The Illuminated Hafiz: Love Poems for the Journey to Light

Edited by Nancy Owen Barton, a deep bow of gratitude to all those who have brought The Illuminated Hafiz. Love Poems for the Journey to Light to us. Illustrators, translators, scholars, and spiritual luminaries such as Meher Baba, join for one singular purpose: to celebrate a 14th century mystical poet from Iran who made the complete journey of the soul, one who cared enough for the world to compose words of light that he would leave as a trail of eternal flowers for anyone who might be drawn by their delicious scents to the path of the soul’s unfoldment.Hafiz, the host of the heavenly earth and the earthly heaven, asks that you sit with love, walk with love, run with love, dance with love, lay under the stars with love, swim with love, let your heart be torn and stretched by love, until there is no difference between you and love itself. Hafiz doesn’t ask us for much, only for our nothing. Whether it be morning , midday or night, I highly recommend partaking of this infinite feast that awaits you.Neale Lundgren

We are only able to read less than 10% of what this remarkable poet wrote. The fundamentalist clergy of his day destroyed 90% of what he wrote, because he saw beyond their hateful, harsh interpretations of their holy book and taught that the Creator of all was kind, compassionate, loving, and cared for all creation, not just those in their group.This book is SO relevant in our time of scary fundamentalists, whatever holy book they twist in their sad quest for power.I’m told that in Iran, to this day his books outsell the Koran.Peace be upon him! If you love Rumi, you’ll love Hafiz!

This is a unique book, incredibly beautiful and the poetry is sublime. The only thing is the packaging was not good and it arrived half open.

The visuals are not the quality I was expecting and they heavily detract from the poems. Based on the cover I was expecting mandalas for each poem. Instead I was so disappointed I gave it away to goodwill.

Beautiful hard bound book. Illustrations are gorgeous. I just wish they had the Farsi text for each poem. It’s still a lovely book

This beautiful volume of Hafiz poetry, commentary and artwork is a joy to experience. Open any page at random and you will breathe in the essence of Hafiz: the perfect unity of love, harmony and beauty. Kudos to Michael and Saliha Green for their inspired artistry, and to Nancy Barton for her vision and devotion.Linda Reichert, Hafiz-lover

Well done but font was a challenge, very small. A good collection with gorgeous illustration and art work. Truly lovely.

In this stunning new Hafiz book, I felt blessed the beauty of the words as they washed over me. I meditated with each page, savoring the writing while taking in the images. I am filled with a love and contentment that knows no words. My heart has expanded beyond any bounds imaginable.

I was hoping to gift this book to a friend to know Hafiz better. As a person who read Hafiz poems for more than three decades in Farsi, I tell you this book is garbage. This is anything except Hafiz poems. There are random poems from other people in this book too. Poor fonts, inconsistent size. Very wrong representation of poets thoughts and beliefs. Awful translations.Illustrations are so embarrassing. A blond modern boy is randomly in the pictures. Indian men and women, signs of Christianity and indigenous culture. It looks like the authors/illustrators wanted to intentionally falsify the culture and way of thinking of Hafiz. You cannot apply “inclusion and diversity “ concept in the illustration of a famous Iranian poet’s book from 700 years ago. This is stupid and wrong.This book is trash.

I was amazed at the richness, beauty, complexity and depth of this compilation. How the compiling editor managed to coordinate all the disparate elements of this book in to harmonious whole is beyond me.The Persians say that every ghazal of Hafiz can be interpreted on seven different levels, and holding the book in my hand, I can believe it. And every person will interpret the poetry according to their own circumstances and temperament.I did a "drop" and page 126 came up: "I've heard nothing lovelier than the the melody of love, a keepsake lingering in the swirling azure dome."