Biography
Hafiz of Shiraz is the supreme master of the Persian ghazal, a poet whose collected Divan has been consulted as an oracle across the Persianate world for six centuries. Born in Shiraz around 1325, he spent nearly his entire life in that city, writing approximately five hundred ghazals that transformed the form by fusing its outward celebrations of wine and beauty with a Sufi interior of spiritual longing. His name itself is a devotional credential: Hafiz designates one who has memorized the Quran, and his poetry carries the Quran's cadences even when it appears to contradict its prohibitions. His influence on Afghan cultural and literary life is perhaps greater than that of any other classical poet; in Afghanistan, his Divan is treated as a book of divination, opened at random to read one's fortune.
Ahmad Zahir and Hafiz
Ahmad Zahir drew directly on several of Hafiz's most theologically charged ghazals, including "Tu Dani Tu Ze Chi Jawhar" and "Haasha Ke Man Ba Mowsum," rendering their wine-and-devotion arguments in his characteristic warm baritone and making Sufi theology accessible to a popular audience without stripping it of its weight.
Songs from Hafiz’s Tradition
به خود گفتم پس از چندی
Ba Khud Guftam Pas Az Chande
I Told Myself After a While
A Hafiz poem of private reckoning — the speaker in interior dialogue, coming to terms with what love has done to them, after a passage of time has brought clarity.
Tu Dani Tu Ze Chi Jawhar
You Know, You of What Substance
A Hafiz ghazal turned into song — the poet addressing God directly, asking what divine substance the wounded heart was made of, that even in death it clothes itself in tulips.
Haasha Ke Man Ba Mowsum
God Forbid That I to the Season
Hafiz's famous defense of the wine-drinker against the pious — Ahmad Zahir delivers it as a declaration of personal freedom, wine as emblem of authentic life over religious performance.