Book Review

Hafez: Nightingale of Shiraz (Selections from his Divan)
Translated by Farida Maleki
Publisher: Delhi, India: Radha Soami Satsang Beas, 2025.
ISBN 978-93-48134-12-7

Hafez: Nightingale of Shiraz offers a fresh English translation of 100 poems selected from a modern definitive edition of a manuscript of Hafez’s Divan that dates back to 1424 CE, only 35 years after his death. Hafez is acknowledged to be one of the greatest poets of all times. While surpassingly beautiful, his poetry also conveys the deepest of mystical insights.

As the translator of this volume confesses, it is impossible to translate Hafez’s poetry from Persian (Farsi) to any other language while still preserving its beauty. As she tells us, “The admiration felt on hearing the beautiful melodious tones, rhythm, and harmony of Hafez’s ghazals when read in Farsi is not transferable to any other language.” Also, many of Hafez’s allusions and similes are opaque to us at our remove from both his language and his culture. The translator offers guidance on these in her Introduction and in short comments on individual poems.

In her Introduction the translator also situates Hafez for us in time and place. Hafez earned his living as a court poet in the city of Shiraz in what is today southwestern Iran, but at the same time conveyed in his poetry the profoundest themes of Sufi mysticism. Though his audience, the Sultan’s court, revelled in worldly pleasure, he was able to turn that context to his advantage. For example, while the Sultan and his court liberally indulged in the drinking of wine, though forbidden in Islam, Hafez used wine as a symbol for Divine Love. Because no Muslim would operate a tavern, and a Magian (Zoroastrian) could, Hafez made the Magian tavern master a symbol for the spiritual guide or murshid. Also, the translator reports, “unlike the works of his predecessors like Sanāī, Rumi, or Saadi, only a portion of Hafez’s poems are entirely mystical and spiritual.”

Also, since in his time religious authorities often persecuted mystics who spoke openly about spirituality, disguising his message with the language of the court helped Hafez evade them. Probably for similar reasons, Hafez never revealed the name of his murshid, though that he had one becomes clear in his poetry. For example, he writes:

Don’t set foot on the lane of Love
without a guide for the way.
I have tried to find my way most diligently,
but it’s impossible all alone.
_{Ghazal 168}

The 100 poems included in this volume reveal the full range of mystical themes Hafez presents in his poetry. But Hafez’s overriding theme is love. For him, the path of love is higher than any other path. Through love the merits of all religious observances are achieved.

The advantage of fasting
and acceptance of hajj [pilgrimage to Mecca] belongs to the one
who went to the winehouse of love for pilgrimage.
_{Ghazal 132}

Once a wayfarer comes to know
the way to the lane of the winehouse,
how futile to knock at any other door….
_{Ghazal 47}

Openly do I say,
and I am happy to say,
that I am a slave to love
and free from both the worlds.
_{Ghazal 317}

Given the theme of love, Hafez constantly dwells on the Beloved, by which he means either or both God and the murshid. He describes the Beloved as enticingly beautiful, magnificent, heart-captivating:

I etched the thought of Your image
into the workshop of my eyes.
And an Idol with a beautiful face like Yours,
never have I seen and never have I heard of.
_{Ghazal 332}

My beautiful wine-selling Idol
made such an amorous gesture
that it saved me from the deceit of time.
_{Ghazal 427}

Hafez often casts the Beloved as a tavernkeeper pouring out cups of love:

O Saqi [winebearer], You who hold that sweet wine,
pass ’round a cup to me!
_{Ghazal 1}

My ears are completely occupied
with the melodies of harp and flute.
My eyes are fixed on those ruby lips
and the cup being passed around.
_{Ghazal 46}

Yet the path of love requires spiritual discipline and the cultivation of the highest human qualities. A lover must purify both mind and soul, for the Beloved demands absolute purity.

Only the pure-sighted
can see the face of the Beloved;
one cannot gaze into that mirror
except with pure eyes.
_{Ghazal 136}

Hafez warns us not to waste this human life now that we know the secret of love:

Don’t die thirsty,
with the water of life in your hand.
_{Ghazal 430}

O heart, you won’t pass
through the lane of love!
You possess all the means,
yet you don’t act on them!
_{Ghazal 480}

Perhaps more than on any other theme, Hafez dwells on the agony of love. The path of love is not an easy way.

Love seemed so easy at first
until trouble arose from my unquenched thirst.
_{Ghazal 1}

I am dying in this separation
with no way to enter behind that veil,
or if there is a way,
the chamberlain won’t show me.
_{Ghazal 229}

Yet Hafez would endure all suffering, pay any price, for that love:

Let the arrow of Your flirtation
pierce my heart,
so that I might die
before Your love-laden eyes!
_{Ghazal 322}

And Hafez reveals how the path of love ends in transcendent joy as the lover reunites with the Beloved:

Now Hafez’s home
has become the court of the King.
His heart has gone to the Heart-ravisher,
and his soul to the Beloved.
_{Ghazal 170}