Page "Hafez" Paragraph 6

According to one tradition, before meeting his patron, Hajji Zayn al-Attar, Hāfez had been working in a bakery, delivering bread to a wealthy quarter of the town.

There he first saw Shakh-e Nabat, a woman of great beauty, to whom some of his poems are addressed.

Ravished by her beauty, but knowing that his love for her would not be requited, he allegedly held his first mystic vigil in his desire to realize this union.

During this he encountered a being of surpassing beauty who identified himself as an angel, and his further attempts at union became mystic ; a pursuit of spiritual union with the divine.

A Western parallel is that of Dante and Beatrice.