Háfiz, the poetical name of Shems ed-Dín (i.e. Sun of the Faith) Muhammed, the greatest of Persian lyrical poets, was born at Shiráz, where he passed all his life and died, according to the inscription on his tomb, 791 A.H. (1388 A.D.), though the year of his death is also given by different authors as 792 and 794 A.H. The date of his birth is not known. His takhallus Háfiz signifies one who is learned in the Koran and the Hadiths, or sayings ascribed to Mohammed. Little is recorded of his life, which, indeed, seems to have been uneventful. It is probable that he was married, but nothing is known regarding his domestic life. It would appear, from an anecdote related by Ferishtah, that Háfiz once intended making a long and distant journey, notwithstanding his stay-at-home proclivities. The sultan Mahmúd Sháh Bahmani, who ruled in the Deccan, invited the poet to his court, and accompanied his flattering invitation with a sum of money amply sufficient to defray his expenses. Háfiz had proceeded as far as Lár, on the direct route from Shiráz to Ormuz, a port on the Persian Gulf, whence he could obtain a much shorter and easier passage by sea to the Deccan, and there he met with an old friend, who had been recently plundered by a gang of robbers, and generously gave him a share of his money. A party of merchants conveyed him to Ormuz, where he embarked in a vessel bound for the Deccan. But before the anchor was weighed he was so much terrified at a storm which suddenly arose, that he abandoned his purpose and returned to Shiráz, after despatching a letter of apology to the chief vazīr, together with an ode.
According to a curious legend, Háfiz obtained his poetical faculty from the mythical saint, or prophet, El-Khizar (so called from his green robe, the emblem of perennial youth), who appeared to him, after he had passed several nights in watching for the coming of that tutelary friend of the Faithful, and who bestowed on him a draught of the Water of Life, thus inspiring him with the gift of song. From the charming sweetness of his poetry, Háfiz was fondly styled by his admiring contemporaries Chagarlab, or Sugar-lip. His ghazals are, externally, all on sensuous subjects—wine, flowers, beautiful damsels, &c., and hence he is often termed by Europeans the Anareon of Persia; but, while the common people, who have most of his verses by heart and constantly repeat them, regard them simply as love-songs, they yet possess an esoteric signification to the initiated, the objects of the physical world being employed to denote those which are visible only to the inward sight. That is to say, Háfiz, in common with nearly all the greater poets of Persia, was of the sect of Sūfi philosophers, the mystics of Islām, who are altogether free from Mohammedan fanaticism, and 'claim to be in so intimate a communion with the Deity, through devotion and the cultivation of their higher and nobler feelings, that they can afford to rise superior to the petty details of dogma and superstition.' From the mystical element in his poems, Háfiz is also called Lishan el-Ghayd (the Voice of Mystery). But, apart from any esoteric signification, it has been well remarked that 'to ignore the fact that natural feelings and sentiments, the contemplation of natural beauty and the enjoyment of human, intellectual, and corporeal pleasures, suggested the various expressions of admiration, love, or wit which these poems contain, would be contrary to the dictates of common sense.' In short, the key to the interpretation of the songs of Háfiz is to be sought in a combination of materialism and sūfism.
Sir Gore Ouseley has remarked that the style of Háfiz 'is clear, unaffected, and harmonious, displaying at the same time great learning, matured science, and intimate knowledge of the hidden as well as the apparent nature of things; but, above all, a fascination of expression unequalled by any other [? Persian lyrical] poet.' The name of Háfiz is a household word throughout Persia, and his songs are cited in every social assembly, so that he who can most frequently quote from Háfiz a passage appropriate to the subject of conversation is held in the highest esteem and admiration. Indeed such reputation did his ghazals acquire that his Diván, or collection, was resorted to in order to gather from it fatwas, or decrees of fate and judicial decisions, in like manner as the Sortes Virgilianæ were practised in Europe during medieval times.
If we may credit popular tradition, at the death of Háfiz the 'rigidly orthodox' objected to the interment of his corpse with the customary ceremonies, because of the loose tone of many of his odes, and his alleged scepticism, if not rank infidelity. But some of his friends procured an appeal to the poet's Diván, which opened at a passage that set all doubts as to his orthodoxy at rest:
Turn not away from the bier of Háfiz,
For, though immersed in sin, he may yet be admitted into
Paradise.
It is generally believed that Háfiz lived to a good old age, although the date of his birth is not recorded. His tomb, which is situated some two miles north-east of Shiráz, has been most magnificently adorned by princes and wealthy vazīrs, and is visited by numerous pilgrims and others from all parts of Persia.
The odes of Háfiz were first collected by Kasim Anvári, after the poet's death. Many editions of the Persian text have been printed, among which the most important are the following: by Abú Sálil Khán Ispahání at Calcutta (1791); by G. Jervis and others at Bombay (1828); an edition printed at Cawnpore (1831), and one at Bulák (1834), and again in 1840. A valuable edition of the text by Brockhaus, in 3 vols., was published at Leipzig (1854-61). Von Rosenzweig-Schwannau published at Vienna a German translation of the greater portion of the poems (3 vols. 1858-64). The earliest rendering of a selection of the ghazals of Háfiz was published at Vienna in 1771, in Latin by Reviczki, and from it Richardson chiefly translated his Specimen of Persian Poetry, or the Odes of Hafiz (1802). There are other English renderings of some of the odes by Nott (1787), Hindley (1800), Rousseau (1801), Sir William Ouseley (1797-98), Bieknell (1875), Love (1877), and S. R. [Robinson] (1875). In 1891 Lieutenant-colonel Wilberforce Clarke published a complete English prose rendering of the Diván-i-Háfiz; in 1881 Professor Palmer had contemplated an English metrical translation of the entire Diván. There are also German versions of some of the poems by Von Hammer (1813), Daumer (1846), and Nesselmann (1865).