Hafiz and the Category of Predestination and Free Will

Form past to the present، understanding of Hafiz has been the preoccupation of many researchers of Persian language and literature and the issue of “Predestination and Free Will” has a special status in this regard. Many believe that Hafiz is a fatalist whereas a few insist that he is a volitionist and some think that he is both fatalist and volitionist. But which one is true? And is it possible to achieve a definite idea about such matter? This research aims to provide a proper answer to such questions and find out the ground of this statement by Hafiz: “there is neither Predestination nor Free Will; but something in the middle”. For avoiding any presupposition and probable misunderstandings، first، the ideas of forty five Hafiz researchers are explored. Among them، twenty five ones believe in Hafiz’s fatalism; fourteen researchers do not reject this idea explicitly and the remainder، however with some differences، think that he is a volitionist. Based on textual implications and following hermeneutic principles، it is tried to figure out Hafiz’s ideas just on the basis of the text. Of course، passing through various theosophical ideas which have been ascribed to him and some textual evidence has been proposed for proving them is not an easy task. But، by exact stating of those ideas and textual evidence which opposed them semantically، it is tried to offer a methodological criticism and finally، as stated before، a coherent theory is achieved which collects all textual evidence without being incongruent with the text itself.