When I first opened The Divan of Hafez in the Special Collections room, I just stared at it for a moment before even touching it. It wasn’t only the smell of old paper or the way the leather cover seemed to crumble slightly at the corners it was that strange feeling that the book was somehow awake again. Like it had been waiting for someone to open it.
It’s small, smaller than I expected. It fits perfectly in my hands, the way an object made to be handled should. The leather cover is dark brown, with faint decorative lines and small patterns pressed into it. It’s worn at the edges, the spine a bit loose and there’s a tear near the bottom. But instead of feeling fragile, it feels alive. You can tell it’s been used, used, maybe passed from one person to another, maybe read out loud many times. When I reached the first illuminated pages, I couldn’t look away. Both sides are full of bright floral patterns blue, pink, gold carefully mirrored across the gutter. It’s almost too perfect. The two pages look like a carpet, a symmetrical design that draws you in before you even start reading. It’s as if you’re invited into the text, but you must cross through color first. The gold still catches the light, and for a second it doesn’t feel like looking at a book it feels like entering one.
The poetry itself sits neatly in two vertical columns, framed by thin colored lines. The script Nastaliq (main calligraphic hands used to write Arabic/Iranian scrip) flows softly, like it was written by someone who didn’t just know how to write but how to breathe through ink. Most of the text is in black, but here and there, words appear in red. The red is not random. It marks the start of each ghazal (poetic form) or a name, or sometimes a single phrase that stands out. When I noticed it, I realized how rhythmic it makes the reading (even I can’t read nastaliq writing) like a pause, a heartbeat, or maybe a reminder to pay attention. The color gives the text its own kind of movement.
Then there are the miniature paintings. They show small scenes two figures sitting together, a courtyard, the suggestion of conversation. The colors are still strong: deep blues, pinks, oranges, gold. I think they don’t exactly illustrate the poems but echo them, like visual metaphors. You can almost imagine someone reading the lines, then glancing at the image beside them words and paint reflecting each other.

The paper is another story. It’s handmade, slightly rough at the edges, with faint laid lines visible when you tilt it toward the light. Some corners are darkened, maybe from fingers. A few pages are torn or uneven. But none of it feels like damage. It feels like proof that the book was alive in the world. I kept thinking about how every part of this object the script, the pigments, the binding mirrors the same balance that Hafez plays with in his poems: between the sacred and the sensual, between what fades and what lasts. 

The beauty isn’t separate from the meaning; it is the meaning. During my research I often read that Scholars probably place this copy in the late 18th or early 19th century, during the Qajar period, when Persian calligraphy and book arts were at their height. The design, the script, the color palette it all fits that time and region, maybe Shiraz or Isfahan. I like imagining the person who wrote it: a scribe bent over the page, drawing each curve of Nastaliq carefully, mixing red pigment for the next ghazal, leaving a small trace of their hand on every page.
Now, it lives in the Special Collections library, resting quietly on a soft cradle. There’s a white catalog label near the spine a sign of its new life as an archive object. But even in that careful, quiet space, it doesn’t feel still. It hums in a way. The folds, the loosened binding, the little spark of gold along the border they all suggest motion, like the book hasn’t finished being read yet.
When I started describing The Divan of Hafez for this project, I realized that what I was really describing wasn’t just a book but a set of relationships. The way beauty turns into language. The way a reader leaves fingerprints behind. The way an object holds memory.
Hafez often blurs the line between earthly love and divine love between what’s fleeting and what’s eternal. And somehow, this manuscript does the same. It’s worn, but it shines. It’s old, but it still speaks.
And maybe that’s part of the reason why I chose this book. I’ve heard of Hafez before not in a classroom, but in conversations with friends from Iran and Afghanistan, who talk about him the way one talks about an old relative, or a wise friend. His poems are still alive in their homes, spoken at gatherings, quoted over tea. I’ve listened to them talk about the Divan as something that helps them express love not just romantic love, but love for friends, for parents, for life itself.
When I read Hafez now, even though translation, I feel a bit of that. There’s something about his words their openness, their trust in beauty that makes me want to look differently at the people I love. Maybe that’s what poetry is supposed to do: to make us more tender, more attentive.
I think that’s why this manuscript matters to me. It’s not only a historical object; it’s a bridge. Between languages, between centuries, between people. Between me and those moments with my friends when they tried to explain what Hafez means to them. Somehow, in the pages of this old book, I could feel it that poetry still carries the power to connect us, to remind us of that love, in all its forms, keeps circulating, just like the hands that once turned these pages. Maybe that’s what makes it so hard to walk away from: even after all this time, The Divan of Hafez still knows how to look back at you.

Part  2:
When I think back to my time with The Divan of Hafez, what stayed with me most wasn’t the gold or the binding it was the red ink. Those strokes of pigment, placed with so much intention, divide the black text like breaths between thoughts. The red rubrics that signal each new ghazal (poetic form) don’t just organize the text, they give it rhythm, almost like a pulse. In many manuscripts, red ink is a practical device. But in this one, it feels emotional. It glows against the black, soft but steady, like a flame that refuses to fade. Reading it, I kept noticing how this tiny change in color turns reading into something physical. It makes you stop, breathe, look again. It slows you down the way poetry should. I started thinking about what that gesture changing color means in the life of the book. I keep coming back to the thought that a book is never just a container, it’s an active space where meaning happens through touch, color, and movement, not just through language. The red here isn’t decoration, it’s part of the act of reading. The page performs the poem. These marks of use, the worn corners, the uneven ink, the slightly blurred red lines belong to the same story. They show that someone once cared enough to make each beginning visible. This attention to beginnings makes me think about how books move through the world: from the person who makes them, to the places that share them, to the readers who leave their traces behind. The red rubrication makes that journey visible it marks the moment when writing becomes reading, when language re-enters life. The scribe’s hand, the reader’s eye, my own curiosity: all of them meet in that flash of color.
At first, I thought I was writing about a decorative feature. But the longer I looked, the more I realized that the red ink is an argument about devotion. It is the manuscript’s heartbeat the sign that beauty itself can be a form of knowledge. When I think about why I chose this book, the answer is partly personal. I had heard of Hafez before from my Iranian and Afghan friends who talk about him with warmth, almost as if he were family. They quote him when they can’t find the right words; they open his Divan to seek guidance. For them, poetry is not distant it’s alive, intimate, daily. I kept thinking about how fragile and yet enduring this combination is the way the red fades slightly at the edges but still shines centuries later. In that small detail, I saw the persistence of love itself: delicate, but stubborn. The red marks echo that duality. They separate, but they also connect. They remind me that art isn’t about perfection, it’s about the ongoing attempt to make feeling visible.
Through my friends and through this object, I’ve come to see that Persian and Afghan poetry holds a kind of emotional openness I’ve always admired a way of expressing affection, friendship, and devotion without fear. Reading Hafez in this manuscript, I felt that openness in a material form. The red ink wasn’t just marking text it was marking tenderness. What I love most about this object is how its material, emotional, and intellectual layers blend. The red pigment mark’s structure and meaning, but it also carries feeling and memory. It shows how books can hold knowledge and affection at the same time. Nothing in this manuscript is separate. The color, the words, the touch of the page all work together to create a quiet conversation about care.
Even the fading of the ink feels meaningful. The red has softened at the edges, but it still shines. That change does not feel like a loss. It feels like age has given the book a new kind of beauty. The manuscript does not hide its years. It wears them with calm and dignity, as if it knows that time is not its enemy. That quiet endurance feels like an act of love too.
Hafez’s poetry often moves between the sacred and the human, between devotion and desire. The red ink mirrors that balance. It separates and connects at the same time. It draws attention without dividing. It shows that art is not about perfection but about the effort to make emotion visible. The devotion here is not toward a religion or rule, but toward the simple act of paying attention. To notice, to care, to look closely. That is its own kind of prayer. This manuscript changed how I think about book history. I used to imagine it as a study of preservation, about recording what already exists. Now I see it differently. Book history is about continuation. Every time someone reads, observes, or describes a book, its life extends a little further. A manuscript does not survive because of age alone. It survives because people keep returning to it, keep finding something alive within it. Attention is what keeps it breathing.
Through my friends and through this book, I began to understand something about Persian poetry that feels important. It does not divide emotion and intellect. It lets feeling and thought exist together. It treats love as something both deeply human and deeply wise. Reading Hafez in this way made me realize how poetry can teach presence and humility at the same time. The red ink did not just mark the text. It marked tenderness itself. To notice the red ink is to practice awareness. It is a small act of mindfulness, an invitation to slow down and be present. In a world that moves quickly and demands constant attention, this manuscript offers another rhythm. It reminds me that meaning is not something we chase but something we meet when we pause long enough to see it. When I left the Special Collections room, the world outside looked sharper. Even the red of a stoplight seemed different. I thought of the manuscript and how color can guide movement without commanding it. Maybe that is what the red ink really teaches: to see the world as something to be read with care, with patience, and with love.
What remains after closing the book is not only the memory of its beauty but a realization. The life of a book is not just in its words but in its gestures in the way it was made, the way it has been touched, the way it continues to invite attention. The Divan of Hafez reminded me that the book is also the story of love and continuity. It shows that beauty and devotion are not separate from life. They are life. And that lesson, written in red, will stay with me for a long time. It made me realize that book history isn’t just about preservation, it’s about continuity. Each description, each reading, each observation is another act of devotion a way of keeping the object in motion. And that’s what Hafez himself seems to whisper through every verse that love, in all its forms, survives by being shared.

So, what remains after closing the book? A quiet realization that the most meaningful parts of a book’s life might not be its words but its gestures the care with which it was written, the colors chosen to emphasize breath, the way it has been held. The Divan of Hafez shows that a book’s biography is also a biography of love: how people have carried, touched, and believed in words across generations.