"By common consent he represents the zenith of Persian lyric poetry"

Hafez-e Shirazi, Khajeh Shams-od-Din Mohammad. The Diwan of Hafez.

€ 80,000.00

On paper glimmering with gold and illustrated with seven full-page miniatures, this 16th century manuscript is a beautiful example of the Diwan of Hafez: the most popular, most influential, and most important Diwan poetry collection in the Persian language. The exact number of Hafez's poems has been the source of much speculation (cf. Meisami), and the contents of relatively early copies of his Diwan are particularly useful in helping to identify the evolution of his early oeuvre. The scribe, who identifies himself as Ali al-Katib, dates the manuscript to 978 Hijri (1570/71 CE), placing the work within a generation of a famous recension made in 907 in an attempt to standardize the Diwan (cf. Meisami), and is important for understanding the evolution and reception of Hafez in the late medieval and particularly the Safavid period.

Known by his penname as Hafez (or Hafiz), its author has been described as "pretty universally regarded as the greatest of Persian lyric poets" (Davis) and "the most popular of Persian poets" (Yarshater); he flourished in the glittering intellectual milieu of 14th century Shiraz, where he set new standards for the use of poetic forms and particularly revolutionized the use of ghazal verse, which he made his own.

The importance of Hafez's Diwan to Persian literature is difficult to overstate: "If a book of poetry is to be found in a Persian home, it is likely to be the Divan (collected poems) of Hafez. Many of his lines have become proverbial sayings, and there are few who cannot recite some of his lyrics, partially or totally, by heart" (Yarshater). Additionally, manuscripts like this one were widely used in the practice of bibliomancy, a form of divination sometimes literally called "fal-a Hafez", or divination by Hafez.

This copy has been richly illuminated, with gold at every verse title and particularly surrounding each of the six miniatures, whose foliated borders are picked out in gold, and the facing page of text is given a background of gold. It is a fitting 16th century tribute to a poet who "by common consent […] represents the zenith of Persian lyric poetry. In no other Persian poet can be found such a combination of fertile imagination, polished diction, apt choice of words, and silken melodious expressions" (Yarshater).