Persian Literature

"If you don not come to repent your existence, You'll never approach the circle of gnostics and drunkards Unless in other's eyes you become an infidel, In the creed of lovers, you'll never be Muslim."

"Through love we're slain, the world's our slaughter house We've no food nor sleep, the world's our cookhouse. We've no desire for paradise, because Our hell's a hundred times loftier than that."

"When I was a lion, panther was my prey; I caught everything which I hunted. When I came to embrace tightly love for you, A lame fox drove me from den."

"If you wish that God should dwell in your heart, purify your heart from all save Him for the king will not enter a house filled with stores and furniture. He will only enter a heart which is empty of all save Himself."

"Take one step out of yourself that you may arrive at God."

"Hell is where you are and Paradise where you are not."

"Knowledge is immense and life is short: therefore it is not obligatory to learn all the sciences, such as Astronomy and Medicine, and Arithmetic, etc., but only so much of each as bears upon the religious law: enough astronomy to know the times (of prayer) in the night, enough medicine to abstain from what is injurious, enough arithmetic to understand the division of inheritances and to calculate the duration of the Iddat. (see Idda)]"

"He who understood the secrets of the Truth Became vaster than the vast heaven; Mulla says “Ahmad went to heaven”; Sarmad says “Nay, heaven came down to Ahmad.”"

"Except not a moment of peace from love of self, except no lofty position from lack of will. Worldliness brings no profit – Become insignificant, seek no increase."

"Death is hard on your trail in this wilderness– the end of you and all that you amass. Suffering at the beginning, regret at the end, and in the end your attachment trample you."

"O Beloved, in your mercy forgive me my sins and accept my night-long weeping. I live in bewilderment, full of transgressions– Only your grace will bring me release."

"In Life's experience of varied kinds, this have I seen: Your grace, O Lord, far outweighs my sins. Strange, your mercy has become my excuse for more transgressions– The greater your generosity, the greater my sins!"

"When Sarmad, a famous Sufi, came to Delhi from Hyderabad towards the end of Shah Jahan’s reign, DSra Shikoh had sought his company and paid him many marks of respect. But when Aurangzeb came to the throne, the things took a different turn. Sarmad cried out ‘whoever gained the knowledge of His secret became able to annihilate distance. The Mulla says that the Prophet ascended to the heavens, Sarmad declares that the heavens came down to the Prophet’. The Mullas now found their opportunity. But Sarmad did not deny the ascension of the Prophet. Aurangzeb sent the chief Qazi to Sarmad to question him about his nudity. Sarmad explained it by declaring that the devil had the upper hand. His answer was so worded as to offend the theo- logian by a pun on his name. But this in itself was not enough. Sarmad was summoned to the royal court and asked to repeat the whole of the Muslim creed . Sarmad went so far as to declare that there is no God. When asked to repeat the rest he said his realization went no further. He could now be easily condemned . When the executioner brought forth his axe for his hateful task, Sarmad welcomed it crying ‘I know You in whatever form You care to come’ and embraced death like a martyr. His contemporaries associated many miracles with his death and his tomb is still venerated as that of a great saint"

"O Sarmad! Thou hast won a great name in the world, Since thou hast turned away from infidelity to Islam. What wrong was there in God and His Prophet That you hast become a disciple of Lacchman and Rama?"

"One day I was reading an Urdu translation of Sarmad's Persian poems when the sufi came into my room and sat down by my side.... [Later] I found the sufi reading the same book by Sarmad. A few days earlier I had heard him talking about Sarmad with reverence and in a language of fulsome praise. So I sat down quietly in a corner and waited for him to read out and explain some significant lines from that book. But I was taken aback when he suddenly threw the book against the opposite wall with some violence and shouted, 'The bastard was an infidel indeed!' I picked up the book, brought it back to the sufi, and asked him to show me the lines that had enraged him so uncontrollably. He leafed through the book and finally put his finger on two lines almost towards the end. I cannot recall the exact words of the couplet but I remember very well the message that was conveyed. Sarmad had addressed himself as follows: 'O Sarmad! What is it that goes on happening to you? You started as a follower of Moses. Next you put your faith in Muhammad. And now at last you have become a devotee of Rãm and Lachhman.' I could see nothing wrong or improper in this couplet. Sarmad was only telling the story of his seeking which had led him from Moses to Muhammad to Rãma and Lakshmana. I had not read the book as fast and as far as the sufi had done. Nor did I know the real reason for which Sarmad had been beheaded in Delhi by the order of Aurangzeb. All I had heard was that Sarmad used to roam about naked on the roads of this imperial city. I had supposed that he had been punished for his impudence in the midst of a polished society which placed immense importance on being properly dressed. It was years later that I learnt the real nature of Sarmad's 'crime'. It was apostasy which is punishable with death according to the law of Islam laid down by the Prophet himself during the days of his tussle with the polytheists of Mecca."

"It is a crime to seek to raise but self, Before all other men to praise but self, The pupil of the eye a lesson gives, Be all submitted to thy gaze but self."

"What necessity for a sword to slay the lover, when a glance can deprive him of half his life!"

"Sweet are the garden, the rose, and wine, but they would not be sweet without the company of my darling."

"The dimple that thy chin contains has beauty in its round, That never has been fathomed yet by myriad thoughts profound."

"Boy, let yon liquid ruby flow, And bid thy pensive heart be glad, Whate’er the frowning zealots say: Tell them, their Eden cannot show A stream so clear as Rocnabad, A bow’r so sweet as Mosellay."

"Anonymous, A Century of Ghazels, or, A Hundred Odes, Selected and Translated from the Diwan of Hafiz (1875)"

"Herman Bicknell, Hafiz of Shiraz: Selections from his Poems, Translated from the Persian (1875)"

"Sir William Jones, A Grammar of the Persian Language (1771) · Poems, Consisting Chiefly of Translations from the Asiatick Languages (1772)"

"Herrlich ist der Orient Ubers Mittelmeer gedrungen; Nur wer Hafiz liebt und kennt Weiss was Calderon gesungen."

"And what though all the world should sink! Hafis! with thee, alone with thee Will I contend! joy, misery, The portion of us twain shall be; Like thee to love, like thee to drink,— This be my pride,—this, life to me!"

"Even After All this time The Sun never says to the Earth,"You owe me."Look What happens With a love like that, It lights the whole sky."

"Spend well thy time; drink wine within the bower For when a week is gone, the flower is not; Snatch, snatch the hour that glads the heart so well For the pearl always in the shell is not."

"High birth may be a pearl of lustre, but let thine effort be To rise by deeds. Distinct is greatness from birth and pedigree."

"Be misery thy portion here, O Sage, or be it bliss Refer it not to other men: ’tis God who orders this."

"If it is thy desire that the Beloved should not break the covenant, Keep thy end of the thread that He may keep his end."

"A Shah no other than thyself aspiring Hafiz craves; Oh! were he in thy doorway’s dust one of thy common slaves."

"Reckon as plunder the path of profligacy. For this track Like the path to the hidden treasure is not evident to every one."

"Profit by companionship; this two-doored house (i.e., life) forsaken, No pathway that can thither lead in future time is taken."

"Regard opportunity. For when uproar fell upon the world, Hafiz struck at the cup and through grief took the corner of retirement."

"Enjoy! ’twixt lip and mouth the bounds as nothing are If humbled, care not; as the rose be gay, Life’s honours which pass soon away, as nothing are."

"Aloud I say it and with heart of glee, ‘Love’s slave am I and from both worlds am free.’ Can I, the bird of sacred gardens tell, Into this net of chance how first I fell?"

"None see nor hear the malice of the sky Each ear is deaf and blind is every eye Oft those who moon and sun their pillow thought Have later bricks and clay too gladly sought."

"If by the Holy Spirit’s grace the gift again be won The works which the Messias wrought by others may be done."

"O partridge, bird of graceful gait, say whether wouldst thou shape thy way? Be not so bold, for well we know how the religious cat can pray."

"Heart, should the flood of death life’s fabric sweep away, Noah shall steer the ark o’er billows dark, despair not. Though perilous the stage, though out of sight the goal, Whithersoe’er we wend, there is an end, despair not. If love evades our grasp, and rivals press their suit, God, Lord of every change, surveys the range, despair not."

"Slight me not zealot, go thou hence ashamed For naught is slight that has by God been framed."

"Opportunity flies, O brother, As the cloud that quick doth pass; Oh make use of it! life is precious If we let it go,—alas!"

"Thy curl is ever drawing the heart silently Who hath power to speak (quarrel) with Thy heart-vanishing curl."

"Though many a rose in this garden is born No mortal who culls one escapes from the thorn."

"I have shut my eye like a falcon to all the world Since my (inward) eye is open to thy beauteous countenance."

"Learn meekness from the shell in ocean’s bed And pearls on one who wounds thy head bestow."

"What holds in peace this two-fold world, let this two-fold sentence show Amity to every friend, courtesy to every foe."

"'Tis writ on Paradise's gate, "Woe to the dupe that yields to Fate!""

"Breeze which at the morning blowest, Fly, if faith and truth thou knowest, Say, to my Beloved one turning; He who with thy love is burning Dying sighs where he is hidden ‘Life without thee is forbidden.’"

"Daughters of turbulent mind awaking their mothers’ ire, And sons who of froward mood wish ill to their sire, I see; Sherbets of sugar and rose the world to the fool supplies, But naught save his own heart’s blood the food of the wise I see; Galled by the pack-saddle’s weight the Arab’s proud steed grows old, Yet always the ass’s neck encircled with gold I see."