Persian · noun · People & Roles

Rind

रिंद
said rind
also written: rindaan, rind-e-balaakash
Meaning

The libertine or free-spirited reveller who flouts pious convention; in Sufi verse, the true lover of God.

Literally: the libertine; carefree wine-drinker

Usage & notes

The rind is the tavern's free spirit — the wine-bibbing, rule-breaking libertine who scandalises the pious — but in Sufi verse he is the hero: his 'sin' of drinking love makes him truer than the calculating zahid, for he has staked everything on the Beloved. His drunkenness is sincerity; his ruin is grace. Iqbal lifts the rind into a near-ideal of the self: irreverent toward dead convention, ablaze with love, careless of consequence because consumed by a higher fire — the living believer set against the lifeless ascetic.