Hafiz, Poet and Sufi master
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Hafiz came along a hundred years later (1320 to 1389). He lived most of his life in Shiraz. He is considered the most beloved poet of Persia, and one of the finest lyricists in the Persian language. He was a devout Sufi. He lived about the same time as Chaucer in England.
He became a famous Sufi master, a philosopher and a mystic of Islam. Hafiz wrote an estimated 5,000 poems, only five to seven hundred of which survived. The rest were destroyed by clerics and rulers who disapproved of the content. Hafiz was considered “a spiritual rebel whose insights emancipate his readers from the clutches of those in power,” observes Daniel Ladinsky, in his introduction to The Gift, his translation of the poems of Hafiz.
“Hafiz brings us nearer to God. This Persian master is a profound champion of freedom; he constantly encourages our hearts to dance!” So writes Ladinsky.
Hafiz’s Divan – his collected poems – is considered a classic in the literature of Sufism.
Hafiz became known in the West largely through the efforts of Goethe and Ralph Waldo Emerson, who called Hafiz “a poet for poets.” Here is a reason why:
I am a hole in a flute
that the Christ’s breath
moves through.
Listen to this music.
And
The voice of the river
that has emptied into the ocean
now laughs and sings
just like God.
