Hafezie
Hafezie is the mausoleum of Hafez of Shiraz (1315-1390), the famous Persian author of ghazal, nicknamed "the dicitore of mysteries".
This mausoleum (with a total area of 19.116 m2) is located in the northern part of Shiraz, in the cemetery area of Khak-e Mosalla. About sixty years after Hafez's death in the 1452, Mirza Abu'l Ghasem Babor Gurgani, governor of the Fars, ordered Shams-od-din Mohamad Yaghma'i, his minister, to build a domed building over the grave of Hafez.
In front of it was built a large tank that was fed by the water of the Roknabad stream. This sepulcher was restored at the time of the Safavid king Shah Abbas I (16th-17th century) and again at the time of Nader Shah Afshar (18th century).
In the Zand (eighteenth century), a large vaulted room with four massive stone columns, built to the north and south and flanked by two rooms, was built by order of Karim Khan Zand (1772). The tomb of Hafez was behind this building, in front of which a large garden was created. In this period a court was also built and a marble sepulchral stone was designed on which two ghazals of Hafez were engraved in calligraphy nasta'liq by Haji Aghasi Beyk Afshar Azarbaijani.
In the 1935 the Hafezie was restored by order of Colonel Ali Riazi (head of the Department of Culture of the Fars) in collaboration with Ali Asghar Hekmat (NdT: Minister of Culture) and under the supervision of Ali Sami and renewed according to a project by André Godard .
The Hafezie hall measures 56 x 8 meters and has 20 tall columns 5 meters. Formerly this room had 4 columns and 4 rooms; 2 of these rooms were removed during the renovation works, during which more columns were added to the hall. On the east and west sides of the hall are two rooms designed in a composite style that combines the style of the Achaemenid period and the style of the Zand period.
The sepulchral stone of the Hafez mausoleum stands one meter higher than the surface of the ground and is surrounded by five circular rows of steps. Above it was built a copper dome in the shape of a dervish hat supported by eight tall columns 10 meters and decorated inside by a polychrome mosaic of glazed tiles. In the ceiling of the 8 mausoleum verses drawn from the ghazals of Hafez are written in calligraphy sols on large stone slabs. Also on the walls of the northern part of the garden have been written some ghazals of Hafez on tiles and marble from the calligrapher Amir Al-Ketab Haj Mirza Abd-al-Hamid Malek Al-Kalami Kordestani.
The Hafezie includes other parts, such as the library and tombs of other important personalities in the history of Shiraz.
A special ceremony takes place in Hafezie every year on 20 mehr (11 or 12 October), which is the day of the celebrations in honor of Hafez.