Table of Contents

Preface by Ibrahim Gamard 1 Who Is Hafiz? 11 A Short Introduction to Hafiz's Mysticism 33 The Poems 45 Notes to the Poems 99 Notes 115 About the Translator 117 Index of Poems (by title) 119 Index of First Lines 121 Other Books in the Mystic Poets Series 123

About the Author

Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was an adventurer, scholar, linguist and British intelligence officer. Bell's courageous travels in the Islamic world of the Middle East in the late nineteenth century offered some of the first Western understandings of the culture and people of the lands of modern-day Iraq and Iran. Her translations of the poems of Hafiz are still considered by many scholars to be the most faithful of any in the English language. Ibrahim Gamard is a member of the Mevlevi Order, a 730-year-old Sufi order which originated with Rumi himself.