Hafez's aybé rendān makon

Leyla: Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation, aybé rendān makon, an introduction with Muhammad Ali of Persian Poetics. salām Muhammad Ali jān! It is very good to see you; it’s been a while.  

Muhammad Ali:  It has been! It’s almost, like, a year, I think, since we recorded something, probably.

Leyla: Yeah, that's right, and now we're back with the first Hafez poem that we're doing together. I'm super excited about this. This is actually, I asked Muhammad Ali to choose a poem, a Hafez poem that would be relatable, empowering, exciting, energizing. And I think he picked the absolute perfect one, which we're calling aybé rendān makon, because that's the first three words, and we're going to go over exactly what that is, but Muhammad Ali do you want to tell us? Let's let's start with a little bit of a background on Hafez and what Hafez means to you and to Iranians.

Muhammad Ali: Absolutely. So I'll give you first the academic kind of nerd side of Hafez, which is what I focus on, and then I'll talk about what most Iranians can probably relate to when it comes to Hafez. Hafez is living in 13th century or 14th century, I should say Iran. And Iran is a very tumultuous time, and especially his native Shiraz sees a lot of kings coming and going and what you can call a civil strife, civil war, a lot of instability. And during his lifetime he also lives under a very you can call him tyrannical, maybe that's a bit of a modern idea or way of thinking about the leader, but a very tyrannical kind of leader who has an appetite similar to the moderate Iranian government for applying religious law very harshly, which was a basically a departure from the norm. Most sultans or leaders in his day were famous for being impious, right? They were warriors. They were warlords. They were conquerors. They weren't really people of piety. But this king, Mubariz al-Din, comes along half way through, Hafez’s life, and he happens to be very, very strict, harsh, religious by nature. We call them khoshk-e mazhabi so dry, religious in Persian, very strict kind of that type of maybe nun In the Western tradition, Iran would call zāhed, vā'ez, ākhoond, that type of very kind of harsh, you know, religion has rules, this, that type of person. And Hafez begun, begins to suffer under this individual because he is so uninterested in music and poetry and the type of things that artistic people care about. And he actually bans music. He bans the wine houses. So Hafez turns into a little bit of a political protestor during this era, which is producing this poem. So that's kind of the academic element. And Hafez is also it's important to note he was a court poet. So it's not like nowadays where you sell books or you perform on Instagram or something like that, like I can say I do. At the time, you're really your only hope as an artist was to be funded by the court. So if you are a painter, a musician, a poet, you had to make the kings and the people of high society happy with you. And and they would pay you. And during this time Hafez is also not getting any money. So he's he's quite broke, actually, you can say that he's a modern term, but to speak as an Iranian and to speak to things that we can all relate to, Hafez is in a way the national poet of Iran. So he's our Shakespeare, to use kind of a an English speaking example. And Hafez really does speak to the soul of all Iranians. So this element that I mention many Iranians, especially today, can relate to, for better or for worse. But he speaks to things that everyone relates to when you go to Hafez’s grave in Iran and, and, and hopefully we can all do that one day, you see all strata of society rich, poor, religious, irreligious. I remember there's a famous it’s not a famous photo, but one of the photos of his grave on either ends of his grave there is a mullah and ākhoond and a woman with like, basically no hijab, like Iranian style hijab with blond hair, praying and this kind of kind of perfectly symbolizes the relationship Iranians have with Hafez, where everyone thinks that, oh, Hafez is speaking to me. So he from the academic side, we're interested and from the national poet side, he's very much kind of speaks to the Iranian soul and all Iranians. They all love Hafez. They all have a few lines memorized. And, you know, shab-e yaldā, we're all reading through the divān and trying to find our fortune. And he really he really is kind of like the Iranian, if you want to put it that way. I don't know if we can, but you want to say, like, who really epitomizes what Iranians think of as their being, their identity, really is Hafez, you know, so many things we can relate to in an abstract way. And I'm sorry, I have a tendency to speak at length, but I feel so passionate about it. You know, I went to takht-e jamshid, It's beautiful. It's our history. But my, my connection to it is very abstract, you know, it's like it's my ancestry or you go to religious places. Not everyone is religious, but Hafez, he's speaking to you, you know, he's a person who's having a conversation with you and he's hitting directly at your heart and soul. So that's why we love him. And that's why I'm so animated right now. Speaking about him.

Leyla: That's wonderful. And yeah, the, the analogy that you're saying, he's like Shakespeare, there's really no other. You know, Shakespeare is a singular, English poet that in the English language that, you know, a lot of people have lines of his poetry memorized. Hafez is, like, omnipresent in Iran, and is brought up all the time, you see, Hafez poetry everywhere. You hear it all the time. Any life situation there is, there's kind of a Hafez quip that people can kind of give. 

Muhammad Ali: Absolutely. I mean, that's so important. Thank you for mentioning that. So Shakespeare is we know he's important, but he's not so present in our lives. Right. That's really thank you for pointing out people. I don't want people to have the mistaken impression when you say Shakespeare, you think literature class, you know, some literature nerds are into it. But no, Hafez. He's on a billboard. He's on a meme. He's been spray-painted on the wall. He's on people's Instagram bio, he's tattooed on people. He's, you know, right here behind me. And this isn't mine, by the way. I'm not. This is not my bias. This was here when I came here. So just to go in and this is in Turkey, by the way, not even in Iran. So here's the other day. I was in the bazaar of Istanbul and some leather workers shop of all places. There was some Turkish translation of the divān just sitting and the only book in his old office just sitting there. He says “Oh, Hafez Shirazi. Wow. Amazing, çok güzel.” And he's like pointing to his favorite verse. “He's very beautiful.”, “çok güzel” in Turkish, so. And it's not just Iranians. I think this is also an important anecdote in Afghanistan. And I when I went to Pakistan and someone I met, he said, “Oh my God, Iran, I love Hafez.” And this guy was just quoting Hafez every minute. He had essentially the whole thing by heart. And it's not even his native language. So it's no exaggeration to say Hafez is like on a level. I struggle to find an example, really in the Western tradition, maybe you'd have to pick a rapper. Maybe he's like Tupac, maybe something like that, you know?

Leyla: And like you said, like he's speaking truth to power constantly.

Muhammad Ali: Yeah, absolutely. 

Leyla: And so we can relate a lot. You know, you're saying there’s instability, this tumultuous time, this religious fanatics, all of that stuff I think we can all really relate to. And there's always kind of jabs in his poetry that there's double meanings and he's the court poet. So he's over there in the heart of power. So he has to figure out a way to, like, say the things that he wants to say in a kind of backhanded way sometimes.

Muhammad Ali: Absolutely. Yeah. And you see that in Hafez’s poetry, like any good poet, has many layers. And if you kind of some are more obvious, some weren't reciting the court, maybe they were discovered later, but other ones, you can kind of secretly tease out some anti anti rulership, maybe some criticisms and and other things. And I mean poems like this and other poems, maybe you can read in the future hopefully where he explicitly actually criticizes and he ends up I mean, for these poets, it's impossible to kind of find exactly what happened in their life. But there is a lot of talk about how Hafez being excommunicated, being even declared a heretic. Right? So many, many anecdotes have passed around about this. And, you know, whether or not it was true. If the anecdotes are historical and there's many of them, it shows that there's a high chance that it was straight. People wouldn't pass something on that seemed implausible. So it might have been even his burial location, which is, he writes about loving where he was buried, this area of Shiraz, which I think in a different podcast I've listened to, is mentioned, you know, of it, you know, rok naabaad, and golgasht-e mosalla these places that he mentions he's buried out there. But another thing that people mention is that that was actually not a graveyard. He was buried kind of in the middle of nowhere, because the religious authorities didn't consider him religious enough to be buried in a graveyard. They're like, oh, this guy's a heretic. He needs to be buried off in the wilderness. So Hafez was a contentious. This is one thing as modern people looking back, it's easy to say, oh, of course, everyone loved Hafez. Hafez. But he was actually very kind of contentious in his lifetime, for as we'll see.

Leyla: I mean, we can relate with that with Martin Luther King these days.

Muhammad Ali: Absolutely. Yeah. 

Leyla: All these amazing figures in time that are revered now but in their day. Okay. So then this specific poem, I do want to say that, like I said, I asked, Muhammad Ali to pick a poem himself. But this poem, my grandfather, you know, wrote these books, where he wrote out his favorite poems for all of us in his beautiful calligraphy. And this is one of the poems that he had on there. And I absolutely love this poem. It's so rich, so juicy. We can really go over each one of these words in this poem so many times. But what made you think of this poem? Why did you choose it?

Muhammad Ali: You know, choosing a Hafez poem, just one to recite. Or the other day I had a student who I'm reading Hafez with, in our private classes say, you know, what is your favorite? Actually, another student just said that today. Believe it or not, a few hours ago. yesterday one student said, so which is your favorite? And earlier today a student also from Pakistan said, what is your favorite Hafez couplet? As if it was just an easy question like what's your favorite? I don't know, food or you know, what's your favorite musician. As if it's that easy. I said, you know, there's no easy answer. Maybe one day I'll come. I'll narrow it down. But when I pick a Hafez poem, obviously we have to take the audience into account. Rumi has this beautiful line where he says, “speak to people at the level they're at, speak to people where they're at.” And he has another one where, you know, to kind of break down the religious terminology. Basically, there's two famous figures in Islam, and certain sects love them. So he said, when you speak to someone from this sect, talk about that person, and when you speak to this one, talk to that one. So you always have to keep your audience. And I figured, okay, we have non Persian learners. We have Iranians who are living through this current historical moment. What would be something everyone would relate to? Because if I pick something that's super Sufi, maybe some people are interested and dig out the terminology and learn what Sufism is about. Or if I pick something that's super contextual in or about a political event in his lifetime, it's nerds like me are interested and they wouldn't like it. So okay, what's one with a good lesson? Everyone will like it. Everyone will be interested in kind of the the theme and especially us living in kind of these multicultural societies. How he mentions that as we'll see the different houses of worship and it, it has some deeper Sufi meanings embedded in there, but I think it's something that everyone can appreciate and that it's approachable because that's what we always I mean, before we before we recorded, we were talking about what's the way to make this poetry approachable because everyone says, oh, Hafez, not just Persian poetry, but the hardest one. How am I going to do this? No, it's not for me. But we really want to prove to everyone that, no, it is for you. There's always something there for you. Even if you're at, you know, learning level block one or something like that.  

Leyla: Absolutely. So what we're going to do with this poem is, as always, we're going to read the full thing. Muhammad Ali is going to read the Persian. I'm going to read the translation. So we'll read the full thing, and then afterwards we'll go through the poem bayt by bayt, section by section, and we'll, talk about specific words and phrases in the poem. As always, this lesson is going to be with me and Muhammad Ali. In subsequent lessons, I'm going to go through small sections of the poem and go over it word by word, phrase by phrase, so that you can learn everything in the poem and how to use it in current conversation. And it's a great way to learn the Persian language, because these words and phrases are very much a part of our vocabulary today. And before we start, I just want to say Muhammad Ali has a wonderful Instagram account, Persian Poetics. I highly recommend everybody follow it. Every day he puts, different sections of poems from different poets. It's wonderful. And we also have an interview with Muhammad Ali where he talks about how he got to where he is today. I'll put that all in the show notes for this lesson, so you can learn more about him. and he's been a longtime collaborator of Chai and Conversation. So I really appreciate you being here, Muhammad Ali, as always. So Muhammad Ali is going to read the Persian. and I'm going to read the translation by Dick Davis, which is not a literal translation. We will include that in our PDF guide as well. but this kind of gets at the heart and meaning of the poem. So go ahead, Muhammad Ali,

Muhammad Ali: sure.

aybé rendān makon ay zāhedé pākeezé seresht ké gonāhé deegarān bar tu nakhāhand nevesht. 

Leyla: That you're a pious prig by nature doesn't mean you have to blame libertines for their faults. Those sins won't be imputed to your name. 

Muhammad Ali: 

man agar neekam ō gar bad tō bōrō khod rā bāsh har kasee ān deravad  āghebaté kār ké kesht. 

Leyla: Each one of us will reap the seeds he sows. So what is it to you, whether I'm good or bad, to work on who you are should be your aim. 

Muhammad Ali: 

hamé kas tālebé yārand ché hoshyār o ché mast hamé jā khāna-yé ʿeshgh ast  ché masjed ché kenest. 

Leyla: Everyone searches for the friend, whether they're drunk or stone cold sober and loves in every house. The mosque and synagogue are just the same. 

Muhammad Ali: 

na man az pardé-yé taghvā bā dar oftādam o bas  pedaram neez behishté abad az  dast behesht. 

Leyla: It's not just me who's wandered out of lonely pieties front door. My father let his chance of heaven's grace elude him. I'm the same. 

Muhammad Ali: 

hāfezā roozé ajal gar bé kaf āree jāmee  ye-sar az koo-yé kharābāt  barandat bé behesht. 

Leyla: Oh, Hafez. On the last day, if you bear a wine cup in your hand, you'll go straight into heaven from the street of drunkenness and shame. 

Muhammad Ali: All right. Beautiful. 

Leyla: Just reading this. Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited. I mean, Dick Davis, bless his heart. He tried but man, the Persian is so rich and I'm so excited to get into it with you to to go over each of these words because there's so much in there. Let's let's take it from the top. 

Muhammad Ali: Beautiful. So starting with the very first word, I mean, literally every word has some detail. ‘Ayb’, this is one of those words that's so hard to translate. It can mean something like fault or error. But ‘ayb kardan’ essentially means to say that, to point out that someone has done a faux pas, right? So, oh, you've done something wrong. And there is this kind of maybe many of your students are Persian, or they're hanging around Iranians, so they know, we have one of our you know, we have good traits and bad traits. One of the negative ones can be the judgmentalness, pointing out people's errors in front of others to kind of make yourself look good and make them look bad, to assert our social norms. It's fine. Everyone has social norms, but in a toxic way. Let's keep it real, fellow Iranians. It's like one of those traits that maybe it's better that we don't pass down to our children. But this word, ‘ayb’ has a lot of cultural resonance. Then the next word ‘rendān’ this is just the plural. The singular is ‘rend’. You can translate it as libertine, profligate, rake. There's a lot of weird old words, but none of them..

Leyla: have like Maybe even like rascal or wrongdoer.

Muhammad Ali: Something like that. Yeah. You see this, these these translations. But none of the words really have any cultural resonance anymore in the English language. And that's a big problem any Hafez translator has to overcome. But basically rend in the Persian language is someone who doesn't abide by the social norms. So whether they be in the domain of the way you dress or the lifestyle you live or the job that you chose, like us, we're doing this unconventional, non Persian parent approved lifestyle in terms of our job and whatnot, and also in terms of religious practice. So Hafez is famous for having his own kind of spiritual way. And no one, I don't think can fully claim to understand exactly what it is. But in many and more ways than one, he's rend. He doesn't live up to society's standards. So again, this word the more Hafez you read, the more you kind of solidify or understand better exactly what he's getting at. So he's saying, do not lay fault, do not lay blame, don't point me out. Don't call me out in front of everyone. And again,

Leyla: Let's say that first part, it's a command. So he starts the poem with the command aybé rendān makon do not fault these rends which like you're saying, has all these different translations. But I kind of see it as a rend is a kind of sheytoon like, like mischievous, like exactly that type of that type of connotation as well. 

Muhammad Ali: Exactly, exactly. Anu ideas why? Because in the day of judgment, if you're an Abrahamic person, if you're a Jew, Muslim, Christian, etc., you believe that there's a day of judgment and that on that day you're accountable for your deeds or misdeeds, and I'm accountable for mine. So why are you so worried about me, anyway? You know, you go do yourself your own thing and I'll do my own thing. 

Leyla: And what is zāhedé pākeezé seresht Oh, great. So he’s addressing the zāhedé pākeezé seresht. 

Muhammad Ali: Exactly. So in the translation he says, though you're a pious prig by nature. So zāhed is literally someone who practices asceticism. And this means kind of living like a monk style of life, right? Not having nice clothes, not eating fancy food, but it's not viewed positively. Like if you say Buddhist monk, everyone thinks, wow, an enlightened person, good heart, etc. One another thing is that in Islam there's no monasticism in Islam. There's no concept of being a monk. So it's actually viewed as kind of negative. The idea is that in Muslim cultures, it's kind of seen as a show-offy thing. It doesn't have a positive connotation. So when Hafez talks about the zāhed he talks about someone that has all the fanfare of being a Muslim, like they put on these hats and you know, they have like, I do this, this Sufi poetry behind them. And they say, ah, you know, mashAllah. I'm so religious, but there's no inner content there. It's just all a big show, which unfortunately, we Iranians are super, super familiar with nowadays. So Hafez is saying, oh, you are so pākeezé seresht,  pākeezé seresht means you're pure by nature. Oh, you're so pure by nature, aren't you? You're so great. And another element is, Hafez is very fatalist. Also another thing you see in his poetry. He believes that everyone has this kind of fate that they have to live out. So he says, you were by nature. So there's a kind of a backhanded, oh, you're by nature. Then there's the other element where it's like, well, that just you just happen to be raised very pious and in a way that you temperamentally can live up by societal standards. Some people have a nature that makes them want to be different. Other people don't. So you were just you just happened to be born in a conventional way. So why does that make you better? Just because you were born that way. 

Leyla: So yeah. So aybé rendān makon, this command do not, do not blame or do not a place blame or talk down to these rendāns ay zāhedé pākeezé seresht. like you say, it’s kind of, oh, you pure hearted ascetic. 

Muhammad Ali: Yeah, exactly, exactly. 

Leyla: And then the next line. 

Muhammad Ali: Sure. So he says, 

ké gonāhé deegarān bar tō nakhāhand nevesht. But he says the sin of others gonāhé deegarān upon you,  bar tu nakhāhand nevesht.

They shall not, and this is the future tense. They shall not write it. Meaning the idea is again, in Abrahamic faiths, like there's literally like an angel sitting and writing all your deeds. That's why we say also there's a saying, and I'll translate it that when someone is really old and they kind of don't know what's going on anymore, they see the pen has been lifted, like there's no more writing, even if they're alive. Right? So literally imagine, like they're writing. The angels are writing everything down. They're not going to write someone else's thing on your paper. They'll write his thing on his paper. So don't worry about it. Worry about your own life, your own problems, your own good or bad. 

Leyla: Don't fault others. Don't criticize others. Don't find fault with others. Okay? And then the next. This. This might be my favorite line that out of the whole thing. So let's say the next line Persian. 

man agar neekam ō gar bad tō bōrō khod rā bāsh,har kasee ān deravad āghebaté kār ké kesht 

Muhammad Ali: So he says if I'm bad man agar neekam ō gar bad or bad. Go be yourself tō bōrō khod rā bāsh. Why you cherah meepeechi too digaraan az, we'd say. Why do you twist and turn in other people's affairs? Now, obviously if someone's bothering you, that's a different story. Or if like they're your brother or child. But in terms of strangers, why are you bugging into strangers, like butting and being fozool, as we say being nosy. Go, go let them live their life and you live yours. 

Leyla: And also that word neek is also so rich and so like worth talking about. It's not, so bad, obviously is a direct translation of the word bad. So bad we know what that means. But neek is different than good. It's like, how would you translate neek?

Muhammad Ali: You can, if you wanted to have like a Sufi element, you could say righteous, you know, doing good. Good is obviously a very kind of mundane sounding word, but it's also it has another context that Iranians love this word because we say goftār-e neek, pendār-e neek, kerdār-e neek. Also in that famous Zoroastrian phrase, good thoughts, good phrases, good deeds, that, that that word also exists. And it just I don't know, it sounds it sounds more beautiful than good. Good. Maybe there's a better word than good in the English. There definitely is. But it's not the top of my mind. 

Leyla: I don’t know. For me, what it has is it doesn't have that moral judgment of good. It's not just good or bad. It's like, right, correct. Good. It's like the truth. It's like, if I am.

Muhammad Ali: It could be. Yeah, definitely.

Leyla: It's like all of those things wrapped up in one. So, man agar neekam ō gar bad, if I am right or if I'm bad. Like tō bōrō khod rā bāsh,  you go be you, khod. Khod is self. You be yourself. 

Muhammad Ali: Exactly. Go do your own thing. Go be yourself. Don't worry about me. What do you have to do with me anyway? Then he says 

har kasee ān deravad āghebaté kār ké kesht.

Everyone. So deraveedan is like a kind of obscure word. Because let's be real, how many of us are farming these days? But it has a farming context. So literally you reap what you sow. Like we say in English, every person reaps ultimately at the end of the affair, the thing that they planted from keshtan and kāshtan is more common these days. So whoever has planted a seed, they'll reap that seed. So if you plant a good seed, you'll reap a good seed. That's fine for you. And if I plant a bad seed, you don't have to give me trouble. The seed that I planted will give me trouble. You don't have to. You don't have to yell at me. I'll get my comeuppings eventually. 

Leyla: Amazing. Beautiful. Okay, next. 

Muhammad Ali: hamé kas tālebé yārand ché hoshyār o ché mast. hamé jā khāneyé eshgh ast ché masjed ché kenesht. 

Leyla: Ooh. So beautiful. 

Muhammad Ali: So everyone seeks their beloved, their lover, their partner. This word yār, it's so hard to translate, but it's open in Persian. So the idea is whether you're seeking the Sufi yār, which the Sufis would say is God, the divine presence, etc., or the prophet or something like that, a saint. Or if you're seeking a literal human being on the in the world, it could be either, right? Yār could be any of those things. So he says everyone is seeking a yār, everyone is seeking their desire, their beloved, etc. ché hoshyār ché mast, whether they're drunk or sober. And again, it could be spiritual or non-spiritual, whether they're doing good or doing bad. Right. You could. 

Leyla: And hoshyār means like conscious. It's like more and more like conscious. So whether everyone is seeking that lover, everyone is seeking that soulmate, whether they're conscious of it or they're drunk, you know. 

Muhammad Ali: Exactly. So there's so many interpretations. One could be that hoshyār-e mast means in the Sufi context, whether you're very serious and stern or zahid or whether you're an ecstatic Sufi like Rumi, spinning in circles and, and, you know, chanting and reciting poetry, another one, like you said, is conscious consciously or with with yearning or the other one could literally be you're not a drinker or literally a drinker, whether it is all types of people. And all of those could be correct, or only one of them could be. All types of people are ultimately seeking their desire, and you could even say one thing, right? Then, he says that the next one, I think kind of lends more credence, like a more spiritual reading, he says. 

hamé jā khāna-yé ʿeshgh ast ché masjed ché kenesht. 

Everywhere is a home of love. Whether it's a mosque or kenesht could be a synagogue or a church. The words for non-Muslim places of worship. I feel like the definitions kind of depending on what the biggest group is, near the group of people. So it could be it's kind of like keneesé, like keneesé can mean a synagogue. Often it does, but I've also heard it used for church, for example. So it's up to your he's interpreted as synagogue very well might be true, but the idea is whether you're go ahead. 

Leyla: Oh, I'm surprised that that's the because the first line is saying, hoshyār o ché mast. So that could be like whether you're pious or whether you're drunk. And then the second line is saying masjed which is like an Islamic mosque. So is it saying kenesht is kind of like the like, bar or something or no. It’s still religious? 

Muhammad Ali: I don't think it means bar. I think it literally means something like church or synagogue and one like there's again, there's so many elements. One element is that Muslims are traditionally not supposed to drink. So this masjed is where there would be you would be sober, you would be not drunk. And then the kenesht is whether you know, Christian or Jew is where you could drink. So that's one element, Another element, and I think there is this also this idea of kind of explaining the poets or a book that, you know, exists in this tradition, using other lines in that book where other ideas have been elucidated. So one of them is agar peeré moghān morshedé mā shod, ché tavāvot dar heech saree neest ké sereezé khodā neest. So Hafez says if a Zoroastrian elder becomes our teacher or our spiritual guide, what difference does it make? There is no head that's empty of a secret from God. Every head is at least one secret from God. So I think this lends credence to this view that he's saying all places of worship have some truth to them. There's some divine presence. Like Abu Sa’id says, I went to a church and they were all praying to you, and that I went to the idol house and the idols were whispering your name, and I went to the this place or Sheikh Bahā’i says, he says, kabé ō bot khāné bahānast, maghsood toyee tō. The ka’bā, the place of worship that Muslims pray to and the house of idols with Hindus are. It's all an excuse. You're the goal. The goal is you talking to God directly. So I think that's what Hafez is getting at here. Then he says 

na man az pardé-yé taghva bā dar oftādam o bas pedaram neez beheshté abad az dast behesht. 

So here. It's so beautiful. He says. I'm not the only one who fell through the veil of piety. So piety is like a veil. I'm not the only one who fell out of it, who became unveiled My father, and this is a reference to Adam doing the Abrahamic narrative, is the father of all humans. The first prophet, the first human, the first the father. He says pedaram. Also, now is a really fun plan where it's behesht means heaven. But we also have a verb heshtan which is super archaic, which means to lose. behesht means he lost. So my father also lost the heaven of eternity, the eternal heaven, the eternal abode. So Adam, who's my father, he was also banished from heaven for sending, for transgressing. So I'm just his son, right? Like some, there's another phrase that says, every every person is a son of Adam, and every Adam is, has committed faults, right? So Hafez is saying I'm not the only one. Now, another second layer is that Sufis always talk about the beloved or the truth being veiled. So when he says, I, I fell out of the veil of piety, it's almost like this obsession with superficial poverty, of course, are piety. Of course, being pious is good. You know, if you're a good person, God-conscious, great. But the superficial show element of, you know, in our country of in all Muslim countries, these people walk around with the tasbih they're always doing the tasbih and they're, you know, wearing the big clothes and they're always like saying SubhanAllah and, you know, making a huge show about how religious they are and all that. That's another veil. That's another thing, that's like ego, that's like obsession with wealth. That's like jealousy. That's like pride. Piety itself can be prevent you from being God-conscious because you're so obsessed with this show of it. You know, the, the movements, and the, go ahead. 

Leyla: Let's go back to that first line then. So it's referring exactly to that person, right? So let's read that first line again

Muhammad Ali: aybé rendān makon ay zāhedé pākeezé seresht 

Leyla: Okay. So he's talking about that. It's like that show of like being a pious person. 

Muhammad Ali: Exactly. And Hafez hates this. Hafez. What's the most important thing for him is to be straightforward about who you are. Now I have this other theory that people can check in my Hafez class. They can go sign up and watch it, but I don't want to spend an hour here. But I have this theory that Hafez goes through progression in life and that early in his life he's just a standard conservative Muslim. And then he I mean, he's Hafez. He was raised in a household where you're made to memorize the Quran as a kid, because that's the only time it's easy. So people force their kids to do it when they're like six, seven, eight. He was raised Hafez. Then he becomes a Sufi to kind of add the Sufi. and then he becomes disenchanted and he goes off on his own and he makes his own spirituality. So Hafez, he's kind of living in this, this moment in life towards the end where he has gotten rid of this external piety thing. And his most important thing is to be straightforward about who you are. He hates more than anything hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is his biggest thing that he hates. This says I'm not pious by nature, and it's better for me to openly admit that and just take the blame and be humble and honest, than to put on a show. Hafez talks about, he says, I used to, I'm paraphrasing, I used to put on a show with the cloak of Sufis, and I thought it would be better to pawn it for wine, better not to make a show out of religion. Let people who are really religious be religious so they don't taint the name of religion. You don't want the other scenario which we have in Islam, which is tons of people who aren't God-conscious or pious or good people at all, making a big show and all and not just Iran this is all countries, you know, Muslim countries making a big show out of it and ruining the whole thing for everyone. So Hafez hate. So if he was alive today, he would have like, I mean God forbid he would have like a heart attack at the situation. So anyway, so he says,

hāfezā roozé ajal gar bé kaf āree jāmee yek-sar az koo-yé kharābāt barandat bā behesht. 

So he says, oh, Hafez. And this, alef at the end is very poetic. It's just a Hafez. It's evocative. alef, on the day of death, when you die, if you bring up a glass of wine into your kaf, your palm and back then they used to drink out of a bowl as well. So if you think of like a western wine glass, you can hold it in your palm. But back then they had what's common in Central Asia today, piaalaz as we say, a little bowl. If you bring up a bowl of wine into your hand, yek-sar directly az koo-yé kharābāt from the street of the wine house barandat be behesht. They'll send you to heaven. So this is kind of like you don't know what to really think of this as a metaphor. Or is it literal? Is it a bit of both? So I can't say I understand them fully. You know, Hafez a bit of this. There's mystery there. But that's literally what the meaning is. Maybe we can leave it to the students to comment in the community section. Please tell me your interpretation of this line because I'm in need of a little bit of help. 

Leyla: Well, let's let's go through each of the words so we can kind of I mean, we'll do this in the later lessons obviously, but this will come at the very end. So for now let's go through it word by word and kind of translate so we can get the meaning a little bit better. Hāfez roozé ajal. What is roozé ajal?

Muhammad Ali: So literally the day of death. 

Leyla: Okay, gar bé kaf āree jāmee. So like you said. So, jām is what you drink wine out of. 

Muhammad Ali: Exactly like a glass, a goblet. Exactly. So, yeah. In your hand. So gar is agar. I think I saw that. I think you guys covered that. Agar, if, be kaf, your palm, aari, aari, is avaari, like we say in contemporary like be yaari. agar be yaari be kaf yek jaam to jaam means yek jaam. ye-sar. Here's a small, little Tahrani thing. In Tehran, the taxis they do have two ways. And this freaks out people who aren't used to it. There’s yek-sar or mostaghim, which means directly like a normal Western taxi. And then khati khati is people get in with you. You share the ride because of the traffic. Yes. And sometimes people think they're getting kidnapped like a foreign Iranian goes, to Iran. And then like someone gets in the car like, what's going on, who is this person? Anyway so yek-sar is like suddenly with no delay. And this even you might interpret it without even the day of judgment, without questioning, just suddenly, yek-sar barandat az koo-yé kharābāt. From the wine house street to behesht. One small note. Last note. Sometimes when you read poetry, you think these words are so foreign to us. You know, I this is. What's the point of reading this? I want to just talk to people. Sometimes these poems, if you just change one or two letters, it's exactly how we talk, koo-yé in Persian, a lot of words you used to have y. That's why we say khodaayaa. khodaayaa is a Khodaa, but it had a Y at the end. Many words paay. That's how we say paaydaar Khodaayaa. You see the y's sticking around, but normally we say Khoda pa, koo-yé became koo.  Koo is koocheh today. Little street. So koo means street. koocheh is little Street, I know I had that moment when I looked it up. So kheeyābān used to mean something like meadow they call streets kheeyābān because the idea is not. Unfortunately, in Iran they don't look like that anymore. Is that the street would be full of roses and grass and like a boulevard.

Leyla: Wow. Okay. 

Muhammad Ali: That's why we call it kheeyābān. I found this out because I read a poem that was old and was talking about, like, meadows in kheeyābān and I'm like, they didn't have. 

Leyla: Well, did you know that beeyābān means without water. beeyābān 

Muhammad Ali: I know when I learned that it's. I swear when you learn, bee ābān. Like when you learn these things, everything just starts to click. Yes. So Persian poetry will do this for you. A lot of things will click and like, oh, it's not so different than the way we speak today. Like it's not like Shakespeare and English today. And it's really close in a lot of ways.

Leyla: Yeah. So koo-yé. So and we learned this word koo-yé in the last Hafez poem we learned it was zé kooyé yār mee āyad naseemé bādé noroozee. So from the alleyway of the lover comes the wind of change of nowruz of the new year. But then. So here yek-sar az koo-yé kharābān. So that's koo-yé kharābān. I love it so kharāb means, like, messed up. Like just bad, 

Muhammad Ali: Broken. Exactly. 

Leyla: So kharābān this is where the bars is. The red district. 

Muhammad Ali: Exactly. Literally. That's the same idea. Yeah kharābān it's kharābe digeh. It's broken down all kinds of profligates and no good people there. So Hafez preferred to be in that place with the lowly people, but with no pretenses. He didn’t want pretenses. You didn't want to put on a show. This is the number one theme over and over again, and Hafez you'll see. And I really love if you can take one lesson from Hafez. It's just be who you are, whoever you are, just be who you are. No one likes that more for you, yeah, it's be hamoon khodetō bāsh. No one likes even living a fake life, is poisonous for us, and it makes other people dislike us or find us weird or mislead. It's best to be yourself. Don't have pretenses. Be comfortable. Live easy. 

Leyla: So then, az koo-yé kharābāt. So you're holding this jam-e in your kaf, in your palm, 

Muhammad Ali: This goblet of wine, yeah.

Leyla: So 

az koo-yé kharābāt barandat bā behesht.

They will take you to behesht. Which is again, that word for heaven. 

Muhammad Ali: Exactly. Let's just take it off straight to heaven. So Hafez is really funny. You know, sometimes he's very arrogant. Sometimes he's confident, like here. Other times he's very. He's hating on himself a lot. So I’d encourage you guys to spend more time and see the different sides of him and see why we Iranians adore him and have statues of him and go to his grave and, you know, have his book in our, you know, our shelf right here. 

Leyla: Yes. So again, I will say that this is such a rich poem. I think that there's we could talk about this for hours again, go through each of the words. And so we will have five part lesson after this, going through this entire poem, word by word, phrase by phrase. And I am too very excited about the discussion that will come from this. We ask our students to analyze these words and see what they figured out. And I think once we put all of these together, you know, this this poem tells a really beautiful story. So thank you for sharing this with us. Is there any final thoughts that you want people to think as they're reading through these words and, and phrases of this poem? 

Muhammad Ali: Yeah, I definitely want to say that just, you know, it's really good to ponder on these poems. Don't think I hear it all the time, these are ancient, they're not related to us. They have wisdoms that are so relevant to us today. And I just wanted to say thank you for having me. So maybe some people have seen me before, but my name is Muhammad Ali. I don't know if I even said my name. Usually I’m so bad at these things. I go by Sharzad as well as Persian Poetics, and I also have a class on Hafez. And I'm also I do, I do teach him, so if anyone else is interested, they can come to me and and we can get into these little nerdy details that people like me are interested in.

Leyla: Yeah, we'll have all of that information on our show notes and how to get in touch with Muhammad Ali. But of course, he's a big friend of the show. We have him on all the time. And so again, thank you for being here and for sharing this really beautiful poem with us. We're really excited at the end, after our subsequent lessons, we ask our students to send us videos of themselves reciting the poem in a beautiful location. So we'll have all of that to look forward to as well. So thank you, Muhammad Ali. And until next time. 

Muhammad Ali: Thank you so much, Leyla.