“Divan”

Before you is a Kashmiri manuscript of the Divan of Hafiz – a poet who, across the Persian-speaking world, was read almost as widely as the great religious texts themselves. His verses were memorized, used for language study, and read as reflections on love, time, and human destiny.
In Central Asia, from the Timurid period until the early twentieth century, the Divan of Hafiz remained one of the principal books for teaching Persian language and literature in maktabs and madrasas. Many students memorized Hafiz’s ghazals soon after learning the Arabic script and reading the Qur’an.
This manuscript was produced in sixteenth-century Kashmir. Look closely at the opening: the lines are enclosed within delicate gold frames, while blue-and-gold panels divide the poetic sections almost like musical pauses. The nastaliq script flows with remarkable ease, making the rhythm of the poem itself seem visible.
For readers of that era, such verses were not only poetry, but also a form of inner conversation with oneself.