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Routledge Handbook on Sufism

Lloyd Ridgeon

Sufism in classical Persian poetry

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Ali-Asghar Seyed-Gohrab
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14
SUFISM IN CLASSICAL
PERSIAN POETRY
Ali-Asghar Seyed-Gohrab

Scholars commonly define the golden age of classical Persian poetry as the tenth to the fif-
teenth century, ending with ʿAbd al-Ra ḥ m ān Jā m ī (d. 1492) who wrote in almost all genres,
trying to outstrip previous poets. However several towering poets after Jā m ī have contrib-
uted to this tradition, which is very much alive today. Sufism has been, and still is, central to
this poetry, and many of the poets were themselves Sufis. Their audience however has been
very broad: their poetry was and is cited and recited in almost all domains of Persian culture.
This chapter provides an analytic survey of the genres, poetic forms, images, metaphors and
allegories they have used.
Persian poetry begins with religious and ascetic genres, with representatives such as Kasāʾī
Marvazī (c. 953–1001), whose poetry became an example for other poets. The Ismaʿī l ī poet
Nāṣir-i Khusraw (dc. 1072) considered him a “respected predecessor whom the younger poet
claims to have surpassed.”1 While Kasāʾī composed poetry in diverse forms, the most cher-
ished poetic form in the early period was the quatrain. Due to its compact form and pithy
formulation, the quatrain became a favourite poetic form for Sufi masters at their preaching
sessions, and especially during the ritual of musical audition (sam āʿ). Persian quatrains con-
sist of four lines with the rhyme scheme a-a/b-a or a-a/a-a, with specific metres designed
especially for this form. Several early Sufis deployed quatrains in disseminating the mystic
message. Perhaps the first Sufi using poetry in his sermons was the charismatic mystic Abū
Saʿīd Abī ’l-Khayr (967–1049). The quatrains are included in two hagiographies, Asrār al-
taw ḥīd and Ḥāl āt-u sukhan ān-i shaykh Ab ū S aʿīd, compiled by his family a century after his
death. These hagiographies form the basis for studies on his mysticism.2 It is said that he lived
an austere reclusive life in his first 40 years but later he indulged in a life filled with banquets
and entertainment. The Sufi sam āʿ is associated with him. During these sessions poetry and
music were performed, which brought Sufis into ecstatic joy, throwing off their clothes or
tearing them to pieces. This also led to the accusation that he had wavered in the faith, as
several leading theologians condemned sam āʿ. For instance, the Abū Bakr Mu ḥammad b.
Ma ḥ mashādh accused him of giving “lavish feasts, reciting poetry from the pulpit, and hav-
ing young men perform sam āʿ in public.”3 This is why G. Böwering characterizes Abū Saʿīd’s
mysticism as marked by “eccentricity, dichotomy, and paradox.”4 He is also famous for his
rapturous statements (sha ṭḥīyāt), a “genre” that started with the great mystic Bāyazīd Bisṭā m ī
(d. 874). Perhaps the most daring utterance is “there is nothing inside my cloak except

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Allāh.”5 The authenticity of his quatrains is uncertain, as they may have been composed by
his Sufi teacher Abū ’l-Qā sim Bishr Yā sī n (d. 990), who initiated him to Sufism.
Another Sufi poet, who still enjoys great popularity in the Persian-speaking world is
Bābā Ṭāhir ʿUryān, “the Naked” (d.c. 1028), whose quatrains, in a Luri dialect are still sung.
He is a legendary figure who lived as a recluse, wandering in the mountains and steppe. He
also wrote several books, including Ish ārāt-i B ābā Ṭāhir (“The Aphoristic Words of Bābā
Ṭā hir”), which shows that the poet was a learned man, deeply informed in Sufism.6 The
authenticity of the quatrains attributed to Bābā Ṭāhir is questionable as the earliest sources
date from the fifteenth century, and their number increases in later centuries. P ū rjavād ī has
examined these quatrains within the framework of early Persian Sufism, showing how these
poems contain mystical philosophy of the tenth and eleventh centuries. De Bruijn doubts
the quatrains authenticity, indicating that the image we could gather from these quatrains
is a “dervish, a wandering beggar for the sake of his mystical search.” 7 In one of his poems,
Bābā Ṭāhir refers to the phenomenon of Qalandar. The qalandariyyāt (see below) is a genre
that becomes part and parcel of Persian Sufi poetry from the twelfth century:
I am the drunken man that people call qalandar;
Without home, family, or shelter,
Spending my days walking around your home,
Placing my head upon a stone at night.8

In several poems, he emphasizes how he constantly weeps. This could be evidence that he
belonged to the ascetics who profusely wept for various reasons, such as for the people who
err in their religion, or for sinners who will be punished in the hereafter. They were called
the “weepers” (bak ā‘ūn), a term from two verses from the Qur’ān (xvii: 109; xix: 58): “and
they fall down on their chins, weeping,” and “when the signs of the Merciful were recited
before them, they fell down, prostrating themselves, weeping”:
Without you, I am distressed day and night,
Tears are running from my eyes, day and night
I have no fever, nor pain in any place;
I just know that I am weeping, day and night.9

In most of these poems, the poet uses the first person singular pronoun, making his poetry
very personal with an emotional tone, explaining how deeply he is stricken by love, how
sorely he suffers in separation, and how intensely he is longing for the divine beloved.
Another figure whose name is associated with quatrains is ʿUmar Khayyā m (1048–1131).
Although in Western literary culture Khayyā m epitomizes Persian poetry, thanks to Edward
FitzGerald’s (1809–1883) Rubáiyát, his position as a Sufi poet in the Persian literary tradi-
tion is equivocal. To begin with, it is uncertain whether the quatrains attributed to him are
actually written by the historical Khayyā m, since most first appear in manuscripts dating
from the thirteenth century onwards. The number of quatrains increases considerably in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.10 The first occurrence of a Persian quatrain by Khayyā m
is in Fakhr al-Dī n Rāzī’s (d. 1210) Arabic commentary on Sura XCV, the Risālat fi ’l-tanbīh
(written in 1203), in which he cites Khayyā m on the Last Judgement:
Why did the Owner who arranged the elements of nature
Cast it again into shortcomings and deficiency?
If it was ugly, who is to blame for these flaws in forms?
And if is beautiful, why does he break it again?11

This quatrain, together with the following, is cited in the mystic manual Mir ṣād al-ʿibād
(completed 1223) by Najm al-Dī n Rāzī, better known as Dāya.

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We come and go in a circle

Whose begin and end are invisible.
No one speaks a sincere word in this world
As to where we come from and where we are going.
Dāya criticizes Khayyā m as a materialist philosopher who comments on the futility of God’s
creation, denying the Hereafter. Although in several scholarly works, Khayyā m is regarded
as a Sufi, in Persian Sufi texts, he is characterized as a philosopher who denies the essential
tenets of Islam. The Sufi poet Far īd al-Dī n ʿAṭṭār (c. 1145–1221) cites an anecdote about a
clairvoyant who sees Khayyā m immersed in perspiration in his grave, realizing that his phil-
osophical knowledge is of no use.12 These and similar responses show that Sufis condemned
Khayyā m and the ideas attributed to him in the quatrains. Nevertheless, there are collections
of his quatrains that are, at times, interpreted as Sufi utterances, and they are sometimes in-
terpreted in a mystical sense.
The first collection of Sufi quatrains is that of ʿAṭṭār. His Mukht ār-n āma (The Book of the
Selection) is organized thematically in 15 chapters. Most of these quatrains treat the notion
of love and related topics such as the lover’s pain of separation and the beloved’s beauty and
indifference, but there are also several chapters on the candle. Although the authenticity of
this collection has been doubted by several scholars, the editor, Shaf ī’ ī-Kadkan ī, discards any
reservations about its authenticity.13
His thematic arrangement and organization in chapters apparently influenced other mys-
tics. For instance, Abū ’l-Majd Tabr īzī compiled an encyclopaedic miscellany, consisting of
210 works, known as the Saf īna (copied 1321–1323). He includes several existing collections
of mystical quatrains, and has compiled another himself. This collection, Khul āsat al-ashʿār f ī
rubāʿiyyāt (“Abridged Quatrain Poetry”) contains 500 quatrains, organized in 50 chapters.14
Unlike ʿAṭṭār’s collection, these poems are written by a large number of poets, including
Tabr īzī’s own teachers such as the mystic Am ī n al-Dī n Ḥājj Bulah. The quatrains deal with
the nature of mystic love and the physical and psychological qualities of the lover.
Another invaluable collection (4.085 quatrains) is Nuzhat al-majālis (The Delight of Gatherings)
by Jamāl Khalīl Shirvānī. About 1,700 quatrains deal with love and the description of the be-
loved’s moral and physical qualities, as well as his or her daily activities and occupations.15 Ascetic
topics are also common. Here we read quatrains on the effects of love such as insomnia, silence,
lack of appetite and withdrawal from human community. In his extensive studies of quatrain col-
lections, Sayyid-ʿAlī Mīr-Afżalī concludes that the inclusion of only two quatrains from ʿAṭṭār’s
Mukhtār-nāma in the Nuzhat indicates that Shirvānī did not know the Mukhtār-nāma.16 Almost
all Sufi poets have composed quatrains, up to the present day. Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (1207–1273)
composed some 1,983 quatrains, although several are spurious.
Another genre connected to quatrains is commentaries. Quatrains are usually used within
a prose text to illustrate a point, but there are also quatrains which are separately presented
and commented upon. Such quatrains are considered to be puzzling or even having magical
healing effects. Perhaps the oldest quatrain with several commentaries is rub āʿī-yi howrā’iyya
(“The Quatrain of the Heavenly Maidens”):
The Heavenly Maidens stood in a row to look at my Idol;
The Keeper of Paradise clasped his hands in admiration;
That black mole on the cheeks was a robe of silk;
For fear the holy men clutched their Qur’āns.17

The poem occurs in Abū Saʿīd’s Asrār al-taw ḥīd, in an anecdote in which Abū Saʿīd, on hear-
ing that his muqr ī or “reciter” Bū Ṣā li ḥ had become ill, sends him an amulet upon which
this quatrain was written. People attributed magical powers to Abū Saʿīd’s quatrains, but this

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specific quatrain became so popular that at least 12 commentaries were written on it, from
the fourteenth century. This became an independent genre of mystical manuals in which ei-
ther a quatrain was explained in prose or a concept was explained followed by its epitome in
a quatrain. For instance in Sharḥ-i rubāʿiyyāt, Jā m ī gives 48 quatrains, each followed by a one-
page commentary. These quatrains seem easy to read while the commentaries explain the
intricacies of the metaphysical thought conveyed in the poems. Conversely, Jā m ī’s Law āyiḥ,
a mixture of prose and verse, often uses an illustrative quatrain at the end of a section.
In addition to the hundreds of individual Sufi poets whose works are known, there
are many collections of quatrains on Sufi themes and topics which are in libraries and
have not yet been published. The tradition of writing mystical quatrains has remained
popular in the Persian-speaking world: the works of any poet-mystic are likely to in-
clude quatrains.

The genre of mystical ghazal

The ghazal is the poetic form par excellence for mystics. Each ghazal has a specific metre and
is mono-rhymed aa, ba, ca, etc., with usually between 5 and 12 lines. The flourishing of
the ghazal as a poetic form with specific characteristics coincided with the inclusion of Sufi
terms and concepts in Persian poetry from the twelfth century. In a mystical context, the
rich repertoire of words and metaphors in the courtly poetic tradition received a spiritual
interpretative layer. Words such as d ūst or “friend,” yār or “beloved” could refer to an earthly
figure, but also to the Sufi master, the prophet Mu ḥammad, and to God. Words from the
Bacchic vocabulary such as wine, wine cup and cupbearer also attained an additional layer:
wine could stand for God’s breath breathed into man’s body while the cupbearer was God
himself. This created an interplay between the secular and spiritual that has remained at the
heart of Persian ghazal poetry to the present day. The ambiguity also affected the nature of
the beloved in ghazals, which remains an intriguing discussion today. Persian does not have
grammatical gender distinctions that would identify the sex of the beloved, but in ghazals,
reference is often made to the upcoming beard of the beloved, emphasizing the beloved’s
male gender and youth.18
The first poet who wrote a substantive number of mystic ghazals was Ḥ ak ī m San āʾī of
Ghazna (c. 1045–1131). The significance of San āʾī for the development of the ghazal is his
introduction of antinomian concepts and motifs, known under the term qalandariyyāt.19
The term qalandar refers to a “wandering dervish,” “a vagabond,” a figure who appeared
from the eleventh century in the north-eastern part of Persia and spread swiftly to other
areas such as Anatolia and India. These dervishes provoked Islamic orthodoxy by deriding
rituals and laws, through their shocking appearance, shaving all bodily hair appearing
naked or semi-naked in public, and staying in taverns and brothels, drinking wine and
associating with young men. 20 They saw their provocations as a means to attract criticism
to shield themselves from hypocrisy. Any public respect is a temptation to dissimulation
on the mystic path. These Qalandars believed in paradoxical piety: despite their outwardly
sinful behaviour, they were pious but wanted to distance themselves from the religious
scholars and organized Sufis who were respected for their piety. For Qalandars, piety could
be gauged only by God. In their radical renunciation of the world, they had also included
all the external aspects of Islam.
There are at least four categories of Qalandar ī themes in the ghazals. One group of mo-
tifs centre on the beliefs and comport of the Qalandar. Other figures such as “detached
dervish” (malang) and the “inspired libertine” (rind) also appear as characters in ghazals. 21

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When the character appears, he commonly criticizes Islam, the false piety of the theolo-
gians, preachers and jurists through provoking behaviour such as openly drinking wine,
and flouting Islamic norms. They flee from the mosque and school, symbols of formal
religion, to a tavern, also called a khar āb āt or “ruined place.” Second, there are motifs
revolving around love, usually referring to a homoerotic relationship between a mystic
and a young boy, of Christian or Z ­ oroastrian descent. Third, motifs related to wine and
wine-drinking. Fourth, religious motifs in which the most sacred tenets of Islam and even
Islam itself are condemned. These are motifs in which the pilgrimage to Mecca, showing
off religiosity, etc., are severely censured and the mystic is advised to choose the Mecca
of the heart, to prefer kufr (“unbelief ”) or apostasy, or heresy to Islam. All these motifs
are usually interwoven in a polyphonic presentation in which lyric eroticism, asceticism
and Bacchanalia are combined with ­n ature imagery. In the tavern, the Qalandar finds his
spiritual guide, an Magian Elder ­( p īr-i mugh ān), and drinks the dregs of the wine, which
make him mindful of the moment God breathed the soul into man’s body. This moment
is depicted as a drunken ecstasy. ­Persian ghazals create a paradoxical piety in which the
reader is advised to internalize religion, to personalize his bond with God, and to avoid
public respect, which may lead to hypocrisy. This ­Qalandari genre became an essential
part of the Persianate literary traditions from the Balkans to ­Bengal. Even Ayatollah Kho-
meini’s ghazals strictly follow this centuries-old tradition: surprisingly enough, he is a
modern exponent of Qalandari poetry. 22
The Qalandari motifs are strongly exploited by San āʾī, ʿAṭṭā r and Fakhr al-D ī n ʿIr ā qī.
The following ghazal by ʿAṭṭā r is an example of the figure of the Christian boy. In such
ghazals, references are made to Christian religious elements such as the church, the bell,
the cross and zunn ār or the “Christian belt.” The zunn ār refers to the identifying belt that
Christians were required to wear, showing their otherness. The taverns, brothels and other
such places were situated at the periphery of the society and were associated with disrep-
utable life. Through their positive interpretation of places such as Christian cloister and
tavern, and accoutrements such as the bell and belt, mystics created a strong ambiguity,
seriously questioning the piety of religious Islamic scholars. The centrality of the Qalan-
dari motifs created an ambiguous space in which the concept of piety could be appraised.
ʿAṭṭā r’s ghazal is an example showing how Persian mystics integrated the Christian other
into the centre of their religiosity:
I saw at the door of a cloister a Christian youth,
deeply religious, adorned like an idol last night.
With a belt around his waist while he was coming out of the cloister,
folding his hat to become enchanting and delightful.
When I saw his eyes and lips, I changed a hundred times,
As I saw this Christian youth, I turned powerless, stunned,
He came drunk at my side, in one hand the belt, in the other the wine.
He sat at my side, saying: “if you want to be one of us,
You can be with us tonight, you will be the crown of our heads.
We will find rest through you, you will find rest through us;
I will serve you with my soul without any obligations or demand,
I confer a hundred favours on you if you come at my side tonight.”
I went to his cell and drank from the wine of his love,
Instantly my heart found a way to revelation.
ʿAṭṭā r grew baffled and bewildered through his love;
He stayed at the cloister, bartering my religion for Christianity.23
The apex of the Persian mystical ghazal is Ḥā fi ẓ who masterfully combines various themes
and motifs in each couplet of his ghazal. As an example, I analyse the following ghazal:

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1. For years our heart beseeched us for the cup of Jamshīd;

asking strangers for that which it itself possessed.
2. The pearl, which transcends the shell of Place and “to Be,’”
was searching for the lost ones on the sea-shore.
3. Last night I took my problem to the Magi Elder,
who resolved the riddle with the aid of his [inner] vision.
4. I found him cheerful and smiling with a cup of wine in his hand
Seeing in that mirror (the cup of Jamshīd) a hundred kinds of spectacles.
5. I said: “When did the Wise give you this world-reflecting cup?”
He said: “On the day that He was building this enamel dome.”
6. There was one who had lost his heart: God was with him under all conditions
But he did not see Him, and called out “O God,” as if from far off.
7. All the wonder-work performed here:
S ā mir ī was doing too, before the rod and White Hand of Moses.24
8. The Elder said: “The friend, whose head went up upon the gallows,
his crime was the revelation of the secrets.
9. If the emanation of the Holy Spirit favours us again,
others too may perform that which Jesus did.”
10. I said to him: “What are these chains of the beloved’s locks for?”
He said: “Ḥāfiẓ is complaining about his mad heart.”25

The poem conveys the complaint of a poet lover about his own heart, followed by a dialogue
between him and his spiritual guide, ending with a reference to the poet Ḥāfiẓ (the takhallus) who
also appears to complain of his heart. Ḥāfiẓ is addressed by an unidentified person. There are
also several other persons present in the poem such as Christ; Sāmirī, a magician who appears in
stories about Moses (Qur’ān 20:85–98); and the mystic Ḥallāj who lost his head on the gallows.
As in Ḥāfiẓ’s other poems, this ghazal is polyphonic, which means that there are several voices
present and that several themes, motifs and imagery are interwoven to point to the complexity
of the subject matter. The main theme revolves around the purification of the heart in order to
attain to mystical illumination. In this poem, Ḥāfiẓ is speaking about self-realization of the heart
as a traveller. In the first line, the poem’s persona refers to the mystic’s heart which, due to lack of
understanding, is searching outside itself for something which it possesses. The compound jām-i
Jam refers to the legendary cup of mythical king Jamshīd in which he could see all the events in
the world. The cup symbolizes the mystic’s heart, and a cup of wine.
The longing heart is unaware that it already possesses all the qualities of Jamsh īd’s cup.
Using a maritime image in the second couplet, the poet compares the heart to a pearl, which
is outside time and physical existence. “The shell of Place and ‘to Be’” alludes to the cre-
ated world: the pearl develops there but is more precious and more durable, but the heart is
unaware how costly it is. Here Ḥā fi ẓ introduces a paradox: in this material world the heart
belongs to the spiritual world but has forgotten its origin, and its own nature. Therefore,
it is searching for the Cup among those who have lost their way. These people do not dare
to enter the ocean, let alone to dive into it to win this pearl. In this couplet, Ḥā fi ẓ refers
to the physical and the transcendental heart. The first is the beating centre for our physical
existence in this world, while the spiritual heart belongs to another realm. God entrusts His
secrets to the transcendental heart. One way to realize the spiritual potential of this heart is
through asceticism. Disciplining one’s soul through sleeplessness, isolation and eating as little
food as possible polishes the mirror of the heart so that the traveller can find union with the
Divine. Another way Ḥā fi ẓ suggests is through antinomianism, following the example of the
“Magian Elder,” who appears in the third couplet.
This Magian Elder is an antinomian mystic who resides in taverns and drinks wine, and is
able to solve any problem through his mystical intuition. This teacher frequently appears in

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Ḥā fi ẓ’s poetry, advising the inexperienced mystic lover. Here, the poet refers to the mystery
of the heart, which is a riddle to him. When the mystic approaches the Elder, he finds him
cheerful, perhaps under the effect of wine. Like Jamsh īd, he is looking at the cup and seeing
all the events of the world. This imagery creates coherence in the images used so far, linking
the cup, the heart and the mirror. Here Ḥā fi ẓ depicts the gifts of the Elder, his comport and
his familiar posture, holding a cup of wine in his hand. The poet combines the wine and
antinomian genres as an obligatory quality of the teacher. It is as if Ḥā fi ẓ wants to say that
antinomianism is a prerequisite to see the secrets of the unseen.
In the fifth couplet, there is a dialogue between the mystic and his teacher. “The Wise”
(ḥak īm) is one of the 99 beautiful names of God, and the phrase “on that day” refers to the
day God fashioned the enamel dome, that is, the world. Ḥā fi ẓ is referring to the creation of
the heart. According to Sufis, the first thing God created was the human heart, in which
he placed his love and concealed his treasures.26 In the sixth couplet, Ḥā fi ẓ presents a mystic
traveller who has “lost” his heart, and has forgotten that God is with him all the time. Ḥā fi ẓ
introduces here a paradox: the traveller has the means to attain to God but does not see it, he
shouts God from a distance. The “seeing” is itself an impediment to perceive God. The trav-
eller is not aware, as the mystical maxim reads, that the “inability to perceive the perceiving
is [itself a] perception.” The compound bīdil literally “without a heart” at the beginning of
the couplet says that mystic traveller has forgotten the heart’s transcendental origin. The
heart is the site for intuition, knowledge and consciousness. Being unaware of his own heart,
the traveller is unable to perceive reality. Ḥā fi ẓ turns the adjective bīdil into the noun bīdilī,
“a person without any heart,” to create a predicate for the mystic lover. Although bīdil also
means having lost one’s heart to the beloved, that is not the connotation here. The couplet
also points at the antithesis of the outward and inward. The mystic lover has focussed on
the outward but must look inward to find God. This antithesis appears quite frequently in
mystic works, for example, in the topos of “the Kaʿba of the heart,” where God resides, versus
“the Kaʿba of the clay,” the “House of God” in Mecca. Mystics are admonished to avoid the
physical Kaʿba and focus on the heart to perceive God.
The antithesis is further elaborated in the seventh couplet when the poet introduces the
dichotomy between the real and the false, between knowledge acquired through reason and
direct knowledge from God, or “Gnosis.” All the finite intellect can perceive of the infinite
Reality is like Sā mir ī’s magic show that tricks the intellect into seeing illusions, whereas the
God-given miracle of Moses unveiled a reality. In another poem, Ḥā fi ẓ states, “be happy, as
magic cannot equal a miracle; who is Sā mir ī to prevail over the White Hand?” The miracle
of the White Hand is mentioned in the Qur’ān (20:22): God commands Moses to press his
hand to his side, and it will come out “white, without disease.”27
In couplet eight, the Magi alludes to Ḥusayn Manṣū r Ḥallāj who was executed in Baghdad
in 922 due to his lawbreaking phrase ana’l-Ḥaqq (“I am God”). Ḥallāj is characterized as a
friend, but one who revealed secrets which should remain hidden. The spiritual master is
preparing the mystic lover to rely on Gnosis, so that he can see God in his own heart. This
Gnosis is a gift, a secret, which must remain between the mystic and God. In couplet nine,
Ḥā fi ẓ refers to the emanation theory in which God is modelled as a Fountain of Light that
constantly creates and maintains the creation. Ḥā fi ẓ connects this to the Holy Spirit, refer-
ring to Jesus and his miracles. Again in this line, Ḥā fi ẓ is emphasizing the importance of the
miracle, as God’s direct gift conferred on an individual. Without God’s aid, it is not possible
to perform any miracles. In Persian poetry, Jesus is associated with a quickening breath that
gives life to clay (Qur’ān 5:110). His ability to revive the dead is also compared to the beloved
who is able to kiss the separated anguished lover to restore his waning soul.28 This reference

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to Jesus may also point at the dichotomy of the divine and human, as prophets such as Jesus
had two natures. The “Perfect Man” is said to be constantly in touch with the divine while
in human form. Since the universe depends on continual divine emanations, the mystic’s at-
tainment is a divine gift: its measure is how much is given, rather than how great the mystic’s
capacity may be. If all depends on emanations, then the miracles of Jesus could be replicated
if God so chose. The mystic’s dependence on the Holy Spirit is the corollary of the first and
sixth couplets, that God is not far off, if we but knew it. By referencing the life-giving mir-
acles of Jesus, rather than some other miracle, Ḥā fi ẓ makes the image do double duty: the
mystic is both the one in whom life is breathed and one who could, if the Holy Spirit granted
it, perform what Jesus did.
In the last couplet, the mystic lover poses an apparently unrelated question about the fa-
miliar poetic image of the beloved’s curly hair compared to the links of a chain. At first sight,
the question looks out of context but in the Elder’s answer, it becomes clear that the question
alludes to the hadith al-majāz qan ṭarat al- ḥaqīqa or “metaphor/illusion leads to truth/reality.”
The beautiful long tresses of the beloved can lead the mystic to the Truth. In other words,
earthly love is a bridge to the divine, and contemplating on the beauties of the beloved leads
to the knowledge of God. The allusion to the chains of the beloved’s hair indicates that these
lovely chains are meant to capture the lover’s heart. Love is the medium to aid the lover to
decipher the mysteries of the heart. However, the Elder’s answer does not unravel the already
familiar metaphor, rather he says that where the outer form is a questioner trying to unravel
the mysteries of things – as in this poem – the inner reality is a lover who is questioning his
heart. The reference to Ḥā fi ẓ also universalizes the complaint: the reader as a mystic lover
should realize that he is not the only person who does not know the mysteries of the heart.
In conclusion, this poem refers to self-realization, and self-reflection by creating different
dichotomies such as “self ” / “other”; “problem” / “resolve,” but also metaphors such as those
lost on the sea-shore and those who can find the pearl in the depth of the sea. The mystic can
achieve this self-realization through antinomians rather than ascetic discipline of polishing
the heart. The heart stands for an insightful mystic vision. The emphasis on the sense of sight
is enormous, but this is not physical seeing, but rather intuitive illumination. As the mystic
lover becomes able to look into his heart, he will realize that the pearl of intuitive vision is
actually seeking him. The words and metaphors alluding to sight are: na ẓar (vision / glance);
dīdamash (I saw him); āyina (mirror); ṣad g ūna tam āsh ā (a hundred kinds of looking/spectacle);
jām-i jah ān-bīn (the world-reflecting cup) and huvaydā (“revealed”), and there are, of course,
several metaphors related to illusionary seeing such as magic (shuʿbada).

Ghazals of abstinence
A recurrent subject in the mystical ghazals is abstinence, which emphasizes themes related
to uncertainties of the world, and preparation for death and the Hereafter. Middle Persian
wisdom literature deals essentially with moral instructions. It conveys wisdom (khirad) about
the world and how to live a life which brings benefit in both this world and the world here-
after. This literature lived on in Islamic times and was mixed with Islamic wisdom literature
­(ḥikmat). According to De Bruijn, “There can be no doubt, however, that both Middle Persian
wisdom literature and the Arabic poems of abstinence did exert a great influence on Sufi liter-
ature.”29 Arab poets such as Abū ’l-ʿAtāhīya (d.c. 825), Abū Nuwās (d.c. 815) and a­ l-Mutanabbī
­(915–985) composed poems on abstaining from the world, which came to be known as zuh-
diyyāt. The term zuhd refers to developing spiritual qualities to unite the mystic with God.
Another term, riyāżat, points to taming the wild horse of the lower self by chastening the

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body to such a degree that the imprisoned soul could be freed and return to its original abode.
Poems on abstinence depict the ascetic side of the mystic’s love. While the Qalandari themes
and motifs refer to extrovert love, zuhdiyyāt shapes the inner reality of the lover, who practises
vigils, seclusion, denial of appetites and silence to fully meditate on the Beloved. The common
features of these poems, as depicted in the following ghazal by Saʿdī, are the didactic message
of contempt for material existence and bidding farewell to the world:
You who deny the world of dervishes
Do you not know of their beliefs and wishes?
The treasure of needlessness and contentment is in a place
Which the Sultan and his kingdom cannot reach by force
No-one with reason would look for transient power
One who has reason would contemplate the end dire.
The rich man accumulated and ruefully disappeared
But the dervish has nothing to leave behind with remorse.
The former leaves the garden of life full of regret
Whereas the latter breaks free from material living.
He has nothing to worry about the Day of Judgement
Like a seagull which is not afraid of storm.
The Angel of Death kills strangers painfully
No pain though for the dervish familiar to Him.
A dervish lover is so free from need and greed
That he neither wants this world nor even the other.
The pact of love was made at the dawn of creation
He would not break his word even on pain of death.
I saw a lover, burnt by experience with nowhere to go,
I told him, Friend do not sacrifice your life for your beliefs.
Ah, he said, weak with a cold painful sigh,
Please leave alone me who have nothing of mine.
I will never listen to your good word of advice
For I seek pain and need no cure otherwise
Life is dear, Saʿdī, to be lived wise
Time is not wasted except by the unwise.30

Ghazals have remained popular down to the present day. The prolific poets Ṣāʿib of Tabriz
(1601–1677) and Bīdil (d. 1720) in India, who tried to outstrip previous mystic poets in both
quantity and quality, must be mentioned. From the twentieth century, while the mystical
ghazal remained popular with several poets, it also received criticism as Sufism was seen as
“evil teachings” by secular intellectuals such as A ḥ mad Kasrav ī (1890–1946), who criticized
Ḥā fi ẓ and Saʿd ī.31 Poets such as Shaf īʿī Kadkan ī are living examples proving the ghazal’s mer-
its and potential as a living form of Persian mystic poetry.

Stories and narratives

From the eleventh century, the Sufis employed courtly love poetry to express their mystical
teachings. While initially quatrains and ghazals were popular, rhyming couplets (mathnavī )
soon took a place, due to the simple rhyme scheme (aa, bb, cc, etc.). The mathnavī was ini-
tially used mainly for heroic topics but it proved an adaptable form for theoretical expose,
allegories and didactic entertaining narratives. Sanāʾī must be credited with establishing the
foundations for theorizing Sufism in verse. His Ḥadīqat al- ḥaqīqa (“The Garden of Truth”)
contains 10,000 couplets (and in a shorter version, 5,000 couplets), dealing with religious
and ethical subjects. Citations from this work and the number of manuscripts testify to its
popularity through the centuries in a wide geographic area. Sanāʾī’s poem became a model

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for poets such as ʿAṭṭār, Ni ẓā m ī, Rū m ī and Saʿd ī. Although due to its wide range of subjects,
Ḥad īqa has been called an “encyclopaedia of Ṣū fism,” this is, as De Bruijn observes, a “mis-
leading qualification” as all subjects are “subordinated to the didactic discourse.”32 For Sanāʾī
narratives are less important than the didactic message. He uses fewer and shorter stories
than, for instance, Rū m ī in his Mathnavī.
In this massive poem, Sanāʾī deals with a wide range of topics ranging from asceticism to
ethical subjects including passionate love. He presents his material by usually giving a defi-
nition of the terms he treats, often but not always accompanied by anecdotes. His treatment
of the concept of love is unique in the way he theorizes love in verse:
Love came like a robber of the heart that steals the soul;
she came to dissect the head and to reveal the secret.
Love tells the secret to those whose heads are cut off
because she knows that the head is a telltale.
Love does not go towards any created thing;
loverhood can be attained by those who have arrived.
Love is the speaker that explains the hidden meanings;
love is the dresser with a naked body.
Love came like water that burns the fire;
love came like fire that burns water.
Love is free from the four nails of the body;
love is a wise bird, knowing how to break the cage.33

Muʿayyad Nasaf ī, an important but less-known poet, followed Sanāʾī’s example in writing
homiletic mathnav īs in the twelfth century. Another influential poet who imitated Ḥadīqa
was Ni ẓā m ī. He introduced several innovations in his Makhzan al-asrār (about 1166) to em-
phasize the originality of his own poem. The poem has a different metre, and the organiza-
tion is well-ordered, contrasting theoretical parts from illustrative anecdotes.34 The leitmotiv
in this poem is the rule of justice to which several chapters are devoted. This theme is also
integrated with the Sufi universe. Perhaps the most attractive story is the complaint of an old
woman to Sultan Sanjar, telling in a moving language how badly she is treated, physically
and mentally, by the police, and why the Sultan should think of his role in this transient
world, warning him of the approaching the Day of Judgment. Ni ẓā m ī wrote five epic poems
known as (khamsa), which inspired generations of poets wherever Persian literary influence
reached. Ni ẓā m ī’s Makhzan was imitated by many celebrated poets such as Am ī r Khusraw,
Khwājū Kirm ān ī and Jā m ī.
Among the Ḥadīqa imitations, mention should be made of Saʿd ī’s B ūst ān (“The Orchard,”
1257), a masterpiece of mystic poetry. It consists of some 4,000 couplets, dedicated to the
Salghur īd At ābak Mu ḥammad b. Saʿd b. Abū-Bakr.35 The B ūst ān together with the Gulist ān
(“The Rose-Garden”) were favourite books for the education of the youth from the Balkans
to Bengal until the early twentieth century. Saʿd ī’s works were translated into European lan-
guages from the seventeenth century. As De Bruijn rightly says, while “Nezâmi appears to
be mainly concerned with the preparation of the human soul for its eternal destination,” (…)
“Sa’di preaches a moderately ascetic attitude towards life in this world, the pious acceptance
of God’s will, and mystical love.”36 As a counterpart of his prose magnum opus Gulist ān, the
B ūst ān is organized in ten chapters, each devoted to an ethical subject, ranging from justice
to benevolence, piety, humility, love, good education, repentance, welfare and private con-
versation with God. Written by a master story-teller, the B ūst ān contains some 160 stories,
which should be regarded as didactic illustrations, as the poem’s goal is to ennoble the soul
and to emphasize the world’s ephemeral nature and the preparation for Judgment Day, in
which love is the leading force to bring the soul to the place of return.37

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Sufi poets used various mediums to depict the soul’s journey. One favourite allegory was
the ascension of the Prophet through the spheres to meet God. The stations of this journey
have been painted in mesmerizing and spellbinding paintings in which the prophet, his won-
drous steed Bū r āq and Gabriel play a central role. Although poets had depicted the Prophet’s
journey prior to Ni ẓā m ī, he standardized the miʿrāj genre as part of the narrative. His many
emulators composed their own creative miʿrāj-n āmas. Each introductory part of Ni ẓā m ī’s ep-
ics contains a chapter on the prophet’s night sojourn. The inclusion of such spiritual journeys
in a story suggests a mystical interpretation for the story itself. In the romance Laylī and Ma-
jn ūn, Layl ī could easily stand for God while Majnū n is a mystic lover. One goal of the miʿrāj
is to show how to divest oneself of material existence, annihilating oneself, to be admitted to
a loving union with the divine. The union is exclusively for human beings. In the Prophet’s
miʿrāj, when he reaches the end of the world, he sees that the Archangel Gabriel cannot fly
any further. Gabriel explains that if he takes one more step, his wings will burn. This shows
the high position of mankind. The Prophet goes beyond time and place, arriving at the sea
of selflessness, totally stripped of his humanity, immersed and annihilated in Divinity:
Companions left behind, he pressed
on the Sea of Selflessness; (…)
Beyond his being’s bounds he trod,
till he achieved the sight of God.
He saw outright the Worshipped One,
and cleansed his eyes of all but Him;
Nor did in one place rest his sight,
as greetings came from left and right.
All one – front, back, left, right, high and low,
the six directions were no more (…)
When sight is veiled by direction,
the heart’s not free from false perception.38

Following the prophet’s example, mystics such as Abū Yazīd experienced the miʿrāj, describ-
ing their meeting and dialogue with God. This union symbolizes the mystic’s highest attain-
able spiritual goal. He has achieved the level of a Perfect Man. Such a man is partly divine
and partly earthly, expected to guide his fellow men.

Allegorical poetry
Persian Sufis also used allegory to convey complex mystical doctrines and concepts. An early
specimen is Sanāʾī’s Sayr al-ʿibād il ā ‘l-maʿād (“The Journey of the Servants to the Place of
Return”), depicting the development of the soul in a spiritual journey. The poet starts with
the moment of conception, the development of the foetus under the influence of the planets,
the birth and the development of the soul under the guidance of Active Intellect. The poet
depicts how the soul realizes that it does not belong to this material world and longs to return
to its original abode. Given the centrality of the soul’s ascension them, and the figure of an
old man, symbol of the Rational soul, who guides the narrator like Virgil in Dante’s Divine
Comedy, the poem is sometimes regarded as a forerunner of Dante’s poem, but there is no
hard evidence for this. In the following piece, the first meeting with Active Intelligence is
depicted:
Finally one day, upon a narrow path
I saw from the middle of darkness
An old man, a gentle man who exuded light
Like a faithful Muslim among unbelievers,

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With a tender and loving face, full of modesty

He was profound and reflective, yet nimble and agile.
Born of time, yet more pleasant than Time;
An old being, yet fresher than a new spring.
All his inner sights formed his traits
He was all the heart, the seven limbs and the six directions.
His steps were full of light, so pure;
The shadow of his back was the mirror of his belly.
He was the head of the horizons while he had no feet;
He was the cause of space while he had no place.
I said: “O candle of these nights;
O Messiah of all feverish longings,
What are all these splendor, perfection and nobility?
What is all this grace, loveliness and beauty?
Sometimes a king is searching to reach the feet of someone like you;
How could this dark earth be the place of a moon like you?
You are so weighty in your essence while you are light in your burden;
Who are you? Where does your essence come from?”39

An allegory of world literature stature is ʿAṭṭār’s Man ṭiq al- ṭayr (“Conference of the Birds”),
which narrates the search of a group of birds for their king S ī murgh. The birds start their
journey under the guidance of the hoopoe, passing through seven valleys, symbolizing the
mystical stages. Most give up the journey on various pretexts. Finally, 30 birds arrive at
the court of S ī murgh on Mount Qā f. They call out to the king but they do not hear any
response. At this moment, the frustrated birds discover that they themselves are the sī murgh
(“thirty birds”). ʿAṭṭār shows that the journeying is essential for self-realization. He elabo-
rates on the significance of the mirror and why developing a mystic vision to scrutinize one-
self in the mirror of the heart is essential to prepare the way to see the divine within oneself.
Mystical allegories were written through the centuries, but a strong tendency for allegory
starts in the fifteenth century, with poets such as Fatt āḥī Nayshāpū r ī (born 1448) who wrote
a 5,000-couplet poem Ḥusn-u dil (“Beauty and the Heart”). The title is the names of the two
protagonists who exemplify various aspects of mystical love and heavenly beauty. Fatt āḥī also
wrote a short prose version of the poem. Ḥusn-u dil became popular with Turkish poets who
translated it several times.40 Jā m ī wrote several mystical allegories such as Yūsuf-u Zulaykh ā
(completed 1483), based on the twelfth Sura of the Qur’ān, and Layli and Majnun.41

Conclusion
In this brief survey, we have seen how Persian mystical poetry is used for diverse purposes, as an
expression of personal spiritual experiences, in didactic manuals, and in sermons to rhetorically
strengthen an argument. Poetry also functioned as a means for meditation either privately or in
collective rituals such as samāʿ. During such rituals erotic poetry was chanted to bring the partici-
pants to mystical ecstasy. In such a context, in which the verses of the Qur’ān were recited side by
side with the erotic earthly poetry, the rituals gave poetry a hallowed status, depicting the mystic’s
passionate love for God. Moreover, since poetry was used by saints, it attained a sanctified status,
as a model for the earnest to emulate and a cherished treasure for ordinary people. The attribu-
tion of magical healing qualities to specific quatrains testifies to the position of mystical poetry in
Persian culture. Poetry was also a medium for theoretical reflection and the elucidation of mystic
concepts and doctrines. Persian mystic poetry is a living tradition with diverse functions in the
upbringing of individuals and in many cultural domains. It enjoys an elevated status in at least
three different realms: in the realm of poetic ambiguity which allows ever new interpretations;

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in the realm of visual culture, not merely in terms of tangible metaphors and imagery but also
in paintings and calligraphy; and in the realm of recitation and music, as many mystic poems
have been used for centuries in a musical setting to augment the message to the audience. The
innumerable published editions of Persian mystic poetry attest the popularity of this centuries-old
tradition, at whose centre one finds teachings of love.

Notes
1 J.T.P. de Bruijn, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. Kesāʾi Marvazi.
2 See F. Meier, Ab ū Saʿīd Ab ū’l-Ḫayr, Acta Iranica 11 (Leiden: Brill, 1976).
3 G. Böwering, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. Abū Saʿid Abi’l-Kayr.
4 Ibidem.
5 Ibidem; cf. C. Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in Sufism (Albany: SUNY, 1985).
6 N. P ū rjavād ī, B āb ā Ṭāhir: Sharḥ-i a ḥvāl va nigāh ī ba āth ār (Tehran: Ma’āṣir, 1394/2015).
7 J.T.P. de Bruijn, Persian Sufi Poetry (Richmond: Curzon 1997), p. 15; P ū rjavād ī, B āb ā Ṭāhir, pp.
127–169.
8 B āb ā Ṭāhir-n āma, ed. P. Adhk ā’ ī (Tehran: Tū s, 1375/1996), pp. 272–273.
9 B āb ā Ṭāhir-n āma, p. 276.
10 See The Great Umar Khayyam, ed. A.A. Seyed-Gohrab (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2012).
11 Najm al-D ī n R ā z ī, Mir ṣād al-ʿib ād, ed. M.-A. Riyāḥī (Tehran: ʿIlm ī, 1371/1992), p. 31.
12 ʿAṭṭā r, Il āh ī-n āma, ed. H. Ritter (Tehran: Tū s, 1368/1989), p. 272.
13 ʿAṭṭā r, Mukht ār-n āma, ed. M.-R. Shaf ī’ ī-Kadkan ī, 2nd printing (Tehran: Intisharat-i Sukhan,
1996), p. 11; H. Ritter, “Philologika. X. Faridaddin ʿAṭṭā r,” Der Islam 25 (1938), pp. 134–173; De
Bruijn, Persian Sufi Poetry, pp. 21–23. D. Meneghini, EIr, s.v. Mokt ār-n āma.
14 Abū’l-Majd, Saf īna-yi Tabr īz (Tehran: Nashr-i Dā nishg ā h ī, 1381/2002), pp. 593–612.
15 M ī r-Af ż al ī, Rub ā’iyyāt-i Khayyām dar man ābi’-i kuhan (Tehran: Nashr-i d ā nishg ā h ī, 2004), p. 72.
16 M ī r-Af ż al ī, “Āyā mokht ā r-nā me az Att ā r ast?” Nashr-e D ānesh 17.1 (2000), p. 40.
17 Translation is by De Bruijn, Persian Sufi Poetry, p. 24.
18 For an elaborate discussion of ghazal see J.T.P. de Bruijn, “The Ghazal in Medieval Persian Po-
etry,” in A History of Persian Literature. Vol. II, eds. Ehsan Yarshater and Mohsen Ashtiany (London:
Tauris, 2019), pp. 315–487.
19 See F.D. Lewis, Reading, Writing and Recitations: San ā’ī and the Origin of the Persian Ghazal (PhD
Dissertation The University of Chicago 1995), especially pp. 364–369 and 595–578.
20 See J.T.P. de Bruijn, “The Qalandariyyāt in Persian Mystical Poetry, from Sanāʾī Onwards,” in
The Heritage of Sufism. Vol. 2, ed. L. Lewisohn (Oxford: Oneworld Publications 1999), pp. 75–86;
Lloyd Ridgeon, “Shaggy or Shaved? The Symbolism of Hair among Persian Qalandar Sufis,” Iran
and the Caucasus 14 (2010), pp. 233–264. Ritter, “Philologika XV,” pp. 1–88; idem, The Ocean
of the Soul, trans. John O’Kane and Bernd Radtke (Leiden: Brill, 2003). M-R. Shaf īʻī-Kadkan ī,
Qalandariyya dar t ār īkh (Tehran: Sukhan 1387/2007). A.T. Karamustafa, God’s Unruly Friends (Salt
Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994).
21 See Leonard Lewisohn, “Prolegomenon to the Study of Ḥā fi ẓ 2 – The Mystical Milieu: Ḥā fi ẓ’s
Erotic Spirituality,” in Hafiz and the Religion of Love in Classical Persian Poetry, ed. Leonard Lew-
isohn (London: Tauris 2010), pp. 31–43.
22 A.A. Seyed-Gohrab, “Khomeini the Poet Mystic,” Die Welt des Islams: International Journal for the
Study of Modern Islam 51.3–4 (2011), pp. 438–458.
23 See Far īd al-D ī n ʿAṭṭā r, D īw ān, ed. M.T. Tafaḍḍul ī (Tehran: ‘Ilm ī va Farhang ī 1362/1983),
pp. 693–694.
24 Couplets six and seven appear only in one manuscript, but they are usually added in editions as
part of the ghazal.
25 Muḥammad Shams al-Dīn Ḥāfiẓ, D īvān, ed. P. Nātil Khānlar ī (Tehran: Khārazmī, 1362/1983), p. 288.
26 See Dāya, Mir ṣād al-ʿib ād, p. 49.
27 P. Avery, The Collected Lyrics of Háfiz of Shíráz (London: Archetype, 2007) p. 171; B. K ­ hurramshā h ī,
Ḥāfi ẓ-n āma, Vol. I (Tehran: ʿIlm ī, 1375/1996), p. 569. D. Davis, Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets
of Shiraz, Washington: Mage Publishers, 2012, pp. 42–3; D.P. Brookshaw, Hafiz and his Contem-
poraries: Poetry, Performance and Patronage in Fourteenth-Century Iran, London / New York,
I.B. Tauris, 2019, pp. 180–84.

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28 See A. Schimmel in Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. Christianity, vii. Christian Influences in Persian
Poetry.
29 De Bruijn, Persian Sufi Poetry, p. 30.
30 Translated by Katouzian in Sa’di in Love (London: Tauris, 2016), p. 195.
31 L. Ridgeon, Sufi Castigator: Ahmad Kasravi and the Iranian Mystical Tradition (London: Routledge,
2006).
32 See J.T.P. de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry: The Interaction of Religion and Literature in the Life and Works
of Ḥak īm San āʾī of Ghazna (Leiden: Brill 1983), pp. 119–139.
33 This translation is based on personal communication with J.T.P. de Bruijn.
34 On Makhzan see Renate Würsch, N īẓām īs Schatzkammer der Geheimnisse. Eine Untersuchung zu
Mahzan ul-asr ā r (Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2005), pp. 72–126.
35 B ūst ān, ed. by Gh.-H. Yusofi, 2nd print (Tehran: Kh ā razm ī, 1984), p. 37; G.M. Wickens, Morals
Pointed and Tales Adorned (Leiden: Brill, 1974).
36 J.T.P. de Bruijn, “Secular Didactic Mathnavis,” in A History of Persian Literature. Vol. II, eds. Ehsan
Yarshater and Mohsen Ashtiany (London: Tauris, 2019 forthcoming).
37 Ibidem.
38 Nizami, Haft Paykar: A Medieval Persian Romance, trans. Julie Scott Meisami (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, The World’s Classics, 1995), pp. 8–9.
39 See Mathnav īh ā-yi Ḥak īm San āʾī, ed. Mudarris Ra ż av ī (Tehran: Dā nishg ā h-i Tehran, 1348/1969),
pp. 187–188.
40 Tahsın Yazici, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. Fatt āḥī Nī š ābū r ī, Moḥ ammad.
41 Seyed-Gohrab, Laylī and Majn ūn: Love, Madness and Mystic Longing in N īẓām ī’s Epic Romance
(Leiden: Brill, 2003).

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