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The “Emblem of the Manifestation of the Iranian Spirit”: Hafiz and the Rise of the National Cult of Persian Poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Ali Ferdowsi
Ali Ferdowsi*
Affiliation:
Notre Dame de Namur University, California
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This is a study of the national sacralization of Hafiz as the “emblem of the manifestation of the Iranian spirit.” This sacralization began with E. G. Browne in 1902 but reached its definitive formulation in Abd al-Hosein Hazhir's monograph Hafiz-tashrih in 1928. For a nation to have a purchase on itself it must provide for a convocational experience. Shortly after the 1906 Constitutional Revolution, an ascending intellectual elite in Iran set out to do just that by fashioning a heterodox cult of the veneration of Persian poetry by recasting pre-modern texts, authors and their tombs into a national scripture authored by national prophets buried in sacred grounds which culminated in Hafiz as the “seal of its prophets.”

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Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 41 , Issue 5 , December 2008 , pp. 667 - 691
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2008

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Footnotes

An earlier version of this paper was presented at “Commemorating the Constitution, 1906–2006: State-Building and Global Response to Iranian Constitutionalism,” University of Pennsylvania and University of Oxford, Philadelphia, 24–25 March 2006. I would like to thank Reza Afshari of Pace University for his insightful suggestions towards improving the argument and style of this paper. I am also indebted to the anonymous reviewer of this journal for her or his detailed and thought-provoking comments.

References

1 Abd, al-Hosein Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih (Tehran, 1367; originally published in 1307/1928), 45Google Scholar.

2 Hafiz, of course, was not the only poet to be appropriated for fashioning a national scripture in Persian. Ferdowsi and Sa'di were also singled out as emblematic figures in this national hermeneutic labor. In fact, they were all appropriated as metonymies for the whole body of Persian literature. This is already abundantly clear in Hazhir's monograph Hafiz-tashrih (see, for instance, pp. 34–35). The modalities and trajectories of their appropriation, however, are so different that no treatment of the subject within the limits of this paper seems possible to this author.

3 See, respectively, Benedict, Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London and New York, 1991)Google Scholar; Bhabha, Homi K., ed., Nation and Narration (London and New York, 1990)Google Scholar; Smith, Anthony D., Myths and Memories of the Nation (Oxford and New York, 1999)Google Scholar; Smith, Anthony D., Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity (Oxford and New York, 2003)Google Scholar; Gopal, Balarishan, ed., Mapping the Nation, intro. Benedict Anderson (London and New York, 1996)Google Scholar.

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10 This elevation of one or a handful of authors to the station of speakers of national spirit is apparently a common feature of national self-fashioning. Shakespeare and a handful of philosophers and poets, among them Goethe—arguably the most creative reader Hafiz ever had—play a similar role in their respective speech communities, England and Germany. For a study of the politically-imbued promotion of the status of Shakespeare into England's “national poet,” see the excellent book by Michael, Dobson, The Making of the National Poet: Shakespeare, Adaptation and Authorship, 1660–1769, new ed. (Oxford, 1994)Google Scholar. For Germany, see Peter, Uwe Hohendahl, Building a National Literature: The Case of Germany, 1830–1870, trans. Renate Baron Franciscono (Ithaca, NY, 1989)Google Scholar.

11 Mohammad Ali, Eslami Nodushan, Chahar sokhangu-ye vejdan-e Iran: Ferdowsi, Mawlavi, Sa'd,i Hafiz (Tehran, 1381/2002), 183Google Scholar. Also see, by the same author, “Majara-ye payan-napazir-e Hafiz,” Nashr-e Danesh, II: 2 (Bahman and Esafand 1360/February and March 1981): 42–51.

12 “I found the singular sage Behruz … to be the Hafiz of our time” (Aliqoli, Mahmudi Bakhtiyari, Rahi beh maktab-e Hafiz (Tehran, 1345/1967), 7)Google Scholar. For information on Zabih Behruz (1269–1350/1890–1971) see Hushang, Ettehad, Pazhuheshgaran-e Mo'aser-e Iran (Tehran, 1384/2005), II: 343–480Google Scholar. Behruz's name is the only one to have been deleted from the second edition of Mohammad Baqer Borgha'i's encyclopedic Sokhanvaran-e Nami-ye Mo'aser, 6 vols, 2nd ed. (Qom, 1373/1994). Behruz's name appears in the table of contents (at no. 107), and then again in the index with referent page numbers of 600–604, but no trace of him is to be found on those pages. Instead the notice of another person is inserted out of alphabetical order!

13 Bakhtiyari, Rahi beh maktab-e Hafiz, 98 (emphasis original).

14 Hazrat Ayatollah, Seyyed Ali Khamenehii, She'r, jahan-bini, va shakhsiyat-e Hafiz (va chand asar-e digar dar zaminh-ye zaban va adab-e farsi (Tehran, 1375/1996), 9Google Scholar.

15 Khamenehii, She'r, 9.

16 Khamenehii, She'r, 30.

17 Khamenehii, She'r, 30.

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20 Keyhan-e Farhangi, 5/8, 12.

21 Khorramshahi, Baha al-Din, Hafiz Hafizeh-ye mast (Tehran, 1382/2003)Google Scholar.

22 Keyhan-e Farhangi, 5/8, 10.

23 Keyhan-e Farhangi, 5/8, 10.

24 Keyhan-e Farhangi, 5/8, 10.

25 See, for instance, Hamid, Dabashi. “In hameh naqsh dar ayineh-ye owham: ta‘biri bar ta'birat-e Hafiz,” Iran Nameh, VI/4 (Summer 1367/1988): 574–596Google Scholar.

26 Dariush, Ashuri, Erfan va rendi dar sh‘er-e Hafiz (baz-negaristeh-ye hastishenasi-ye Hafiz) (Tehran, 1377/1998), 10Google Scholar.

27 Ashuri, Erfan va rendi dar sh‘er-e Hafiz, 11.

28 Mohammad Ali, Eslami Nodushan, Ta'ammol dar Hafiz: Barresi-ye haftad-o-haft ghazal dar ertbat ba tarikh va farhang-e Iran (Tehran, 1382/2003), 6Google Scholar.

29 P. xxx in the Introduction by Mazaher, Mosaffa in Reza Qoli Khan Hedayat, Majma‘ al-Fosaha, 2nd ed., 6 vols, ed. by Mazaher Mosaffa (Tehran, 1382/2003)Google Scholar. First scholarly edition came out in 1336 Sh/1957. It was written in 1288 AH/1871. A lithograph version was published in Tehran in 1295 AH/1878.

30 Abbas Mirza Molk Ara was the comparatively more enlightened brother of the Qajar king Naser al-Din Shah. For more information see his autobiography: Abbas Mirza, Molk Ara, Sharh-e Hal-e Abbas Mirza Molk Ara, baradar-e Naser al-Din Shah, intro. by Eqbal, Abbas, ed. by Navaii, Abd al-Hosein (Tehran, 1361/1982)Google Scholar.

31 Hedayat, Majma‘ al-Fosaha, xlix–lxiv.

32 Hedayat, Majma‘ al-Fosaha, vii.

33 Hedayat, Majma‘ al-Fosaha, vii.

34 Hedayat, Majma‘ al-Fosaha, xxxiv.

35 Hedayat, Majma‘ al-Fosaha, xliv.

36 Hedayat, Majma‘ al-Fosaha, lxiv.

37 Hedayat, Majma‘ al-Fosaha, 37.

38 Shams al-Din Mohammad Hafiz, Divan-e Hafiz-e Shirazi, ed. by Mohammad Qodsi, intro. by Ali Asghar Hekmat (no place, no date—it was probably published in Tehran in 1342/1363). According to Hekmat, p. 13 of the “Introduction” (pp. 5–16) the work of collation and textual examination lasted a full eight years from 1314 AH to 1322 AH. But Qodsi's own introduction “Sharh-e Halat-e Khajeh” (pp. 2–9) is signed and dated on 1314 AH in Shiraz.

39 Mehrdad, Niknam (comp.), Ketabshenasi-ye Hafiz (Tehran, 1367/1988), 8Google Scholar.

40 Hekmat, p. 5 in Shams al-Din Mohammad Hafiz, Divan-e Hafiz-e Shirazi, ed. by Mohammad Qodsi.

41 Shams al-Din Mohammad Hafiz, Divan-e Hafiz-e Shirazi, ed. by Mohammad Qodsi, 3, 8.

42 Hajj Mirza, Hasan Hoseini Fsaii, Farsnameh, ed. by Mansur Rastegar Fasaii, 2 vol. (Tehran, 1378/1999), II: 1162Google Scholar.

43 Mohammad Nasir, Forsat Shirazi, Asar-e Ajam, ed. by Mansur Rastegar Fasaii, 2 vols. (Tehran, 1377/1998), I: 77Google Scholar.

44 Hajj Mohammad Ali, Sayyah Mahallati, Khaterat-e Hajj Sayyah ya dowreh-ye khowf va vahshat, ed. by Sayyah, Hamid and Golkar, Seyf Allah, 2nd ed. (Tehran, 2536/1975)Google Scholar. Sayyah visited Ferdowsi's tomb sometime in the Jumadi II-Rajab 1295 (late June early July of 1878). “I sat beside his tomb and cried out,” writes Sayyah “‘O, the greatest of all Iranians! Is this your tomb? Is this the extent of respect for you?!’ and I wept and returned [to Mashhad] filled with sorrow” (p. 134). Hajj Sayyah does not mention Ferdowsi in his book of travels in Europe, but mentions Hafiz, or rather his Divan, among other items from Iran in the British Museum. See Hajj Mohammad, Ali Sayyah, Safarnameh-ye Hajj Sayyah beh Farang, ed. by Dehbashi, Ali (Tehran, 1363/1984), 199Google Scholar.

45 Hajj Sayyah, Khaterat, 15–16, 173, 278, 517. More often than not, he only mentions that “I lodged at Hafiziyeh” (e.g. pp. 173, 278, 517), simply as a location, without even mentioning Hafiz or his tomb specifically. The only time he mentions visiting the tomb itself is the first time he enters Shiraz after his long absence from Iran: “I entered Shiraz, and lodged at Hafiziyeh, and visited the tomb of Khajeh Hafiz at my arrival” (pp. 15–16).

46 Yahya, Aryanpour, Az Saba ta Nima (Tehran, 1376/1997), III: 99Google Scholar. For an analytical resume of Malkom's views on poetry see Karimi-Hakkak's, Ahmad Recasting Persian Poetry: Scenarios of Poetic Modernity in Iran (Salt Lake City, UT, 1995), 44–53Google Scholar.

47 Quoted in Aryanpour, Yahya, Az Saba ta Nima (Tehran, 1351), I: 320Google Scholar

48 For an analysis of Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani's views on poetry see Karimi-Hakkak, Recasting Persian Poetry, 41–44.

49 Quoted in Aryanpour, Az Saba ta Nima, I: 392–393. Translation, with modification, is from Karimi-Hakkak, Recasting Persian Poetry, 42.

50 Quoted in Ariyanpour, Az saba ta Nima, I: 393. For a more complete translation see Karimi-Hakkak, Recasting Persian Poetry, 42.

51 See Mostafa, Vaziri, Iran as Imagined Nation: the Construction of a National Identity (New York, 1993)Google Scholar.

52 Vaziri, Iran as Imagined Nation, 5.

53 Vaziri, Iran as Imagined Nation, 3. It is also historically unfounded. See Mohammad, Tavakoli-Targhi, Refashioning Iran: Orientalism, Occidentalism and Historiography (New York, 2001)Google Scholar; also see his “Refashioning Iran: Language and Culture during the Constitutional Revolution,” Iranian Studies, 23/1–4 (1990): 77–101.

54 Browne, Edward G., A Literary History of Persia, 4 vols. (New Delhi, 2002)Google Scholar. The first volume was published in 1902, and subsequent volumes in 1906, 1920 and 1924.

55 These include Badi’, al-Zaman Foruzanfar, Tarikh-e adabiyat-e Iran: ba‘d as eslam ta payan-e teymurian (Tehran, 1383/2004)Google Scholar; Jalal, al-Din Homa'i, Tarikh-e adabiyat-e Iran: az qadimtarin àasar-e tarikhi ta asr-e hazer (Tehran, 1349/1970?)Google Scholar; Sa'id, Nafisi, Tarikh-e nazam va nasr dar Iran va dar zaban-e farsi ta payan-e qarn-e dahom hejri, 2 vols. (Tehran, 1344–45/1965–66)Google Scholar, and Rezazadeh, Shafaq, Tarikh-e adabiyat-e Iran (Tehran, 1369/1990)Google Scholar. It seems that every prominent Iranian professor of literature wrote a literary history of Iran, the culmination of which is Zabih Allah Safa's grand work, the more than 5,900 pages long A History of Iranian Literature, 5 vols. (Tehran, 1363/1984). All of them are one way or the other modeled after Browne's work.

56 Browne, A Literary History of Persia, I: vii.

57 Browne, A Literary History of Persia, I: ix.

58 Browne, A Literary History of Persia, I: viii.

59 Browne, A Literary History of Persia, I: vii–ix. See also Vaziri, Iran as Imagined Nation, 104 for his insightful reading.

60 Browne, A Literary History of Persia, I: 3.

61 Ali Asghar Hekmat, a major figure in the iconization of Hafiz, who used his power as the occupant of many of the highest positions in the country, including as the minister of education under Reza Shah, to push for the national cult of Persian poetry, writes in his introduction to his translation of the third volume of Browne's book that he first recommended the translation of the book in 1304/1925 to his cousin, Nezam al-Din Hekmat, the Inspector General of the Ministry of Education—see Edward, Browne, Az Sa‘di ta Jami, translated into Persian by Ali Asghar Hekmat (Tehran, 1327/1948)Google Scholar.

62 I must thank Professor Maziar Behrooz of San Francisco State University for providing me with dates of birth and death for Khalkhali.

63 Khajeh Shams, al-Din Mohammad Hafiz, Divan-e Khajeh Hafiz-e Shirazi (keh az ruy-e noskheh-ye movarrakh-e 827 hejri qamari naql shodeh ast), ed. by Khalkhali, Seyyed Abd al-Rahim (Tehran, 1306/1927)Google Scholar.

64 Khalkhali, ii.

65 Khalkhali, iii.

66 Khalkhali, iii.

67 Khalkhali, iv.

68 Khalkhali, ix.

69 Abd al-Rahim Khalkhali, a leftist, and an editor of Mosavat (Equality), was a close friend and associate of Taqizadeh. They were both members of the “Komiteh-ye Beyn al-Tolu'ain” (Inter-Dawn Committee) organized by the Marxist revolutionary Haider Amu Oghli (Yoones Parsabonab, Tarikh-e sad saleh-ye jonbeshha-ye sosialisti, kargari va komonisti-ye Iran, 1284–1386, http://gozareshgar.com/fileadmin/goz/user_files/Parsabonab_TarikheSocialism_1_.doc) and earlier in “Komiteh-ye Enqelab-e Melli” (National Revolution Committee) which was headed by Malek al-Motakallemin and included, in addition to Khalakhali and Taqizadeh, such prominent revolutionaries as Seyyed Jamal, Dehkhoda, Jahangir Khan Sur-e Esrafil and Mosavat—see pp. 351–352 in Safaii, Ebrahim, Rahbaran-e Mashruteh, Dowreh-ye avval, 3rd printing (Tehran, 1363/1984)Google Scholar.

70 Khalkhali refers to Browne's influence when he writes that “the source of most of the contemporary littérateurs who have written on Hafiz, either in papers and journals or in stand-alone publications, is either A Literary History of Persia by the renowned Orientalist professor Browne, or Forsat Shirazi's Asar al-’Ajam,” xii.

71 Khalkhali, Ha (emphasis added).

72 Khalkhali, xvi.

73 Khalkhali, viii.

74 Among the handful of contemporary Iranians that Hazhir mentions in his Hafiz-tashrih (Dehkhoda and Bahar for instance), he mentions Taqizadeh and Mohammad Ali Foroughi, a leading man of learning and the first prime minister of Iran after the ascension of Reza Shah to the throne. Foroughi remains the sole editor of the collected works of Sadi. He also published a Selected Poems of Hafiz in collaboration with his brother Abu al-Hasan and consultation with Haj Seyyed Nasrallah Taqavi in 1938 – Zobdeh-ye Divan Hafiz (Tehran, 1316). See Aryanpur, Az Saba ta Nima, III: 103–107. For an understanding of the relationship between Taqizadeh and Hazhir see several of Hazhir's letters to Taqizadeh in Afshar, Iraj, ed., Namehha-ye Tehran: Shamel-e 154 Nameh az Rejal-e Doran beh Seyyed Hasan Taqizadeh (Tehran, 1379/2000), letters no. 153 to no. 156, 434–473Google Scholar.

75 al-Hosein Hazhir, Abd, Hafiz-tashrih (Tehran, 1367/1988)Google Scholar.

76 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 11.

77 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 12.

78 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 12.

79 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 12.

80 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 12.

81 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 13.

82 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 13.

83 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 16.

84 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 16.

85 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 25.

86 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 25–26.

87 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 31.

88 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 32.

89 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 33.

90 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 34.

91 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 35.

92 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 35.

93 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 36.

94 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 36. Hazhir here bases his arguments on a speech given, a decade earlier, by the would-be prime minister, Mohammad Ali Foroughi, in French, on 25 November 1919 at Dar al-Fonun, in which Foroughi had rejected any necessary Islamic patrimony for Sufism.

95 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 36.

96 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 41, the poem is by Hafiz, Divan-e Hafiz, ed. by Khanlari, Parviz Natel, 3rd printing (Tehran, 1362/1993), ghazal no. 26, I: 68.Google Scholar

97 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 42.

98 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 43.

99 This is part of verse 2 in ghazal no. 477 in Divan-e Hafiz, ed. by Khanlari, p. 970.

100 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 45.

101 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 44.

102 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 44.

103 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 44–45.

104 Hazhir, Hafiz-tashrih, 45.