“During the period of Sháh Shaykh Abú Isḥáq's rule
The kingdom of Fárs throve wondrously through five persons.
First, a king like him, a giver of governments,
Who, thou would'st say, snatched preeminence by justice, bounty and
equity.
Secondly, that Remnant of the Abdál, * Shaykh Amínu'd-Dín,
Who was numbered amongst the ‘Poles’ and was the meeting-place
of the Awtád. *
Thirdly, one like that just judge Aṣílu'l-Millat wa'd-Dín,
Than whom Heaven remembers no better judge.
Again one like that accomplished judge 'Aḍud [u'd-Dín al-Íjí], *
Who dedicated his explanation of the Mawáqif to the King.
Again one so generous as Ḥájji Qiwám, * whose heart is as the Ocean,
Who, like Ḥátim, invited all men to partake of his bounty.
These departed, leaving none like unto themselves:
May God most Great and Glorious forgive them all!”

Mubárizu'd-Dín Muḥammad b. Muẓaffar, who ruled Mubárizu'd-Dín b. Muẓaffar over Fárs from 754/1353 to 759/1357, was of a very different type to his pleasure-loving predecessor and victim. Harsh, stern and ascetic in character, he had no sooner taken possession Closing of the taverns in his reign of Shíráz than he caused all the taverns to be closed, and put a stop, as far as possible, to the drinking of wine, to the great annoyance of Ḥáfiẓ, who refers to these lean days in the following amongst other passages of his poems:

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“Though wine gives delight and the wind distils the perfume of the
rose,
Drink not wine to the strains of the harp, for the constable * is alert.
Hide the goblet in the sleeve of the patch-work cloak,
For the time, like the eye of the decanter, pours forth blood.
Wash your dervish-cloak from the wine-stain with tears,
For it is the season of piety and the time of abstinence.”

<text in Arabic script omitted> <text in Arabic script omitted>

“O will it be that they will reopen the doors of the taverns,
And will loosen the knots from our tangled affairs?
Cut the tresses * of the harp [in mourning] for the death of pure wine,
So that all the sons of the Magians * may loosen their curled locks!
Write the letter of condolence for the [death of the] Daughter of the
Grape, *
So that all the comrades may let loose blood [-stained tears] from
their eyelashes.
They have closed the doors of the wine-taverns; O God, suffer not
That they should open the doors of the house of deceit and hypocrisy!
If they have closed them for the sake of the heart of the self-righteous
zealot
Be of good heart, for they will reopen them for God's sake!”

Sháh Shujá', who succeeded his father Mubárizu'd-Dín Sháh Shujá' allows the taverns to be reopened and relaxed his oppressive restrictions, com­posed the following quatrain on the same subject:

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“In the assembly of the time the concomitants of wine-bibbing are
laid low;
Neither is the hand on the harp, nor the tambourine in the hand.
All the revellers have abandoned the worship of wine
Save the city constable, who is drunk without wine.”

The reopening of the taverns is celebrated by Ḥáfiẓ in the following verses:

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“At early dawn good tidings reached my ear from the Unseen Voice:
‘It is the era of Sháh Shujá': drink wine boldly!’
That time is gone when men of insight went apart
With a thousand words in the mouth but their lips silent.
To the sound of the harp we will tell those stories
At the hearing of which the cauldron of our bosoms boiled.
Princes [alone] know the secrets of their kingdom;
O Ḥáfiẓ, thou art a beggarly recluse; hold thy peace!”

In another poem Ḥáfiẓ says:

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“I swear by the pomp and rank and glory of Sháh Shujá'
That I have no quarrel with anyone on account of wealth and
position.
See how he who [formerly] would not permit the hearing of music
Now goes dancing to the strains of the harp.”

In another poem he says:

<text in Arabic script omitted> <text in Arabic script omitted>

“The harp began to clamour ‘Where is the objector?’
The cup began to laugh ‘Where is the forbidder?’
Pray for the King's long life if thou seekest the world's welfare,
For he is a beneficent being and a generous benefactor,
The manifestation of Eternal Grace, the Light of the Eye of Hope,
The combiner of theory and practice, the Life of the World, Sháh
Shujá'.”

In spite of this and other verses in praise of Sháh Shujá', the relations between the Prince and the Poet are Sháh Shujá' is jealous of Ḥáfiẓ said to have been somewhat strained. Sháh Shujá' had a great opinion of a poet named 'Imád-i-Faqíh (“the Jurisconsult”) of Kirmán, who is said to have taught his cat to follow him in its genuflections when he performed his prayers. This achieve­ment was accounted by the Prince almost a miracle, but by Ḥáfiẓ a charlatan's trick, concerning which he said:

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“The Ṣúfí hath made display of his virtues and begun his blandish-
ments;
He hath inaugurated his schemings with the juggling heavens.
O gracefully-moving partridge who walkest with so pretty an air,
Be not deceived because the cat of the ascetic hath said its prayers!”*

The scorn expressed by Ḥáfiẓ for 'Imád is said to have been the original cause of Sháh Shujá''s dislike for him,

Contempt of Ḥáfiẓ for 'Imád of Kirmán but the Prince himself was his not very suc­cessful rival in the field of poetry, and jealousy appears to have increased that dislike. On one occasion the Prince criticized Ḥáfiẓ's verse on the ground of its many-sided aspects: no one motive, he complained, inspired it; it was at one moment mystical, at another erotic and bacchanalian; now serious and spiritual, and again flippant and worldly, or worse. “True,” replied Ḥáfiẓ, “but in spite of all this everyone knows, admires and repeats my verses, while the verses of some poets whom I could name never go beyond the city gates.”

Sháh Shujá' was greatly incensed at this answer, and soon afterwards came across the following verse of Ḥáfiẓ which seemed to deliver the poet into his hands:

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“If Muḥammadanism be that which Ḥáfiẓ holds,
Alas if there should be a to-morrow after to-day!”

Ḥáfiẓ, being warned that this verse was to be made the ground of a charge of heresy or agnosticism against him,

Ḥáfiẓ ingenious­ly extricates himself from a charge of heresy went in great perturbation to Mawláná Zaynu'd-Dín Abú Bakr Táyabádí, who happened at that time to be in Shíráz, and asked his advice. The latter recommended him to add another verse placing the words to which exception was taken in the mouth of another, on the principle that “the reporting of blasphemy is not blasphemy.” Thereupon Ḥáfiẓ prefixed the following verse to the one cited above:

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“How pleasant to me seemed this saying which at early morn
A Christian was reciting at the door of the tavern with tambourine
and flute:”

On being charged with atheism he produced this verse along with the other, and said that he was not responsible for the opinions expressed by a Christian.*

Sháh Shujá' died in 785/1383-4 or 786, * and was suc­ceeded by his son Zaynu'l-'Ábidín, who, however, was Sháh Manṣúr deposed and imprisoned by his cousin Sháh Manṣúr in 789/1387. Ḥáfiẓ celebrated his triumph in a poem beginning: