Preface and Introduction Summary

The preface to Daniel Ladinsky's translation of Hafiz's poems, entitled "The Gift," describes Hafiz as a poet who has inspired some of the world's greatest poets and who attained a level of intimacy with God only equaled by such men as Rumi, Francis of Assisi, Ramakrishna, Lao-Tzu and the like. Hafiz invites people into the same intimacy, to be liberated from the fear and guilt-driven control of organized religion and instead become engrossed in a surrendered, celebratory friendship with the Infinite. Ladinsky points out that, over Hafiz's life, he wrote between five and seven hundred poems, but that an unknown number of them were destroyed by a fundamentalist Islamic leadership who believed it was blasphemy for anyone to claim intimacy with God. According to Hafiz, God is too powerful and benevolent to need to resort to intimidation or condemnation...