Hafiz's Life
Despite his profound effect on Persian life and culture and his enduring popularity and influence, few details of his life are known, and particularly about his early life there is a great deal of more or less mythical anecdote.
Some of the early tazkeras (biographical sketches) mentioning Hafez are generally considered unreliable. One early document discussing Hafez" life is the preface of his Divān, which was written by an unknown contemporary of Hafez whose name may have been Moḥammad Golandām. Two of the most highly regarded modern editions of Hafez"s Divān are compiled by Moḥammad Qazvini and Qāsem Ḡani (495 ghazals) and by Parviz Natil Khanlari (486 ghazals).
Modern scholars generally agree that Hafez was born either in 1315 or 1317, and following an account by Jami, consider 1390 as the year in which he died. Supported by patronage from the area’s rulers, from Shah Abu Ishaq, who came to power while Hafez was in his teens, until the rule of Timur Lang (Tamerlane) at the end of his life, he even managed to write under the strictly orthodox Muslim and tyrannical ruler Shah Mubariz ud-Din Muhammad (Mubariz Muzaffar), though his work flourished most under the twenty-seven year reign of Jalal ud-Din Shah Shuja (Shah Shuja). Although no historical evidence of this is available, one source claims that Hāfez briefly fell out of favor with Shah Shuja for mocking inferior poets (Shah Shuja wrote poetry himself and may have taken the comments personally), forcing Hāfez to flee from Shiraz to Isfahan and Yazd. His mausoleum, Hāfezieh, is located in the Musalla Gardens of Shiraz.
Source: wikipedia.org
Other Links:
An Introduction to Hafez
Legends of Hafez
Timeline Biography of Hafez
