The Tomb of Hafez

Posted by Ardeshir Tayebi (Tehran, Iran) on 6 April 2007 in Lifestyle & Culture.

Khwajeh Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi (also spelled Hafiz) was a Persian mystic and poet. He was born sometime between the years 1310-1337 in Shiraz , Persia (Iran), son of a certain Baha-ud-Din. His lyrical poems, ghazals are noted for their beauty and bring to fruition the love, mysticism, and early Sufi themes that had long pervaded Persian poetry. Moreover his poetry possessed elements of modern surrealism.

Legends of Hafez

Many semi-miraculous mythical tales were woven around Hafez after his death.One of them is:
According to one tradition, before meeting Attar, Hafez had been working in a local bakery. Hafez delivered bread to a wealthy quarter of the town where he saw Shakh-e Nabat, allegedly a woman of great beauty, to whom some of his poems are addressed. In the knowledge that his love for her would not be requited and ravished by her beauty, he allegedly had his first mystic vigil in his desire to realize this union, whereupon, overcome by a being of a surpassing beauty (who identifies himself as an angel), he begins his mystic path of realization, in pursuit of spiritual union with the divine.

The Tomb of Hafez

When Hafez died, controversy raged as to whether or not Hafez should be given a religious burial in light of his clearly hedonistic lifestyle and, at most times, unorthodox ways. His friends, however, convinced the authorities using Hafez's own poetry to allow it. Twenty years after his death, an elaborate tomb (the Hafezieh) was erected to honor Hafez in the Musalla Gardens in Shiraz

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