Hafiz

 Hafiz - The Mystic Poets,
Hardback - 125 pages,
Translated with Notes by G. Bell,
Preface by Ibrahim Gamard.


Description :

Amidst all her influential activities in the Arabic world for which she is primarily and rightly remembered Gertrude Bell also compiled one of the early English translations of the Sufi poet Hafiz, who along with Rumi have recently become popularised in the West. On the poetry of Hafiz, Bell wrote:

“These are the utterances of a great poet, the imaginative interpreter of the heart of man: they are not of one age, or of another, but for all time”

In depicting the intensity of love, Gertrude Bell thought Hafiz comparable to the West’s own Shakespeare.


The ideal introduction to the spirituality of the great Sufi poet.


Preface:

Ambiguity is a major characteristic of Persian Poetry, and Hafiz was one of the greatest masters of this artistic quality : each reader tends to see his or her own experiences reflected in the poems. As a result, it is usually unclear whether in a given verse he means actual wine or spiritual wine, a male or a female beloved, a human beloved or God, and so forth.... But after reading the same images over and over in ever-changing contexts, one gradually leaves behind the ordinary material world and enters into a realm in which everything symbolizes the beautiful qualities of the beloved, who ultimately is God and the source of Love.---_{from the Preface by Ibrahim Gamard, annotator and translator,} Rumi and Islam: Selections from His Stories, Poems, and Discourses--Annotated & Explained.