Hafez

c. 1325 – c. 1390

Hafez (Khwaja Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi) was a Persian lyric poet whose collected works, the Divan, are considered a pinnacle of Persian literature. His ghazals on love, wine, and the hypocrisy of false piety are still memorized and used for divination in Iran, where his tomb in Shiraz is a major site of pilgrimage.

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Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Hafez.

Life events

Born in Shiraz, Persia
c. 1325

Hafez was born in Shiraz in the province of Fars, where he would spend nearly his entire life.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Birth ✓
Received a traditional religious and literary education in Shiraz
c. 1338

Hafez studied the religious sciences and classical Persian and Arabic literature, knowledge that pervades the dense allusions of his poetry.

Education ?
Memorized the Quran in his youth
c. 1340

According to tradition, he earned the sobriquet 'Hafez' (one who has memorized the Quran) by learning the entire Quran by heart at an early age.

Education ?
Composed the ghazals of his Divan
c. 1350 – c. 1390

Over his career Hafez composed roughly 500 ghazals, collected after his death into the Divan of Hafez, one of the most beloved books in the Persian language.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Achievement ✓
Period of disfavor during the rule of Mubariz al-Din
c. 1353 – c. 1358

Under the austere and puritanical rule of Mubariz al-Din Muhammad, taverns were closed and Hafez's fortunes at court declined, a repression he satirized in verse.

Personal ?
Became a court poet under the Muzaffarid rulers of Shiraz
c. 1355

Hafez enjoyed the patronage of Shiraz's rulers, most notably Shah Shuja of the Muzaffarid dynasty.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Career ✓
Restored to favor under Shah Shuja
c. 1358

When Shah Shuja deposed his father Mubariz al-Din in 1358, courtly life revived in Shiraz and Hafez returned to prominence.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Career ✓
Died in Shiraz
c. 1390

Hafez died in Shiraz around 1390; his tomb in the Musalla Gardens, later enshrined as the Hafezieh, remains one of Iran's most visited monuments.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Death ✓