Of his family life we know one fact, that on December 23, 1362, he lost a grown son. For this we have his words. He wrote a poem about it. The story is current that in his old age Timur the Conqueror came to Shiraz and destroyed the dynasty of the Muzaffer, then angrily summoned Hafiz: “With my sword have I conquered the greater part of the earth, put the inhabitants of cities, entire provinces to death, in order that my two cities Bokhara and Samarcand might be more splendid. Now how dare you say you would give them both for the mole upon your sweetheart’s cheek!” Hafiz bent to the ground in salutation, replying: “_Oh Lord of the World! It is because of such generosity that you see me poor, my robe full of holes._” Timur was so delighted with the witty answer he not only forgave him, but sent him away with a gift. The songs of Hafiz are illustrative of the fact that whatever comes from the heart has independent life, regardless of friend or foe. He did not collect his poems. He seems to have given no thought to their preservation. He made them for joy of the making. He gave them carelessly to his disciples, friends. Shortly after his death Muhammed Sulandem, a friend, gathered seven hundred verses which he named _The Divan_. But without this friendly intervention they would have lived. They had become property of the people of Persia. They were preserved by word of mouth. They were on all tongues. They could have been suppressed no more than the wind which bloweth where it listeth. Like the wind they, too, were a natural force and would have their way. He is the most widely read poet of the world. Hafiz is the favorite of the Mohammedan Orient. He found the heart of the people. And he kept it. He is sung by the tiller of the field, camel driver of the desert, the boatmen upon the Red Sea. When the religious zealots found it was impossible to suppress his poems, they set about making them innocuous. They said they were allegories; that the writer was a master of _double entendre_, that he wrote one thing and meant another. With this object in view they called him _the mystic tongue_, and the _translator of the unseen_. Indeed an attempt was made in Turkey to suppress _The Divan_, in Constantinople, under pretext of heresy. The Mufti Abu Su’ud rescued it by saying that when it was read one should keep the good and throw away the evil. It was a Turk who, in the sixteenth century, wrote the first intelligent commentary, showing people its true, long forgotten meaning.