Spelling the Mystery of Time

The art of riddles, much neglected by modern scholarship, was an essential part of traditional Islamic culture, as it was in other high cultures. That art included chronograms encoding important dates and anagrams encoding names. It is suggested that the Shirazi Turk, the best known and most discussed ghazal of the most cherished Persian poet, Hafiz, is not only a superb demonstration of the poet's skills in composing poetry about divine and worldly love, as is still often thought, but also a demonstration of his skills in satire and riddle, applying to the fullest the rules of the chronogram to the date of his removal from court by his patron Shah Shuja', and the rules of the anagram to the name of his patron. In conclusion, it is shown that this poemconsidered one of Hafiz's most brilliant as to its individual lines, but also one with the least thematic coherence between the lines-is one of his most coherent and dialectically structured ghazals. The poem syllogistically makes Hafiz's experience with his Turkish patron and ruler of Shiraz part of the truth and wisdom of Islam and of the Iranian sages, through the poet's spell of riddles about the mystery of time and beauty, wine, and booty, both personal and universal, sacred and profane, in a tradition which is continued in Mozart's Magic Flute.