A conversation about Hafiz, the Divine, poetry, and the quest—mine and others—for illumination in all its forms.
Hadi is a scholar of Islam, mysticism, and religions. From Muscat, Oman he is currently living in Qom, Iran. His YouTube channel, Hira, holds “knowledgeable and intellectual interviews and talks with scholars, researchers and thinkers from different countries around the world, on the Shadows of Love, Wisdom and Perplexity.”
Brief table of contents (approx. 65 minutes):
0:00 Trailer/highlights, and introductions
4:00 My “personal, literary, geographical, and spiritual journey”
16:00 The role of literature and translation in that journey
21:50 My encounter with Hafiz, and with the nasta’liq script
25:30 How the Persian language enables its poetry to speak of all loves
33:30 The Qur’an and Hafiz and my work
35:00 Specific couplets of Hafiz and the impossibility of translation
39:30 The concept of fana’ (annihilation) and Divine Union
43:00 My prior Hafiz translations
47:00 A discussion of ‘Attar’s Conference of the Birds
50:00 My personal religious experience and understandings
57:00 My memories of study and travel with Sufi scholar Prof. Annemarie Schimmel
59:30 The role of poetry in my own spiritual quest