The Humanitas Of All Islam

For Europe, the 14th century was something of a disaster (see Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror, 1978). Not so Iran. Indeed, in the fabled city of Shiraz, a "miracle" occurred. His name: Khwaja Shams ud-Din Muhammad (Hafez). In an essay of remarkable depth and perspicacity, Daryush Shayegan opines: "... [Hafez] is not simply a great Persian poet, he is the 'miracle' of Persian literature; it is in him that the millenary sap of a culture is crystallized, which, grafting the prophetic traditions of the Muhammadan Revelation on to the ancient spirit of Iran, made a synthesis so full, so profound, that it became, as it were, the humanitas of all Islam, oriental and Iranian."

~ Shayegan, "The Visionary Topography of Hafiz" (1980).



"When you pass by our tomb wish for spiritual power,/for to the rends of the world it will be a place of pilgrimage."

~ Hafez, Ghazal 33, tr. Elizabeth T. Gray, The Green Sea of Heaven (1995).