Khwajeh Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi a Persian poet was born sometime between the years 1310-1337, in the city of Shiraz in present-day Iran. Hafez today is primarily remembered for his lyrical poetry written in ghazals, a difficult and uniquely Persian verse-form. Prior to Hafez, ghazals were primarily used to write songs celebrating wine and earthly pleasure. Hafez revolutionized the form by utilizing the stock symbols of wine and pleasure as metaphors for spiritual experience.
In so doing, Hafez elevated his short, simple verses to the level of high art.
A devoted Sufi, Hafez’s poetry advocated abandoning all restraints and preconceptions so as to come into direct contact with the spiritual realm. As a result of his mystical and profoundly transcendent subject-matter, Hafez has become an inspiration for poets of all cultures. Arguably the most influential Persian poet of all time In Iran, even though his works are nearly 700 years old, Hafez continues to be immensely popular. You can find a Divan Hafez in everyone’s house. His tomb is in Shiraz, the city where he was born. Twenty years after his death, a tomb, the Hafezieh, was erected in his honor in the Musalla Gardens in Shiraz. The current mausoleum was designed in the late 1930s, by Andre Godard a French archeologist and architect. His tomb is “crowded with devotees” who visit the site and the atmosphere is “festive” with visitors singing and reciting their favorite Hafez poems.
