KH 127,2)

But as in the case of the carpet, Hafiz did not refrain from connecting even the Kaaba with the idea of wine in a most provocative way:

Around the Holy Temple of the wine-cask,
 Hafiz
will circumambulate until he dies.
(KH 256,7)

V. As the reader will have noticed, practically all of these verses, if taken at face-value, betray a sometimes sublime, sometimes rude disrespect of what is sacred for the Muslim believer. Certainly, the value of the rites is questioned, but this is done at various grades, ranging from sheer libertinage to an engagement for something considered of higher value than the performance of these rites.

On reading such verses, one gets the impression of facing something like a counter-religion. It is confirmed by further features of Hafiz' poetry. Thus, there are quite a number of verses in which he attacks the representatives of the religious establishment for not being sincere. More than 30 verses mention the ascetic (zahid), make a mock of him or criticize his hypocrisy, very often in a personal address.

The ascetic is a "surface-adorer" (zahir-parast), a representative of religious legalism and exoteric Islam.

The surface-adoring ascetic is not aware of
 our state;
Nothing he says about us is objectionable.
(KH 72,1)

Do not scold the "rogues" (rindan), o pure-
 natured ascetic!
For the sins of others will not be written
 down on your account.
(KH 87,1)

The ascetic craves for the wine from (the
 stream) Kawthar (in Paradise),
Hafiz for the (earthly) beaker. Let us see
 what God has decreed!
(KH 66,8)

If the ascetic does not betake himself to the
  rinds, he is excused.
Love is a work that rests on (spiritual)
 guidance.
(KH 154,3)

Other figures from the same quarter are the shaykh, the preacher (wa'iz) and the faqih, the judge (qa i), the mufti (one who gives fetwas or religious opinions on legal and moral issues), the public inspector (muhtasib) and the imam. Only one of these figures is ambiguous: the shaykh appears also as shaykh-i djam, "the elder of the cup" (KH 7,8).

All of them "catch it," even though with various frequency; the judge e.g. is mentioned only once. Again, some of these verses are very witty and particularly aggressive:

Go after your own business, oh preacher!.
 What is this shouting?!
From me my heart has fallen (out of love);
  what has fallen from you?
(KH 36,1)

Learn about love from Hafiz, not from the
 preacher,
Even though he displays much artistry in his
 rhetoric!
(KH 127,7)

Even though this word may not please the
 preacher of the town:
As long as he practices hypocrisy and deceit,
 he is not a Muslim!
(KH 220,)

Since the preacher of the town chose the
  love of the king and the police,
What harm is there in my choosing the love
 of the idol?
(KH 222,4)

The preachers who make such a show on the
 pulpit and by the prayer-niche,
make that other thing, as soon as they are in
 their privacy.
(KH 194,1)

I fear it won't bring any advantage on the
  day of resurrection,
the licit bread of the shaykh over our illicit
  liquid!
(KH 11,5)

Yesterday, the faqih of the madrasah was
 drunk and gave this fetwa:
Wine is forbidden but better than (to enrich
 oneself by) waqf money.
(KH 45,4)

Sometimes, Hafiz tries to persuade this party to tread in his steps:

When the faqih advises you not to play the
 play of love,
give him a cup and tell him to moisten his
  brain!
(KH 389,6)

You inhibit me from loving, oh mufti of the
 time!
But I consider you excused, for you haven't
 seen Him yet!
(KH 420,4)

All this adds up to a clear refusal of exoteric Islam. Does this mean that Hafiz was a Sufi and his verses have to be interpreted as we interpret Rumi? I don't think so. Rumi makes it quite clear that he speaks of mystical wine in verses like the following:

The drunkenness of this world vanishes after
 one night's slumber.
The drunkenness of the beaker of God
 accompanies you into the tomb.⁵⁰

Similar declarations are to be found in other poets. It does not mean that their poetry is void of ambiguity. But the ambiguity is certainly much stronger, and intentionally so, in the poetry of Hafiz than in that of others. Neither his wine nor his beloved are reducible to their usual mystical connotations, unless we deny the obvious meaning. And what is more, Hafiz occasionally also attacks the Sufis for their hypocrisy, thus placing them in the corner of the religious establishment.

Hafiz' "religion," confession, or order thus hovers above, or beyond, not only exoteric Islam but also above Islamic mysticism.

We already know some definitions of this order: it is an order of love, an order of wine, both taken in a oscillating and ambiguous sense. In order to see clearer, we should now turn our attention to the head of that order as presented by Hafiz in many confessional verses, the pir-i mughan, "the Prior of the Magians" or "Head of the Zoroastrians."

VI. As I already mentioned, the Prior of the Magians enters the scene in the very first poem of Hafiz' divan, and what he stands for, becomes perfectly clear from the shocking words he could be expected to say:

Colour your prayer-carpet with wine, if the
 Prior of the Magians says so!
The pilgrim should not be unaware of the
 customs and ceremonies of the
 stations of the path!

In another famous ghazal, the prior is portrayed as a timeless authority who initiates our poet:

Yesterday, I brought my problems to the
 Prior of the Magians, who would solve any
 enigma by his enlightened insight.
I found him cheerful, smiling, the wine-cup
  in his hand,
In the mirror of which he perceived hundred
  visions.
I said: this world-viewing cup, when did the
  Wise one (God) give it you?
He said: The day He built this azure vault!
(KH 136,3-5)

Yet, it is not only the solution of his problems what Hafiz obtains from that guru, it is a handful of other graces he hardly ever receives from the beloved: acceptance, fidelity, favor, consolation.

If grief opens an ambush in a corner of your
  heart,

The temple of the Prior of the Magians
 suffices as shelter.
(KH 263,4)

Hafiz, the court of the Prior of the Magians
 is a safe place of fidelity.
Read the lessons of love before him and hear
 them from him.
(KH 398,7)

In this tumult, where nobody cares for
  another,
I received the favor of the Prior of the
  Magians
(KH 324,6)

The almost holy dimensions of this figure are highlighted time and again:

I am the slave of the Prior of the Magians
  who freed me from ignorance,
Everything our Prior does is sheer saintliness
  ('ayn-i vilayat).
(KH 154,4)

More than once our poet confesses to his being the disciple of that saintly figure:

If the Prior of the Magians has become my
  spiritual guide, what's the difference?
In nobody's head is a secret that is not from
  God.
(KH 70,9)

The door of (deep, inner) sense was opened
 before my heart on the day
I joined the inhabitants of the abode of the
  Prior of the Magians.
(KH 317,6)

I am the disciple of the Prior of the Magians.
  Don't worry, oh shaykh!
Why? Because you promised, but He
 fulfilled!
(KH 141,8)

My cloister is a corner in the tavern;
The blessing of the Prior of the Magians is
 my morning prayer.
(KH 262,3)

A fine spiritualized reference to the Zoroastrian fire-worship is made in the following verse:

They hold me dear in the cloister of the
 Magians.
Because in my breast there is the fire that
 never dies.
(KH 26,8)

A wonderful ambiguity is operating in the following verse:

I have a fetwa of the Prior of the Magians
  and it's an ancient word:
Wine is forbidden wherever the boon
 companion is not the friend.
(KH 360,1)

Which means likewise: wherever wine is forbidden, there the friend and everything he represents is absent.

This leads us back to the other aspect of the Prior of the Magians, who, as Lord of the Tavern, is also the Lord of the rinds, even though the two notions are never used in one and the same verse, which means that, despite their mutual relationship, they belong to two slightly different conceptual systems.

Nevertheless the pir-i mughan remains a symbol of the rind ideology and therewith an ambiguous figure oscillating between the sacred and the pagan, as is evident from the following verse:

Look at the kindness of the Prior of the
  Magians! Whatever we
bad drunkards do, it is beautiful to his
  benevolent eyes.
(KH 192,2)

Here, as in many other cases, Hafiz seems to speak of real wine, the intoxicating liquid made of grapes; but in many other verses, he clearly speaks of something different which he himself occasionally calls the wine of "the Day of Alast," a reference to the Koranic tale how God asked the souls, "am I not your Lord" (a-lastu bi-rabbikum), and they answered "Certainly!" (Sura 7,172). But to avoid any confusion with the expectations inspired by the Koran, Hafiz draws a precise borderline between his wine and that of Paradise:

Go, o ascetic, and do not cavil at those who
 drain the cup to the dregs,
For we were given no other present on the
  Day of Alast.
We drank what He poured into our beaker.
No matter whether it was the wine (khamr)
 of Paradise or the intoxicating wine (bada-i
 mast)!
The laughter of the wine-glass and the
 knotted tresses of the idol,
how many conversions like the one of Hafiz
 have they turned over!
(KH 22,5-7)

VII. The question now arises whether Hafiz' "counter-religion" is more than a highly sophisticated masquerade for the libertine escapades of intellectuals, something like a poetical carnival? Many Muslims, and particularly those belonging to the party attacked in his poetry, would give an affirmative answer. In recent times, both a Marxist Iranian thinker, Ahmad Kasrawi,⁵¹ and an outstanding Muslim reformist, Muhammad Iqbal,⁵² have pointed out the moral dangers involved in these verses.

On the other hand, Hafiz sees himself as the representative of sincerity as against hypocrisy. If his religion of love and wine were nothing but a refined hoodwinking, his pretence of sincerity would be doubly insincere, or, at least, "sincerity" (safa) would mean no more than to admit one's sinfulness, to indulge openly in one's vices and boast of one's moral "ruin," the Hafizian kharabi.⁵³ Here, too, an element of ambiguity remains.

There is, however, an additional message that surpasses the mere pretence of sincerity or frankness, even though it is palpable only in a very small number of verses. Yet its importance is not diminished by this limited evidence. It is the engagement for non-violence that we meet also e.g. in the work of Nizami⁵⁴ and which seems to have belonged to the moral codex of—at least some—qalandars.⁵⁵ In a religion where killing in the name of God was—and is—part of the divine law, this element merits our attention. Several times, Hafiz stresses the harmlessness of drinking wine, particularly if it is compared to religiously sanctioned violence; and the issue of violence is implicitly touched upon wherever Hafiz and other Islamic poets talked of wine, wine being one of the great sins that was punished by eighty lashes:

For one sip, resulting in nobody's injury,
How much trouble I risk,- don't ask!
(KH 266,3)

Do you know what harp and lute are
 pronouncing:
Drink wine in secret, for (otherwise) they'll
 punish (you)!⁵⁶
What harm does it cause, if I and you drink
 some cups of wine?
Wine is from the blood of grapes, not from
 your blood!
(KH 25,7)

I am very thankful to my arm that
I don't have the power to torment people!
(KH 318,5)

We conquered the kingdom of (inner) welfare
 not by armies,
We erected the Throne of (spiritual)
 sovereignty not by violence.
(KH 357,4)

This, then, is a concrete unequivocal appeal.

VIII. What remains to be discussed is Hafiz' self-allotted role within what we called his "counter-religion." He does not pretend to be a prophet. He has no programmatic lines praising the mutual closeness of prophecy and of poetry, as they exist in the opening section of Nizami's first epos.⁵⁷ Yet, the idea certainly was not altogether strange to him. In his usual playful manner, he gives himself those dimensions of a cosmic man, that would belong to a prophet according to the Islamic doctrines of the time: a primordial existence, and a power of speech that is timeless and space-pervading.⁵⁸

He also stresses that his rindi was not his free choice but his lot from all eternity:

On the first day (of creation) I was ordered
 nothing but rindi.
(KH 145,3)

Something that has still to be clarified is the relation of Hafiz' message to the message of Islam. One could argue, and Muslim defenders of Hafiz will do so, that what he criticizes is the pretenders of Islam, not Islam itself. A very small number of verses could be cited in favour of that view: e.g. the one quoted above, which says that, as long as the preacher practices hypocrisy, he is not going to be a Muslim.

On the other hand, it strikes the reader of Hafiz that there is so little truly Islamic in his poetry, and almost no trace of unblurred Islamic piety. The name of Muhammad does not appear throughout his divan, except once in the adjective Mustafawi, which here is juxtaposed with Abu-Lahabi, referring to Abu Lahab, the opponent of Muhammad mentioned in the Koran, in Sura 111. The verse runs as follows:

In the meadow, nobody ever plucked a rose
  without thorn.
Oh yes, the lamp of Mustafa goes always
 together with the sparks of Abu Lahab.
(KH 65,4)

This absence of the Prophet is all the more striking when compared with his presence in the works of other Persian poets of renown. Nizami commenced each of his five epic poems with long panegyrics of Muhammad and his ascension, and so did 'Attar. Rumi's divan is rich in glowing praise of the prophet, Sa'di's opens with a hymn, each line of which echoes the name of Muhammad. Instead, Hafiz' divan begins with the provocative appearance of the pir-imughan.

Another striking fact is that Hafiz does speak of other, pre-Islamic prophets including Adam, Noah, Solomon and Jesus, giving them certain, mainly traditional features which enhance our picture of his religious views. The most remarkable of these features are the following: Adam is the one whose clay was kneaded with wine by the angels in the tavern of love⁵⁹ and whose soul-bird was lured by the seed of beauty, so he left Heaven and settled on Earth;⁶⁰ Noah is the captain of the ark, under whose patronage one need not fear the flood—however, at least in one case, the "ship of Noah" is evidently a metaphor for the wine-glass—;⁶¹ Moses is the prophet, to whom God spoke from the burning bush, a scene which repeats itself for Hafiz in the fire of the rose and the song of the nightingale in springtime;⁶² he is the prophet who asked God "Let me see you!—one of the rare Koranic quotations in Hafiz' poetry, and with whom God made a covenant.⁶³ Solomon, whose name allowed panegyrical allusions to contemporary patrons,⁶⁴ is the mighty king in possession of the world-ruling ring;⁶⁵ his bird, the hoopoe, is Hafiz' guide to the realm of the mysterious 'Anqa (= Simurgh), a symbol of God.⁶⁶ But as an earthly ruler, he is also the symbol of transi-toriness. His command over the wind referred to in the Koran is reversed into a metaphor for illusion.⁶⁷ David is referred to in two places as the musician whose tune the birds sing.⁶⁸ Jesus, the Messiah, is the prophet, whose breath raised the dead,⁶⁹ who wrought his miracles through the emanation of the Holy Spirit,⁷⁰ and who ascended to the fourth sphere of the sky, where the sun receives the light of his lamp.⁷¹ Together with Venus, he is enraptured to dancing by the poetry of Hafiz,⁷² a verse which points to the two main elements of Hafiz' poetry: earthly love including music, and wine-drinking, and divine love including peacefulness and non-violence.

The result hardly differs if we examine the role of the words Islam and Koran in Hafiz' divan. Islam occurs only twice. One of the two lines is again full of playful irony:

The cup-bearer's twinkling so much waylays
 Islam that the Little Red One⁷³
will perhaps renounce the Red One (wine).
(KH 183,4)

The other line, part of a panegyric, praises the patron as the protector of Islam.⁷⁴ Islam is after all the official religion. But again, it strikes one as unusual that despite the many panegyrical ghazals this aspect, normally of the highest importance, should be so marginal in Hafiz' divan.

Even more striking are the few lines mentioning the Koran. The word is used either playfully or in an ambiguous way. There is actually only one verse in which the Holy Scripture is spoken of in a way a pious man would deem proper:

Hafiz, as long as in the corner of poverty
 and the privacy of dark nights
your prayer is blessings and your reading is
 the Koran, don't grieve!
(KH 250,10)

In the following verse, the Koran is the object of imposture of those pious hypocrites Hafiz attacks in his poems:

O Hafiz! Drink wine and behave as a rind
 and enjoy life! But
Don't use the Koran as a trap of imposture
 as the others do!
(KH 9,10)

In two cases, the Koran appears as of little avail in matters of love:

Love comes to your help, even if you, like
 Hafiz,
recite the Koran in its fourteen versions.
(KH 93,10)

In other words, despite your reciting the Koran so well and knowing by heart its fourteen variant readings, you will be in need of love's help. The same idea is corroborated by the following verse:

How often I recited the Fatiha, the Yemenite
 spell, and blew the Surat
al-ikhlas behind him (i.e. the friend), he went
 away.
(KH 85,3)

In the rest of cases, the lyrical I swears by the Koran in a more or less ambiguous way:

Hafiz, by the Koran, turn away from deceit
 and hypocrisy!
It must be possible to beat the ball of
  pleasure in this world!
(KH 150,8)

I have not seen anything more pleasant than
  your poetry, Hafiz,
By the Koran, that you have in your breast!
(KH 438,7)

The Koran the wine-drinker Hafiz has in his breast is rather a heretical book than the Koran of the pious.

If the ascetic does not understand the rindi
  of Hafiz, what does it matter?
The demon (diw) flees from those people
 who read the Koran.
(KH 188,11)

IX. The verse quoted at the end of the previous section has the character of a picture-puzzle, the meaning of which changes according to the angle from which one looks upon it. At first glance, the div would seem to be the ascetic, and Hafiz one of those who read the Koran. After all, Hafiz' name means "he who knows by heart (the Koran)." On the other hand, the ascetic is the one who can claim that his ethics are based on the Koran, whereas the wine-drinking rind certainly cannot. This verse of Hafiz' is therefore one of those in which the ambiguity is, on purpose, driven to its extreme. The same ambiguity obtains again in the following verse:

The wine-casks are all in ebullition and
  gurgling from intoxication;
And the wine that is there, is reality, not
 metaphor!
(KH 41,2)

At first reading, the meaning seems to be univocal. Yet, if we look at the text in the light of the mystical tradition, its meaning is reversed. For in mystical texts, this world is a metaphor, whereas reality is the invisible, metaphysical world. And again this ambiguity is being consciously evoked by the poet.

Thus, in the poetical universe of Hafiz, one verse contradicts the other, one interpretation is belied by another and this by a third one, all of which can point to a number of verses in their support. The longer we read Hafiz and the better we know him and the literary traditions on which he plays, the more we feel this ambiguity. We even arrive at the conclusion that perhaps this very ambiguity is his message. For is not life ambiguous? Is not religion ambiguous? Is not love ambiguous? Hafiz seems to confirm this interpretation:

Our existence is an enigma, Hafiz,
which, when studied, remains but a spell and
 a fairy-tale.
(KH 418,9)

Certainly, in his poetical universe there is a certain consistency in the antagonism between the fair world of the Prior of the Magians and the gloomy world of the religious hypocrites.

But even if his message should not go beyond ambiguity and a helpless shoulder-shrugging in the face of life's riddles it would still be opposed to that of the ruling religion, which, of course, claims to be univocal and to have answers for every problem. Hafiz' message, however, certainly goes beyond that ambiguity. His general answer is to enjoy life without hypocrisy, life on all its levels, and make love the dominant, many-faceted theme of one's existence, but with an ultimate reference to that "religion of love" whose advocates are the Prior of the Magians and Hafiz himself.

X. Let us add another word about the Prior of the Magians, or rather the place of Zoroastrianism in Islamic society. The general image of this religion certainly was quite negative, if we take the dark figures representing it in the Thousand and One Nights tales as an indication. Again, in Nizami's Iskandarnama, the long epic poem on Alexander the Great, Alexander's main task consists in destroying the temples of the Persian fire-worshippers, i.e. the Zoroastrians, after having defeated Darius of Iran—an unexpected turn after so much pleading for non-violence in Nizami's previous writings⁷⁵ But there is also the famous story of the Jew and the Zoroastrian, written down by the Arabic bel-esprit at-Tawhidi in the 10th century, in which the former represents a legalist whose religion tells him to fight against non-Jews, whereas the latter is a person whose religion tells him to love man irrespective of his race or religion, and both act accordingly. In other words, the Jewish religion here stands for fanaticism, whereas Zoroastrianism stands for religious tolerance.⁷⁶

But if the Achaemenians inspired by Zoroastrianism seem, in fact, to have been the first rulers to have practiced tolerance towards other religions in the countries they had conquered, Hafiz and his time hardly knew anything about this old Iranian principle of foreign policy.⁷⁷ Nevertheless, Tawhidi's image of Zoroastrian corresponds with Hafiz' pir-i mughan. In other words, the Prior of the Magians is not simply part of a reversed value system in the universe of the ghazal; he also echoes contemporary reality and concrete experience or expectations, as would his opponents in the ghazal.

Thus, what Hafiz pleads for in the following verse might imply more than just a juggling with religious traditions:

Renew the cult of the religion of Zarathustra
 in the garden,
Now that the tulip kindled the fire of
 Nimrud!
(KH 198,8)

Our poet's tolerance seems also to vibrate in the following verses:

In this business, Arabic and Turkish are one
  and the same:
Hafiz, tell the story of love in the language
 you know.
(KH 467,7)

There is no difference between the love of the cloister and that of the tavern:

Wherever there is the radiance of the friend's
 face, there is love.
(KH 64,5)

The sober ones no less than the intoxicated,
 they all seek to find (or: are disciples of)
 the friend,
Everywhere is the house of love, be it a
 mosque or a church.
(KH 78,3)

This message had already been promulgated by al-Halladj that "all religions are God's,"⁷⁸ the same Halladj who was totally aware of the ambiguity of appearances.⁷⁹ One might say that by denying the univocality of one particular religion, Islam, it became possible to attribute a relative value to every religion and at the same time postulate the existence of a higher form of religion of which only irregular flashes appeared in the visible world and whose common denominator was love.

XI. Hafiz' poetry comes about by the refined super-imposing of those various levels of life, combining colour-ful facets as in a carpet where several ornamental systems are superimposed. His poetical technique might, however, also be compared to a musical procedure. The clashes between various ontological levels remind one of dissonances, in other words they have also an aesthetic function. But since dissonance and solution presuppose the existence of chords which were (and are) absent in Persian traditional music, we should rather talk of modulation, in particular because this musical metaphor was used by Hafiz himself, as in the following verse:

From where is this musician who played in
 the tune of Iraq and then
modulated in the mode of Hijaz?⁸⁰

It is exactly thanks to this technique that Hafiz has so many answers, that he became the oracle of his people, gradually taking on the function of a counter-prophet without ever even having pretended to be a saint. Thus, what he prophesied became true:

They bless his memory, the host of lovers,
Wherever the name of Hafiz comes up in a
 circle.
(KH 229,7)

And his advice is still looked for and fulfilled, be it on the practical or on a metaphorical level:

If you pass at my tomb, ask me for mental
  support (himmat),
For it will be a place of pilgrimage
 (ziyaratgah) for the rinds from all over
 the world.
(KH 201,3)

Hafiz plays with language, plays with literary and even with spiritual traditions, and, by doing so, lays bare the ambiguity of language, perception and thought. Something similar had already been done by the authors of the Maqamat, al-Hamadhani and al-Hariri. Hafiz did it on a much more sophisticated, more generalized and at the same time more specific level. His poetry may be understood as a questioning of the authenticity of religious language and revealed speech, which is all the more remarkable since it happened in a period when the Islamization of thought, science, art, in short, of every cultural phenomenon had almost reached its peak.⁸¹ At the same time, however, this poetry admits that human reason cannot reach beyond such doubt. Poetry, however, can do more, it can play with the universe of ideas and thereby make the world light and transparent. Poetry can become a world-viewing wine-glass, can conjure up the friend's image in the wine. Who is the friend? The reader, each single reader, will have to decide, and their answers will be different according to their particular visions.

Notes

¹ An excellent survey is given by A. Schimmel, "Hafiz und seine Kritiker," in: Spektrum Iran 1/1988,5-24, apart from some disputable judgment I don't share.

² One typical example is R. Feiz, "L'amour, I'amant, l'aimé," in: Luqman 5/1988-89, 15-20.

³ On this scholar see the fundamental book by I. H. Solbrig, Hammer-Purgstall und Goethe, Bern-Frankfurt 1973.

⁴ On Goethe and Hafiz see H. H. Schaeder, Goethes Erlebnis des Ostens, Leipzig 1938; J C. Bürgel, "Goethe und Hafis," in: Bürgel, Drei Hafis-Studien (Europ. Hochschulschriften I, 113), Bern 1975, 5-42; id. "'Wie du zu lieben und zu trinken'-Zum Hafis-Verständnis Goethes," in: A. Mahler (ed.), J. W. Goethe. Fünf Studien zum Werk (Kasseler Arbeiten zur Sprache und Literatur 15), Bern and Frankfurt 1983, 115-41; id. "Goethe et Hafiz. Quelques réflexions," in: Luqman 5/1989, 87-104.

⁵ Cf. A. Schimmel, Friedrich Rückert. Lebensbild und Einfuhrung in sein Werk (Herder Taschenbuch 1371), Freiburg i. Br. 1987; Bürgel, "Kommt Freunde, Schönheitsmarkt ist! Bemerkungen zu Rückerts Hafis-Übertragungen," in: W. D. Fischer (ed.) Friedrich Rüickert. Dichter und Sprachgelehrter in Erlangen (Schriften des Zentralinstituts fur Fränkische Landeskunde und allgemeine Religionalforschung an der Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg 29), Neustadt 1990, 13-146.

⁶ Schaeder, l.c.

⁷ R. Lescot, Essai d'une chronologie de l'oeuvre de Hafiz, (Bulletin d'études orientales 10) Beirut 1944.

⁸ M.Hillmann, Unity in the Ghazals of Hafez (Studies in Middle Eastern Literatures 6) Minneapolis & Chicago 1976; R. M. Rehder, "The Unity of the Ghazals of Hafiz," in: Der Islam 51/1974, 55-96; cf. my review "Der Schone Türke, immer noch mißverstanden. Zu neuer Hafis-Literatur," in: Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 75/1980, 105-111.

⁹ I. Braginskiy/D. Komissarov, Persidskaya literatura. Kratkiy ocerk, Moscow 1963. 52f; Braginskiy, who wrote the part on classical poetry, speaks of his "revolutionary existence", his "revolutionary thought".

¹⁰Fifty Poems of Hafiz, Text and Translations collected and made, introduced and annotated, Cambridge 1970, 31f.

¹¹ W. Skalmowski, "The Meaning of the Persian Ghazal," in: Orientalia Lovanensia Periodica 18/1987, 141-162.

¹² Broms, H. Two Studies in the Relations of Hafiz and the West (Studia Orientalia - Societas Orientalis Fennica 34), Helsinki 1938.

¹³ Wickens, G. M., "An Analysis of Primary and Secondary Significations in the Third Ghazal of Hafiz," in: BSOAS 14/1952, 627-638.

¹⁴ Boyce, M., "A Novel Interpretation of Hafiz," in: BSOAS 15/1952.

¹⁵ J. S. Meisami, "Persona and Generic Conventions in Medieval Persian Lyric," in: Comparative Criticism 12/1990, 125-52.

¹⁶ C. Kappler, "De la forme au sens: la lecture de Hafez comme méditation," in: Luqman 6/1989-90, 39-48.

¹⁷ Cf. "Verstand und Liebe bei Hafis," in J.C. Bürgel, Drei Hafis-Studien, 43-54.

¹⁸ Reysner, M.L., "Predvaritel'nie soobrazhenia o soderzhanii termina rind v literature na farsi XI-XIV vv. Sootnoshenie literaturnogo i istoricheskogo aspektov," in: Iran - Istoria i kul'tura v shrednie veka i novoe vremya, Moscow 1980, 168-75.

¹⁹ Cf. Bürgel, "Le poète et la poésie dans l'oeuvre de Hafez," in: Convegno Internazionale sulla poesia di Hafez (Roma, 30-31 Marzo 1976), Rome 1979, 73-98.

²⁰ Cf. Bürgel, "Profane und sakrale Sprache," in: Fück-Symposium.

²¹ See A. Schimmel, The Triumphal Sun: A Study of the Works of Jalaloddin Rumi, London and The Hague 1978.

²² On Djamil see F. Gabrieli, "amil al-'Udhri. Studio critico e raccolta dei frammenti," in: RSO 17/1937, 40-71; 132-72; "Contributo alla interpretazione di amil," in: RSO 18/1938, 173-98.

²³Kitab al-Aghani (Turathuna) Cairo, undated, VIII, 15 1

²⁴ On 'Abbas see B. Hell, "Al-'Abbas ibn al-Ahnaf, der Minnesänger am Hofe Harun al-Rašids," in: Islamica 2/1926, 271-307.

²⁵Diwan, Beirut, Dar Sadir 1965, 165.

²⁶ J.T. Monroe, Hispano-Arabic Poetry. A Student Anthology, Berkeley 1974, 170.

²⁷ Ibid., 172.

²⁸ On al-A'ma śee H. Pèrés, La poésie andalouse en arabe classique au X^eme siècle, Paris 1953, Index, s.v. L'aveugle de Tolède.

²⁹ Monroe, l.c. 248.

³⁰ A. Roman, Baššar et son expérience courtoise, Beirut 1972, 15,13.

³¹ al-Ghazali, Ihya' 'ulum ad-din II,38

³² Djami, Haft Awrang, ed. M. Gilani, Teheran 1337, 594.

³³ Cf. Dh. Safa, Tarikh-i adabiyat dar Iran, Tehran 1965, vol. I, 409.

³⁴ Cf. Bürgel, "The Pious Rogue. A Study in the Meaning of qalandar and rend in the Poetry of Muhammad Iqbal," in: Edebiyat 4/1979,43-64.

³⁵ The present writer intends to write an article on the history of the "I don't care" (la ubali) attitude which has roots even in the hadith.

³⁶ On qalandari cf. H. Ritter, Das Meer der Seele. Mensch, Welt und Gott in den Geschichten des Fariduddin 'Attar, Leiden 1978², index, s.v. Qalandariya; F. Meier, Abu Sa 'id-i Abu l-Hayr (357-440 / 967-1049)—Wirklichkeit und Legende (Acta Iranica 11), Leiden-Téhéran 1976, 494-516.

³⁷ On Sana'i see J.T.P. De Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry. The Interaction of Religion and Literature in the Life and Works of Hakim Sana 'i of Ghazna (Publication of the "De Goeje Fund" No. XXV), Leiden 1983.

³⁸Diwan-i Sana 'i, ed. M. Razawi, no 6.

³⁹tarsa'i, Ritter's translation "feuerkult" is a lapsus calami.

⁴⁰ Ritter, l.c. 490.

⁴¹ On Malamatiya see A. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill 1975, 86f.

⁴² On this poet see E. Wagner, Abu Nuwas. Eine Studie zur arabischen Literaturgeschichte der frühen 'Abbasidenzeit (Ak. d. Wiss. u.d. Lit. Veröff. d. Or. Komm. Band 17), Wiesbaden 1965.

⁴³ Cf. the chapters "Profanisierung sakraler Sprache" and "Sakralisierung profaner Sprache" in my forthcoming book Allmacht und Mächtigkeit, München 1991.

⁴⁴ Abu Nuwas, Diwan, Beirut, Dar Sadir, 276.

⁴⁵ On the concept of "mightiness" see Bürgel, The Feather of Simurgh—The 'Licit Magic' of the Arts in Medieval Islam, New York 1988 and also Allmacht und Mächtigkeit (mentioned above, note 43).

⁴⁶ D. Meneghini Correale, The Ghazals of Hafez—Concordance and Vocabulary, Rome 1988.

⁴⁷ Cf. B. Reinert, Haqani als Dichter. Poetische Logik und Phantasie (Studien zur Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur des islamischen Orients Neue Folge 4), Berlin 1972.

⁴⁸ A variant reading has: "when Safa has left Marwa." Now, the letters of Marwa are identical with muruwa = "virtue," which is immediately insinuated to the reader, even though the prosody here only allows Marwa. Nevertheless, the double-entendre is certainly intended. Both versions remind the attentive reader that safa, one of the key-words of Hafiz' poetry, is absent from the Koran.

⁴⁹Wuquf is a part of the ceremonies at 'Arafat, outside Mecca.

⁵⁰Diwan-i Shams-i Tabriz, ed. Furuzanfar, Nr. 537.

⁵¹ A. Kasravi, Hafiz chi miguyad, Kitabhay-i mah, 4th ed. Teheran 1335.

⁵² Cf. Bürgel, "Die griechische Ziege und das Schaf von Schiras. Bemerkungen zu Gedanken Muhammad Iqbals über Plato und Hafis," in: H.R. Roemer/A. Noth (edd.), Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des Vorderen Orients, Leiden 1981, 12-27.

⁵³ Over 80 occurrences according to Meneghini.

⁵⁴ Cf. Bürgel, "L'idée de la non-violence dans l'Islam—Quelques reflexions et quelques examples," in: III^èmerencontre Islamo-Chrêtienne. Droits de l'homme. CERES, Série Études Islamiques 9, Tunis 1985, 229 - 233.

⁵⁵ Meier, l.c. 510.

⁵⁶Diwan, edd. Qazwini/Ghani 200,1; a variant reading has takfir mikunand instead of ta 'zir mikunand: "they'll anathematize you/declare you to be infidels" (implying capital punishment).

⁵⁷ See Bürgel, "Nizami über Sprache und Dichtung," in: R. Gramlich (ed.) Islamwissenschaftliche Abhandlungen Fritz Meier zum sechzigsten Geburtstag, Wiesbaden 1974, 9-28.

⁵⁸ See Bürgel, "Le poète et la poésie," (above, note 19).

⁵⁹ KH 191,1; 194,6 etc.

⁶⁰ KH 59,3; 310, 1-03 etc.

⁶¹ KH 250,5 etc.; KH 19,97.

⁶² KH 235,3; 477,1-2.

⁶³ KH 366,4.

⁶⁴ KH 198,9 etc.

⁶⁵ KH 59,2; 117,3 etc.

⁶⁶ KH 312,2.

⁶⁷ KH 21,7; 88,6.

⁶⁸ KH 170,2; 198,7.

⁶⁹ KH 71,6.

⁷⁰ KH 136,7.

⁷¹ KH 399,3.

⁷² KH 4,8.

⁷³Suhaib (lit.: the little red one) is the name of a companion of the Prophet celebrated for his abstemiousness.

⁷⁴ KH 298,2.

⁷⁵Sharafnama, ed. Dastgirdi, 238ff.

⁷⁶ at-Tawhidi, al-Imta' wal-mu 'anasa, edd. Amin & Zain, II, 157.

⁷⁷ Cf. W. Hinz, Darius und die Perser—Eine Kulturgeschichte der Achaemeniden, Baden-Baden 1976, 228; W. Knauth, Das altiranische Fürstenideal von Xenophon bis Ferdousi, Wiesbaden 1975, 45ff.

⁷⁸Akhbar al-Halladj, Texte ancien relatif à la prédication et au supplice du mystique musulman al-Hosayn b. Mansour al-Hallaj, publie, annote et traduit par L. Massignon et Paul Kraus, Paris 1936, No. 45.

⁷⁹ L. Massignon, La passion d 'al-Hosayn ibn Mansour Al-Hallaj, martyr mystique de l'Islam, vol. III: La doctrine de Hallaj, 2^nd ed. Paris 1975, 329.

⁸⁰ KH 129,4; the verse contains a pun, based on the ambiguity of a number of words which are used as musical terms. Thus 'Iraq and Hijaz are not only toponyms, but also names of musical modes or tunes; rah means way and musical mode, etc. The verse could thus also be translated as follows:

From where is the musician who prepared the journey to 'Iraq and then decided to return on the way to Hijaz.

⁸¹ On this phemonenon cf. my forthcoming book Allmacht und Machtigkeit, (above, note 43).