Hafez is Iran’s most beloved poet. His Divan is kept in homes alongside the Qur’an, consulted for divination on matters of the heart. His ghazals move fluidly between wine and prayer, the Beloved and the beloved, the tavern and the mosque — and the tradition insists this movement is not confusion but exactly the point.
For the Sufi, there is no contradiction to resolve: the wine is real wine and also the wine of divine intoxication; the beloved is a real human face and also the face through which the Beloved looks back.