Existentialism in Persian Poetry
Existentialism is generally associated with Western philosophy. It is a philosophical school of great significance, that gradually grew in prominence starting with Søren Kierkegaard – sometimes its founding is attributed to Pascal – but became widely recognised with the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche strongly opposed “world-denying” religions with ascetic doctrines like Christianity and some denominations of Hinduism. He concluded that these religions play on human guilt and desire for salvation to tame the “animal” spirit of man, and thus create a “slave” morality which encourages subservience. In contrast, Nietzsche points to the ancient Greeks as an example of a society where a “master” morality prevailed, which encouraged nobility and strength of character. According to Nietzsche, the “world-affirming” ideology which was common in ancient Greece ceased with the coming of Socrates and his rationality. Nietzsche even declared that he would have preferred if Persians became the master of the Greeks to save this “master morality”.
Khwaje Shams-od-Din Mohammad Hafez-e Shirazi, or Hafez (Hafiz) for short, was a Persian poet of the Timurid era. Born in 1325, Hafez earned his nickname, “Hafez” (a title for Muslims who completely memorised the Quran), early in his life, and was a dedicated Sufi. In his poems, however, Hafez criticised other Sufis for their asceticism. It is possible that Nietzsche was acquainted with Persian literature through Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who himself found the works of Hafez so inspiring that he wrote a diwan (called “West-Eastern Diwan”). Hafez’s poetry could well have laid the foundation for the writings of Nietzsche and other Western existentialists some 500 years later.
It is important to note the difficulties that may arise when reading Hafez: a reader lacking context may find the frequent use of aphorisms like “cypress tree”, “nightingale”, and “wine” perplexing and take them for their literal meaning. Although there is some disagreement, most scholars agree that these metaphors are not meant to be taken literally, but mystically. In Persia, lyricism and mysticism are historically intertwined. Clearly, as an Islamic mystic, Hafez could not consume alcohol, but in calling for its consumption, he asks the reader to savour the joy and pursue intoxicating happiness – things that one experiences when drinking wine. The use of metaphors illustrates the fact that the mystical experiences of these writers cannot be understood or conveyed with simple language.
In the following passage from the poem named “بلبل ها مست هستند، گل سرخ شرابی ظاهر می شود (The nightingales are drunk, wine-red roses appear)”, Hafez touches upon the topic of life’s meaninglessness:
Rejoice, don’t fret at Being and Non-Being; say
That all perfection will be nothingness one day.
Hafez’s message is not nihilistic in nature. Like existentialists from the Western tradition, Hafez is pointing out the frivolous nature of existence to encourage readers to pursue happiness and joy with the precious time they have at hand. This poem is reminiscent of Kierkegaard’s remarks about life’s transience in Either/Or:
“How empty life is and without meaning… But how long is threescore years and ten? Why not finish it at once?”
In another poem called The one who gave your lovely face its rosy (اونی که صورت دوست داشتنی تو رو گلگون کرد), Hafez writes that humans can only enjoy they world’s beauty if they spend their lifetime as her “dowry”. This aligns with the view of Western existentialists on the reality of human experience. They reject the possibility of living a meaningful life without continuously working on oneself – this can be seen in Kierkegaard’s “ethical” stage and Nietsche’s “Ubermensch”. Hafez believes that a human being has the strength to bear the harsh world’s “subjugation” and affirms the Nietzschean idea of the inability of human beings to completely understand themselves and their actions unless they adopt the pursuit of joy as their goal. Nietzsche, like Hafez, viewed the pursuit of joy as the desirable end goal in the realm of human belief, and recommended behaviour that affirms the material world. The concept of transvaluation of all values in part proposes such change, from Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (The Joyful Wisdom) where Nietzsche laid foundation to that concept which he would later develop in his more popular works.
Hafez was discontent with his contemporaries. In the poem “اگرچه ممکن است واعظ ما دوست نداشته باشد (Although our preacher might not like)”, Hafez calls his preacher a hypocrite and writes that a “mote” cannot achieve the radiance of the Sun, unless it aspires. This can be interpreted as the inability of an individual to achieve their goal unless they confront it and persist in attaining it with hard work. Hafez defends his views in his poetry. In a poem called You’ve sent no word of how you are (هیچ خبری از وضعیت خود ارسال نکردید), he states:
You’ve numbered all the faults of wine,
So number all its virtues too;
Don’t throw out wisdom for the sake
Of what a few drunk oafs might do.
Kierkegaard expands of this thought in The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air (Lilien paa Marken og Fuglen under Himlen), where he concludes – by assessing Matthew 6:24 from the Bible – that the ambivalence and hesitation of man in action is pernicious. According to Kierkegaard, the will of God will be done through man anyway, but because he is given a choice of action, in committing to those actions only partially or lethargically, man sins. In the poem “وقتی شراب می نوشید، بپاشید (When you drink wine, sprinkle)”, Hafez aligns with this view:
In heaven or in hell,
For angels or for men,
In every faith - to hold back
Counts as a mortal sin.
According to Western existentialists, the pursuit of meaning is a deeply subjective experience which is not meant to be viewed in a comparative sense. In Dostoyevsky’s Преступленіе и наказаніе (Crime and Punishment), Raskolnikov is a fictional character who rejects the idea of God and morality. Raskolnikov decides to commit murder for the benefit of his social surrounding, but finds himself at odds with his own conscience, and in the end gives himself up to the police, desiring to be punished for his misdeed. With this example, Dostoyevsky shows us the detrimental effect of the “crowd” and the distraction of the individual from pursuing their own meaning by imposing ideological thinking that erases their sense of individuality.
In Zur Genealogie der Moral (On the Genealogy of Morality), Nietzsche also comments on the detrimental behaviour of the crowd and mentions that the leader of the masses of the “weak” – known as the “ascetic priest” – remedies the “pain” of the masses by diverting their attention inwards and convincing them they are the cause of their own suffering. Nietzsche claims the “remedies” of the ascetic priest are only temporary, and that the masses will inevitably externalise their suffering outwards. This will be the advent of nihilism and the fall of Rome where, according to Nietzsche, the “slave” morality of the Christians eventually subverted the “master” morality of the Greeks, causing their demise as a civilisation.
These similarities between Hafez and Nietzsche demonstrate the strong impact of Islamic philosophy and theology on Western thought. They stand as one of the reasons for the unanimous acclaim of Hafez by his contemporaries – numerous monarchs offered him patronage across the Islamic world – and suggest that Hafez’s poetry was influential in shaping the imagination of Western existentialist philosophers of the 18th and 19th centuries. To Nietzsche, Hafez represented the prime example of oriental, Dionysian wisdom. The fascination of Western existentialists with Persian literature not only shows us the ways in which the Orient affected the Occident, it also opens our eyes to the evolution of Muslim theology and philosophy through the works of Hafez.