What is "Sameri's apostasy"?

by FunTimeJake

It is from the Hafez poem-

"Last night I took my troubles to The Magian sage whose keen eyes see A hundred answers in the wine Whose cup he, laughing, showed to me. I questioned him, "When was this cup That shows the world's reality

Handed to you?" He said, "The day Heaven's vault of lapis lazuli Was raised, and marvelous things took place By Intellect's divine decree, And Moses' miracles were made And Sameri's apostasy."

Looking it up only shows other versions of the poem. Is it related to Moses and the Abrahamics?

thither_and_yon

Transliteration can be such a pain in the neck when googling! Sameri, or السامري in Arabic, is more usually transliterated “as-Samiri” in English, which would have gotten you the search results you needed. Samiri, or “the Samiri,” is the figure to whom the Qur’an gives primary blame for the apostasy of the Israelites in the desert after the exodus from Egypt, when they made and worshiped a golden calf as an idol while Moses was busy seeking God on the mountain. Unlike in the Hebrew Bible, Aaron does not get the blame in the Islamic story. The name may mean “the Samaritan,” but it’s not entirely clear.

The episode of the golden calf is, in Islam as in Judaism and Christianity, considered the paradigmatic example of idol-worship and apostasy. In context, by referring to Samiri and Moses in the same line, Hafez is trying to capture the all-encompassing power of a God who is ultimately the creator and controller of both Moses’s divine miracles and their opposite, the apostasy of Samiri, which the Qur’an presents as a deliberate test of faith orchestrated by God himself.

Here is the text of the Qur’anic version of events: al-quran.info/#20:85/1