The way to salvation in the world "Hafiz"

The literature of this country was born in the historical ups and downs and in the face of all the adversities of the eras of this land, it played the song of harmony and raised the children of Farazman, one of whom is Hafez.

Ambassador Arjan - Mehr Magazine; Atieh Javareh: Until a few years ago, I thought that days with the title of commemorating Iranian poets and writers, all of them, were just a symbolic day to remember their valuable and precious works, and after the passage of the same 24 hours, all the written material about this would be forgotten again! But the truth is that this is not the whole story. I understood this issue from the time when the noble body of our country was caught in the black claws of war and we, as humans who had probably never felt death so close to us, stood helplessly against the devastation of war and from the evil of this blackness, we sought refuge in literature and experienced another meaning of it. A meaning just like the window that is the only way to enter the light in the darkness, and in its absence, nothing remains but the blackness of life.

The literature that was born in this land, in the ups and downs of history, played the song of harmony in the face of all the adversities of the eras of this land. Literature that raised children in its arms, each of whom became famous in the world; Children like Hafez. A Shirazi poet whose words went beyond the geographical boundaries drawn by politicians on God's vast earth to separate people from each other and reached the ears of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a German writer and poet, that the story of this acquaintance is a story worth listening to. In 1814, Goethe got acquainted with the German translation of Divan Hafez; A translation provided by the Austrian orientalist Joseph von Hammer Porgesthal. For Goethe, this acquaintance was not only an encounter with a poet from a land right in the middle of the East, but it was a new window that was opened to him.

A window through which one could look at another world of thought, love, mysticism and outlook on life. Hafez's influence on Goethe was so deep that he wrote the poetry collection "Eastern Divan"; A work in which the German poet enters into a poetic dialogue with the literature and culture of the East, and addresses Hafez in parts of it. Goethe even mentions Hafez in his poems with titles such as "Holy Hafez" and "Master". It is as if the words of a poet who was written centuries ago in Shiraz, have been able to cross the distance of time and space and start a new life in the mind of another poet, on the other side of the world. This is the same power that takes literature beyond political and geographical boundaries; The strength that shows that people, despite the difference in language and land, can still reach each other in sorrow, love, hope and search for the meaning of life.

But this transboundary and transtemporal power of literature is not limited only to history and to clarifying the human consciousness in distant distances. Rather, Hafez is still present in our lives today; It is not only in the poetry books in our home library, but other than that, along with the voice of Shajarian and the playing of Tar Lotfi, whose every stroke on the string, creates an unsung song of soulful soul, and scatters the verses of Al-Ghaib's tongue in the corners of the lands. And in this report, we are also looking for our own contribution, among these poems of Pir Shiraz; An arrow like the same ray of light that shines on our troubled body to remove the cold of the cruelty of the times from our being; A light that can reduce the weight of this darkness a little after passing through the hard and exhausting days of war, or in the days when we still have the fear of repeating it with us.

For example, one of the effects of the coldness of the times that we may see around us now is to hurt others to make ourselves look superior or to eliminate them in order to achieve something that was the contribution of others. Sometimes a person is so engrossed in the thought of winning over another that he forgets that every power, before being a means to achieve his desires, puts a responsibility on him. In such days, Hafez invites us to reconsider our own behavior with a verse; Right where he says: "I have enough sugar on my arm, that I don't have the power to oppress people"

This verse is in Hafez's Ghazal No. 323; A verse whose content can be seen earlier in Saadi's speech. In the eyes of these two poets, not having the strength to hurt others is not a sign of weakness and inability, but a blessing worthy of gratitude. Lasan al-Ghaib reminds us that the value of a person should not be measured only by the amount of power he possesses; Sometimes what makes a person worthy of praise is not his ability to overcome others, but his unwillingness to hurt them. In a world where many cause suffering to others in order to gain a higher position, one of the most obvious human traits in Hafez's view is that we can not use our power to break others.

Monotheism and sin, both in one world

But a person, regardless of having such power, may still be caught in the trap of pride and sin, and sometimes he goes around so proudly with a bag of mistakes that he forgets that his existence is also due to God's grace. In such a situation, he neither sees his weaknesses nor takes steps to correct them, and drunk with his pride, he does not surrender to the truth. In sonnet number 381, Hafez expresses this duality between awareness and pride, and between knowing the truth and being caught in sin in just one stanza: "Aware of the presence and drunk of pride, the sea of ​​monotheism and the drowning of wheat"

This verse puts a person in front of a contradiction that is formed in his own existence. On the one hand, the son of Adam is immersed in God's monotheism, and on the other hand, he is caught in pride and error. But the main question is, is this pride and negligence the end of the road? Does a person who once lived in the illusion of his own ability no longer have a chance to return? Perhaps one of the reasons for the longevity of Hafez's poetry is that he does not leave man at the same point of slippage. In his poetic world, mistakes and sins exist, but next to them, the hope of return is as prominent as the presence of sin. In Hafez's worldview, man can return to himself, learn from what happened to him and find a way to reach the truth again. Even if the world around him is full of darkness and despair, it is still not possible to consider all the ways closed, as he sings about this: "From the border to the border there is an army of oppression, but from eternity to eternity there is opportunity for them."

This possibility of return, in the days when a person feels in the turbulent flow of life, with fear and sadness, that there is no way left for him, takes on a double meaning. Because sometimes, after facing suffering, a person is disappointed not only in the world, but also in himself; He blames himself for past mistakes and thinks that there is no chance left to make amends. But Hafez's verses, at least in this reading, distance us from such a definite judgment about ourselves. And Hafez, after inviting man to return and reform himself, lays a way for him to be saved; The way that is clearly stated in one of his most famous verses: "I told the old man what is the way to salvation, he asked for a cup and he said to wear a fault."

Pir's answer to Hafez, contrary to what we might expect, is neither an invitation to judge others nor a recommendation to enumerate people's mistakes. He talks about covering up flaws; That people look at themselves instead of looking for other people's flaws and showing them. In this view, the way to salvation passes through a path in which a person distances himself from hasty judgments about others and accepts the responsibility of his own reformation. This saying, especially at a time when other people's mistakes sometimes become a tool for humiliation, exclusion or superiority, has a meaning beyond a simple moral advice. In Hafez's view, covering up faults does not mean ignoring oppression or turning a blind eye to the harm that humans inflict on each other; Rather, it means a call to avoid fault-finding and self-exaltation.

And further, Hafez brings us back to the question of whether we have spent all our energy to see and recount the mistakes of others, without taking a moment to see our own share of mistakes. Without realizing it, the first step to make the world better is not to change all the people around us, but to recognize and correct something that needs to be changed in ourselves. And finally, for a good ending, for a person who has stepped on the path of salvation or a person who has not lost hope despite the vastness of the world's darkness, Hafez has another word; A word for the moments when fatigue and despair take over a person's existence and make it difficult to continue. In such moments, he invites us to patience, in which the hope of the arrival of light after hard and dark days remains alive: "Come, Saki, as Hatif Ghaybam told the good news, wait with pain, I will send you medicine."