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Fal-e Hafez Online: Hafez Fortune with Word-by-Word Translation

Hafez poetry book, pomegranate and candle in a Persian garden at night.

Take a fâl-e Hâfez online: make a silent wish (niyyat), press the button, and a ghazal of Hafez opens for you, in the original Persian with transliteration, a plain English translation and a short traditional reading of your fâl. Tap any word to see what it means, so the fortune also becomes a Persian lesson.

  1. 1 Niyyat
  2. 2 Call on Hafez
  3. 3 Open

Make your niyyat

Close your eyes and think of one question or wish. Do not type it or say it aloud: in the Iranian tradition the نیت (niyyat, intention) stays in your heart.

What is fâl-e Hâfez?

فال حافظ (fâl-e Hâfez) is the Iranian custom of asking Hafez a question. You make a silent wish, open his دیوان (divân, collected poems) at random, and read the ghazal on that page as his answer. فال (fâl) means an omen or a fortune, and “taking” one is فال گرفتن (fâl gereftan). Families do it on شب یلدا (shab-e Yaldâ, the longest night of the year), at Nowruz, at Hafez’s tomb in Shiraz, or whenever someone needs a little encouragement. For most people it is a mix of fun, hope and love of poetry, and that is how this page treats it.

Want the full ritual, the extra prayer some families say, and phrases for a fâl night? Read our step-by-step Fal-e Hafez guide.

How Iranians take a fâl

  1. Niyyat. Hold your question or wish in your heart. Nobody needs to know it, not even the person who opens the book for you.
  2. Call on Hafez. Many people say ای حافظ شیرازی! تو محرم هر رازی (“O Hafez of Shiraz, you are the keeper of every secret”). Wording and additions vary from family to family.
  3. Open the Divan. With eyes closed, open the book anywhere. Here, the button does this for you.
  4. Read and interpret. Someone reads the whole ghazal aloud, and everyone looks for the couplets that seem to speak to the wish. Many families pay special attention to the first and the last couplet. The reading is always kind: almost any ghazal can be heard as hope.

Who was Hafez?

Hafez (حافظ, Hâfez) is the pen name of Shams al-Din Mohammad, a 14th-century poet of Shiraz, who died there in 1389 or 1390. A hâfez is someone who knows the Quran by heart. He is loved above all for his ghazals, short lyric poems about love, wine, hope and hypocrisy, which Iranians still quote every day. His tomb, the حافظیه (Hâfeziye), stands in a garden in Shiraz. The Persian text here follows Ganjoor, the online library of Persian poetry, which numbers 495 ghazals; the number on each ghazal is Ganjoor’s.

How to read a ghazal

A ghazal has a few parts, and once you can name them, Hafez becomes much easier to follow. Open “How this ghazal is built” in the reader to see them in each poem.

TermWhat it isExample from ghazal 255
بیت beytA couplet. Each beyt usually makes a complete statement, which is why people quote single couplets.10 couplets
مصراع mesrâ’One of the two half-lines of a beyt.یوسف گم‌گشته بازآید به کنعان، غم مخور
قافیه qâfiyeThe rhyme, which ends both half-lines of the first couplet and the second half-line of every other one.kan’ân, golestân, sâmân
ردیف radifA word or phrase repeated after the rhyme in every couplet. Not every ghazal has one.غم مخور gham makhor, “do not grieve”
تخلص takhallosThe poet’s pen name, usually in the last couplet, often as advice to himself.حافظا Hâfezâ, “O Hafez”

Tips for learners: read each couplet twice, first for the picture (the cupbearer, the rose, Joseph in Canaan) and then for what it might mean. Turn on Word glosses to see a short meaning under every word, as in a word-by-word Quran reader. Words marked as classical show their modern Persian equivalent in the word card, for example ز → از or دوش → دیشب. Mark the words you know, and watch your “already know” score rise from poem to poem.

Want to read Hafez aloud with confidence? How to Read Hafez’s Ghazals with Phonetics gives you ghazals with full pronunciation, so you can recite them at your next Yalda night.

See the book

Related tools and lessons

All 495 ghazals of Hafez

Each ghazal has its own page with the Persian text, transliteration, English translation and fâl reading.

FAQ

Is the Persian text authentic?

Yes. Every couplet is copied from Ganjoor, the standard online library of Persian poetry, including Ganjoor’s own vowel marks and punctuation, and each poem shows its Ganjoor number. The English translations, transliterations, word glosses and fâl readings were written for this page.

Is the fâl chosen really at random?

Yes. The button picks one of all 495 ghazals in Ganjoor’s edition of the Divan using your browser’s random number generator, the online version of opening the book with your eyes closed. Every ghazal comes with transliteration, an English translation, word-by-word glosses and a traditional reading.

Does fâl-e Hâfez predict the future?

No one can promise that. Most Iranians take a fâl for comfort, fun and reflection, and many say the poem helps them think about their question in a new way. Please treat the readings here as tradition and entertainment, not advice.

Why do only some words have vowel marks?

The marks you see are the ones Ganjoor prints to help readers with uncommon words; they are not complete. Switch off Vowel marks to read the text as Iranians usually see it, and use the transliteration line for the full pronunciation.

Can I share my fâl?

Yes. Press “Copy my fâl” to copy the first couplet, its translation, the reading and a link that opens the same ghazal (each ghazal has a link like #gh=255).

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