Information AboutHafez |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT HAFEZ | |
| persian poets | |
| iranian poets | |
| sufi poets | |
| sufis | |
| medieval writers | |
| people from shiraz | |
| 14th century births | |
| 14th century deaths | |
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Khwajeh Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi (also spelled '''Hafiz''') (خواجه شمسالدین محمد حافظ شیرازی in Persian ) 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, mystical, and early Sufi themes that had long pervaded Persian poetry. LIFE in Shiraz called ''Hafeziyeh''.]] Very little credible information is known about Hafez's life, particularly its early part - there is a great deal of more or less mythical anecdote. Judging from his poetry, he must have had a good education, or else found the means to educate himself. Scholars generally agree on the following: His father Baha-ud-Din is said to have been a Coal Merchant who died when Hafez was a child, leaving him and his mother in debt. It seems probable that he met with Attar Of Shiraz , a somewhat disreputable scholar, and became his Disciple . He is said to have later become a poet in the court of Abu Ishak , and so gained fame and influence in his hometown. It is possible that Hafez gained a position as teacher in a Qur'anic school at this time. In his early 30's Mubariz Muzaffar captured Shiraz and seems to have ousted Hafez from his position. Hafez apparently regained his position for a brief span of time after Shah Shuja took his father Mubariz Muzaffar prisoner. But shortly after, Hafez was forced into self-imposed exile when rivals and religious characters he had criticized began slandering about him. Another possible cause of his disgrace can be seen in a love affair he had with a beautiful Turkish woman, Shakh-e Nabat . Hafez fled from Shiraz to Isfahan and Yazd for his own safety. At the age of 52 Hafez once again regained his position at court, and possibly received a personal invitation from Shah Shuja, who pleaded with him to return. He obtained a more solid position after Shah Shuja's death, when Shah Shuja Al-Din Muzaffar ascended the throne for a brief period, before being defeated and killed by Tamerlane . When an old man, he apparently met Tamerlane to defend his poetry against charges of blasphemy. It is generally believed that Hafez died at the age of 69. His tomb is located in the Musalla Gardens of Shiraz (referred to as Hafezieh). HAFEZ FOLK TALES Many semi-miraculous mythical tales were woven around Hafez after this death. Three examples are:-
WORKS AND INFLUENCE There is no definitive version of his collected works (or '' Diwan ''); editions vary from 573 to 994 poems. In Iran, his collected works have come to be used as an aid to popular Divination . Only since the 1940s has a sustained scholarly attempt - by Mas'ud Farzad, Qasim Ghani and others in Iran - been made to authenticate his work, and remove errors introduced by later copyists and censors. However, the reliability of such work has been questioned (Michael Hillmann in 'Rahnema-ye Ketab' No. 13 ( 1971 ), "Kusheshha-ye Jadid dar Shenakht-e Divan-e Sahih-e Hafez"), and in the words of Hafez scholar Iraj Bashiri .... ''"there remains little hope from there (i.e.: Iran) for an authenticated diwan"''. Not much acclaimed in his own day and often exposed to the reproaches of orthodoxy, he greatly influenced subsequent Persian poets, and left his mark on such important Western writers as Goethe . His work was first translated into English in 1771 by William Jones . Few English translations of Hafiz have been truly successful. His work was written in what is now a Dialect presenting archaic acceptations of some words, and teasing out the original meaning needs some care and scholarship in order to assign to each word a literal or symbolic meaning. Indeed, Hafiz often uses images, metaphores and Allusions that imply the reader must have a very good cultural base. '''', a collection of poems translated by Daniel Ladinsky and published in 1999, has been both wildly commercially successful and a source of some controversy. Although Landinsky does read Persian, critics such as Murat Nemet-Nejat , a prominent poet, essayist and translator of modern Turkish poetry, have asserted that his "translations" are largely inventions of Landinsky himself and as such are misrepresented. While this is difficult to substantiate, there is little question that Ladinsky's translations make no effort to retain the gazel form used by Hafez. According to Keith Hale, the theme of love in his poetry is largely "homoerotic and infused with a Homosexual mysticism." {Link without Title} ''See also'': Persian Literature HAFEZ IN CONTEMPORARY PERSIAN (IRANIAN) CULTURE The poems of Hafez are still among the most popular Persian poems.They are frequently used in traditional Iranian music like works of Mohammad Reza Shajarian . Young adults have now tuned into Hafez's work, specially after a rock band called O-hum devoted iself to only using Hafez's lyrics. His poetry is also one of the sources of inspiration of Iran's leading painter Mahmoud Farshchian . TRANSLATIONS OF SOME VERSES The work of Hafez is inspired by the Sufi teachings of his time, in which the love of youths and the drinking of (forbidden) wine are metaphors for ecstatic religious states that cannot be otherwise described. Thus his homoerotic and bacchic allusions should be understood in a spiritual - as well as a sensual - sense. I have learned so much from God REFERENCES
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