Iran

Shiraz is further to the south and the character of the country begins to change with more of an Arabic influence. This was the famous city of poets, nightingales and moonlight. It was a center for architecture, calligraphy and literature and was considered the cultural capital or Iran.

These days it’s seen as a very relaxed town with plenty of trees and wide gardens. There are tombs to the Sufi poets who flourished here, in particular, Hafiz. Visit his tomb and spend some time communing with his verses. As a Sufi he was a typical non-conformist as you can see in his words:

_“Preacher, it is all in vain you preach to me,
No business of anyone’s but mine
Where I have sinned and what my end will be.
I ponder too on subtleties divine—
Pray solve me this: how Allah from the void
The waist of my Beloved made so fine
That it exists but in the lover’s thought,
Nor can be apprehended of the eye,
A metaphysic fancy of the mind—
Solve me this riddle, preacher: how and why._

_Again, you promise, when we leave behind
This jasmined earth, its roses and its dew,
Eight paradises up there in the sky;
In truth, it gives a man a haste to die
To think of living after death with you!
Listen! One corner of the earth with her
Is more to me than all the stars on high;
Down here’s my heaven, though yours may be up there!”_

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