Omar Khayyam

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For other uses, see Omar Khayyam (disambiguation).

Saccheri
  • Edward FitzGerald
  • Maurice Bouchor
  • Henri Cazalis
  • Jean Chapelain
  • Amin Maalouf

    • Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Nīsābūrī

    mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, and poetry.[4]: 94  He was born in Nishapur, the initial capital of the Seljuk Empire. He lived during the rule of the Seljuk dynasty, around the time of the First Crusade
    .

    As a mathematician, he is most notable for his work on the classification and solution of

    parallel axiom.[6]: 284  As an astronomer, he calculated the duration of the solar year with remarkable precision and accuracy, and designed the Jalali calendar, a solar calendar with a very precise 33-year intercalation cycle[7]
    : 659 
    Persian calendar
    that is still in use after nearly a millennium.

    There is a tradition of attributing

    poetry to Omar Khayyam, written in the form of quatrains (rubāʿiyāt رباعیات). This poetry became widely known to the English-reading world in a translation by Edward FitzGerald (Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 1859), which enjoyed great success in the Orientalism of the fin de siècle
    .

    Life

    Omar Khayyam was born in Nishapur—a metropolis in Khorasan province, of Persian stock, in 1048.[8][9][10][11][12] In medieval Persian texts he is usually simply called Omar Khayyam.[7]: 658 [c] Although open to doubt, it has often been assumed that his forebears followed the trade of tent-making, since Khayyam means 'tent-maker' in Arabic.[15]: 30  The historian Bayhaqi, who was personally acquainted with Khayyam, provides the full details of his horoscope: "he was Gemini, the sun and Mercury being in the ascendant[...]".[16]: 471 [17]: 172–175, no. 66  This was used by modern scholars to establish his date of birth as 18 May 1048.[7]: 658 

    Mausoleum of Omar Khayyám
    Mausoleum of Omar Khayyam in Nishapur, Iran. Some of his rubáiyáts are used as calligraphic (taliq script) decoration on the exterior body of his mausoleum.

    Khayyam's boyhood was spent in Nishapur,

    Great Seljuq Empire,[18]: 15 [19] and it had been a major center of the Zoroastrian religion.[8]: 68  His full name, as it appears in the Arabic sources, was Abu’l Fath Omar ibn Ibrahim al-Khayyam.[d] His gifts were recognized by his early tutors who sent him to study under Imam Muwaffaq Nishaburi, the greatest teacher of the Khorasan region who tutored the children of the highest nobility, and Khayyam developed a firm friendship with him through the years.[8]: 20  Khayyam might have met and studied with Bahmanyar, a disciple of Avicenna.[8]: 20–21  After studying science, philosophy, mathematics and astronomy at Nishapur, about the year 1068 he traveled to the province of Bukhara, where he frequented the renowned library of the Ark. In about 1070 he moved to Samarkand, where he started to compose his famous Treatise on Algebra under the patronage of Abu Tahir Abd al-Rahman ibn ʿAlaq, the governor and chief judge of the city.[20]: 4330b  Khayyam was kindly received by the Karakhanid ruler Shams al-Mulk Nasr, who according to Bayhaqi, would "show him the greatest honour, so much so that he would seat [Khayyam] beside him on his throne".[15]: 34 [8]
    : 47 

    In 1073–4 peace was concluded with Sultan Malik-Shah I who had made incursions into Karakhanid dominions. Khayyam entered the service of Malik-Shah in 1074–5 when he was invited by the Grand Vizier Nizam al-Mulk to meet Malik-Shah in the city of Marv. Khayyam was subsequently commissioned to set up an observatory in Isfahan and lead a group of scientists in carrying out precise astronomical observations aimed at the revision of the Persian calendar. The undertaking began probably in 1076 and ended in 1079,[8]: 28–29  when Omar Khayyam and his colleagues concluded their measurements of the length of the year, reporting it as 365.24219858156 days.[5] Given that the length of the year is changing in the sixth decimal place over a person's lifetime, this is outstandingly accurate. For comparison the length of the year at the end of the 19th century was 365.242196 days, while today it is 365.242190 days.

    After the death of Malik-Shah and his vizier (murdered, it is thought, by the

    astrologer.[1] He was later allowed to return to Nishapur owing to his declining health. Upon his return, he seems to have lived the life of a recluse.[22]
    : 99 

    Omar Khayyam died at the age of 83 in his hometown of Nishapur on 4 December 1131, and he is buried in what is now the Mausoleum of Omar Khayyam. One of his disciples Nizami Aruzi relates the story that sometime during 1112–3 Khayyam was in Balkh in the company of Isfizari (one of the scientists who had collaborated with him on the Jalali calendar) when he made a prophecy that "my tomb shall be in a spot where the north wind may scatter roses over it".[15]: 36 [19] Four years after his death, Aruzi located his tomb in a cemetery in a then large and well-known quarter of Nishapur on the road to Marv. As it had been foreseen by Khayyam, Aruzi found the tomb situated at the foot of a garden-wall over which pear trees and peach trees had thrust their heads and dropped their flowers so that his tombstone was hidden beneath them.[15]: 37 

    Mathematics

    Khayyam was famous during his life as a mathematician. His surviving mathematical works include (i) Commentary on the Difficulties Concerning the Postulates of Euclid's Elements (Risāla fī Sharḥ mā Ashkal min Muṣādarāt Kitāb Uqlīdis), completed in December 1077,[11]: 832a [23][24]: § 1 [25]: 324b  (ii) Treatise On the Division of a Quadrant of a Circle (Risālah fī Qismah Rub‘ al-Dā’irah), undated but completed prior to the Treatise on Algebra,[11]: 831b [24]: § 2  and (iii) Treatise on Algebra (Risālah fi al-Jabr wa'l-Muqābala),[11]: 831b–832a [24]: § 3  most likely completed in 1079.[6]: 281  He furthermore wrote a treatise on the binomial theorem and extracting the nth root of natural numbers, which has been lost.[8]: 197 [11]: 832a [24]: § 4 [25]: 325b–326b 

    Theory of parallels

    See also: Non-Euclidean geometry § History, and Parallel postulate § History

    Part of Khayyam's Commentary on the Difficulties Concerning the Postulates of Euclid's Elements deals with the

    petitio principii, but on a more intuitive postulate. Khayyam refutes the previous attempts by other mathematicians to prove the proposition, mainly on grounds that each of them had postulated something that was by no means easier to admit than the Fifth Postulate itself.[24]: § 1 [25]: 326b–327b [26]: 75  Drawing upon Aristotle's views, he rejects the usage of movement in geometry and therefore dismisses the different attempt by Ibn al-Haytham.[27]: 64–65 [28]: 270 [e] Unsatisfied with the failure of mathematicians to prove Euclid's statement from his other postulates, Khayyam tried to connect the axiom with the Fourth Postulate, which states that all right angles are equal to one another.[6]
    : 282 

    Khayyam was the first to consider the three distinct cases of acute, obtuse, and right angle for the summit angles of a Khayyam-Saccheri quadrilateral.[6]: 283  After proving a number of theorems about them, he showed that Postulate V follows from the right angle hypothesis, and refuted the obtuse and acute cases as self-contradictory.[28]: 270 [29]: 133  His elaborate attempt to prove the parallel postulate was significant for the further development of geometry, as it clearly shows the possibility of non-Euclidean geometries. The hypotheses of acute, obtuse, and right angles are now known to lead respectively to the non-Euclidean hyperbolic geometry of Gauss-Bolyai-Lobachevsky, to that of Riemannian geometry, and to Euclidean geometry.[30]

    "Cubic equation and intersection of conic sections" the first page of a two-chaptered manuscript kept in Tehran University.

    Girolamo Saccheri, whose work (euclides ab omni naevo vindicatus, 1733) is generally considered the first step in the eventual development of non-Euclidean geometry, was familiar with the work of Wallis. The American historian of mathematics David Eugene Smith mentions that Saccheri "used the same lemma as the one of Tusi, even lettering the figure in precisely the same way and using the lemma for the same purpose". He further says that "Tusi distinctly states that it is due to Omar Khayyam, and from the text, it seems clear that the latter was his inspirer."[8]: 195 [22]: 104 [31]

    Real number concept

    This treatise on Euclid contains another contribution dealing with the theory of proportions and with the compounding of ratios. Khayyam discusses the relationship between the concept of ratio and the concept of number and explicitly raises various theoretical difficulties. In particular, he contributes to the theoretical study of the concept of irrational number.[32] Displeased with Euclid's definition of equal ratios, he redefined the concept of a number by the use of a continuous fraction as the means of expressing a ratio. Youschkevitch and Rosenfeld argue that "by placing irrational quantities and numbers on the same operational scale, [Khayyam] began a true revolution in the doctrine of number."[25]: 327b  Likewise, it was noted by D. J. Struik that Omar was "on the road to that extension of the number concept which leads to the notion of the real number."[6]: 284 

    Geometric algebra

    Omar Khayyam's construction of a solution to the cubic x3 + 2x = 2x2 + 2. The intersection point produced by the circle and the hyperbola determine the desired segment.

    Rashed and Vahabzadeh (2000) have argued that because of his thoroughgoing geometrical approach to algebraic equations, Khayyam can be considered the precursor of

    Descartes in the invention of analytic geometry.[33]: 248  In the Treatise on the Division of a Quadrant of a Circle Khayyam applied algebra to geometry. In this work, he devoted himself mainly to investigating whether it is possible to divide a circular quadrant into two parts such that the line segments projected from the dividing point to the perpendicular diameters of the circle form a specific ratio. His solution, in turn, employed several curve constructions that led to equations containing cubic and quadratic terms.[33]
    : 248 

    Solution of cubic equations

    Khayyam seems to have been the first to conceive a general theory of cubic equations,

    compass and straight edge, (ii) equations which can be solved by means of conic sections, and (iii) equations which involve the inverse of the unknown.[24]
    : § 3 

    Khayyam produced an exhaustive list of all possible equations involving lines, squares, and cubes.

    Renaissance Italy.[6]
    : 282 

    Whoever thinks algebra is a trick in obtaining unknowns has thought it in vain. No attention should be paid to the fact that algebra and geometry are different in appearance. Algebras are geometric facts which are proved by propositions five and six of Book two of Elements.

    —Omar Khayyam[40]

    In effect, Khayyam's work is an effort to unify algebra and geometry.[41]: 241  This particular geometric solution of cubic equations has been further investigated by M. Hachtroudi and extended to solving fourth-degree equations.[42] Although similar methods had appeared sporadically since Menaechmus, and further developed by the 10th-century mathematician Abu al-Jud,[43]: 29 [44]: 110  Khayyam's work can be considered the first systematic study and the first exact method of solving cubic equations.[45]: 92  The mathematician Woepcke (1851) who offered translations of Khayyam's algebra into French praised him for his "power of generalization and his rigorously systematic procedure."[46]: 10 

    Binomial theorem and extraction of roots

    See also: Binomial theorem § History

    From the Indians one has methods for obtaining square and cube roots, methods based on knowledge of individual cases – namely the knowledge of the squares of the nine digits 12, 22, 32 (etc.) and their respective products, i.e. 2 × 3 etc. We have written a treatise on the proof of the validity of those methods and that they satisfy the conditions. In addition we have increased their types, namely in the form of the determination of the fourth, fifth, sixth roots up to any desired degree. No one preceded us in this and those proofs are purely arithmetic, founded on the arithmetic of The Elements.

    —Omar Khayyam, Treatise on Algebra[47]

    In his algebraic treatise, Khayyam alludes to a book he had written on the extraction of the th root of the numbers using a law he had discovered which did not depend on geometric figures.[39] This book was most likely titled the Difficulties of Arithmetic (Mushkilāt al-Ḥisāb),[11]: 832a [24]: § 4  and is not extant.[25]: 325b  Based on the context, some historians of mathematics such as D. J. Struik, believe that Omar must have known the formula for the expansion of the binomial , where n is a positive integer.[6]: 282  The case of power 2 is explicitly stated in Euclid's elements and the case of at most power 3 had been established by Indian mathematicians. Khayyam was the mathematician who noticed the importance of a general binomial theorem. The argument supporting the claim that Khayyam had a general binomial theorem is based on his ability to extract roots.[48] One of Khayyam's predecessors, al-Karaji, had already discovered the triangular arrangement of the coefficients of binomial expansions that Europeans later came to know as Pascal's triangle;[49]: 60  Khayyam popularized this triangular array in Iran, so that it is now known as Omar Khayyam's triangle.[39]

    Astronomy

    Main article: Jalali calendar
    Representation of the intercalation scheme of the Jalali calendar

    In 1074–5, Omar Khayyam was commissioned by Sultan Malik-Shah to build an

    Nowrūz, a day in which the Sun enters the first degree of Aries before noon.[50]: 10–11 [51] The resultant calendar was named in Malik-Shah's honor as the Jalālī calendar, and was inaugurated on 15 March 1079.[52]: 269  The observatory itself was disused after the death of Malik-Shah in 1092.[7]
    : 659 

    The Jalālī calendar was a true

    leap years. Therefore, the calendar consisted of 25 ordinary years that included 365 days, and 8 leap years that included 366 days.[53]: 13  The calendar remained in use across Greater Iran from the 11th to the 20th centuries. In 1911 the Jalali calendar became the official national calendar of Qajar Iran. In 1925 this calendar was simplified and the names of the months were modernized, resulting in the modern Iranian calendar. The Jalali calendar is more accurate than the Gregorian calendar of 1582,[7]: 659  with an error of one day accumulating over 5,000 years, compared to one day every 3,330 years in the Gregorian calendar.[8]: 200  Moritz Cantor considered it the most perfect calendar ever devised.[22]
    : 101 

    One of his pupils

    Farabi's Enumeration of the Sciences, that this science, ‘ilm al-nujūm, was already split into two parts, one dealing with astrology and the other with theoretical mathematical astronomy."[54]
    : 224 

    Other works

    See also:
    Specific gravity

    He has a short treatise devoted to Archimedes' principle (in full title, On the Deception of Knowing the Two Quantities of Gold and Silver in a Compound Made of the Two). For a compound of gold adulterated with silver, he describes a method to measure more exactly the weight per capacity of each element. It involves weighing the compound both in air and in water, since weights are easier to measure exactly than volumes. By repeating the same with both gold and silver one finds exactly how much heavier than water gold, silver and the compound were. This treatise was extensively examined by Eilhard Wiedemann who believed that Khayyam's solution was more accurate and sophisticated than that of Khazini and Al-Nayrizi who also dealt with the subject elsewhere.[8]: 198 

    Another short treatise is concerned with

    tetrachords.[8]
    : 198 

    Poetry

    Shekasteh
    calligraphy.

    The earliest allusion to Omar Khayyam's poetry is from the historian

    Fakhr al-Din Razi. In his work al-Tanbih ‘ala ba‘d asrar al-maw‘dat fi’l-Qur’an (c. 1160), he quotes one of his poems (corresponding to quatrain LXII of FitzGerald's first edition). Daya in his writings (Mirṣād al-‘Ibad, c. 1230) quotes two quatrains, one of which is the same as the one already reported by Razi. An additional quatrain is quoted by the historian Juvayni (Tarikh-i Jahangushay, c. 1226–1283).[55]: 36–37 [8]: 92  In 1340 Jajarmi includes thirteen quatrains of Khayyam in his work containing an anthology of the works of famous Persian poets (Mu’nis al-ahrār), two of which have hitherto been known from the older sources.[56]: 434  A comparatively late manuscript is the Bodleian MS. Ouseley 140, written in Shiraz in 1460, which contains 158 quatrains on 47 folia. The manuscript belonged to William Ouseley
    (1767–1842) and was purchased by the Bodleian Library in 1844.

    Inscription of a poem written by Omar Khayyam at Morića Han in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

    There are occasional quotes of verses attributed to Khayyam in texts attributed to authors of the 13th and 14th centuries, but these are of doubtful authenticity, so that skeptical scholars point out that the entire tradition may be

    pseudepigraphic.[55]: 11  Hans Heinrich Schaeder in 1934 commented that the name of Omar Khayyam "is to be struck out from the history of Persian literature" due to the lack of any material that could confidently be attributed to him. De Blois presents a bibliography of the manuscript tradition, concluding pessimistically that the situation has not changed significantly since Schaeder's time.[57]:307

    Five of the quatrains later attributed to Omar Khayyam are found as early as 30 years after his death, quoted in

    Sindbad-Nameh. While this establishes that these specific verses were in circulation in Omar's time or shortly later, it does not imply that the verses must be his. De Blois concludes that at the least the process of attributing poetry to Omar Khayyam appears to have begun already in the 13th century.[57]:305 Edward Granville Browne (1906) notes the difficulty of disentangling authentic from spurious quatrains: "while it is certain that Khayyam wrote many quatrains, it is hardly possible, save in a few exceptional cases, to assert positively that he wrote any of those ascribed to him".[7]
    : 663 

    In addition to the Persian quatrains, there are twenty-five Arabic poems attributed to Khayyam which are attested by historians such as al-Isfahani, Shahrazuri (Nuzhat al-Arwah, c. 1201–1211), Qifti (Tārikh al-hukamā, 1255), and Hamdallah Mustawfi (Tarikh-i guzida, 1339).[8]: 39 

    Persian scholars who occasionally wrote quatrains, including Avicenna, Ghazali, and Tusi. They conclude that it is also possible that for Khayyam poetry was an amusement of his leisure hours: "these brief poems seem often to have been the work of scholars and scientists who composed them, perhaps, in moments of relaxation to edify or amuse the inner circle of their disciples".[7]
    : 662 

    The poetry attributed to Omar Khayyam has contributed greatly to his popular fame in the modern period as a direct result of the extreme popularity of the translation of such verses into English by Edward FitzGerald (1859). FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam contains loose translations of quatrains from the Bodleian manuscript. It enjoyed such success in the fin de siècle period that a bibliography compiled in 1929 listed more than 300 separate editions,[58] and many more have been published since.[57]:312

    Philosophy

    Khayyam considered himself intellectually to be a student of Avicenna.[2]: 474  According to Al-Bayhaqi, he was reading the metaphysics in Avicenna's the Book of Healing before he died.[7]: 661  There are six philosophical papers believed to have been written by Khayyam. One of them, On existence (Fi’l-wujūd), was written originally in Persian and deals with the subject of existence and its relationship to universals. Another paper, titled The necessity of contradiction in the world, determinism and subsistence (Darurat al-tadād fi’l-‘ālam wa’l-jabr wa’l-baqā’), is written in Arabic and deals with free will and determinism.[2]: 475  The titles of his other works are On being and necessity (Risālah fī’l-kawn wa’l-taklīf), The Treatise on Transcendence in Existence (al-Risālah al-ulā fi’l-wujūd), On the knowledge of the universal principles of existence (Risālah dar ‘ilm kulliyāt-i wujūd), and Abridgement concerning natural phenomena (Mukhtasar fi’l-Tabi‘iyyāt).

    Khayyam himself once said:[59]: 431 

    We are the victims of an age when men of science are discredited, and only a few remain who are capable of engaging in scientific research. Our philosophers spend all their time in mixing true with false and are interested in nothing but outward show; such little learning as they have they extend on material ends. When they see a man sincere and unremitting in his search for the truth, one who will have nothing to do with falsehood and pretence, they mock and despise him.

    Religious views

    A literal reading of Khayyam's quatrains leads to the interpretation of his philosophic attitude toward life as a combination of

    atheist.[67] Hedayat (1923) states that "while Khayyam believes in the transmutation and transformation of the human body, he does not believe in a separate soul; if we are lucky, our bodily particles would be used in the making of a jug of wine."[68]: 138  Omar Khayyam's poetry has been cited in the context of New Atheism, such as in The Portable Atheist by Christopher Hitchens.[69]
    : 7 

    Al-Qifti (c. 1172–1248) appears to confirm this view of Khayyam's philosophy.[7]: 663  In his work The History of Learned Men he reports that Khayyam's poems were only outwardly in the Sufi style, but were written with an anti-religious agenda.[61]: 365  He also mentions that he was at one point indicted for impiety, but went on a pilgrimage to prove he was pious.[8]: 29  The report has it that upon returning to his native city he concealed his deepest convictions and practised a strictly religious life, going morning and evening to the place of worship.[61]: 355  Khayyam on the Koran (quote 84):[70]

    The Koran! well, come put me to the test, Lovely old book in hideous error drest, Believe me, I can quote the Koran too, The unbeliever knows his Koran best. And do you think that unto such as you, A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew, God gave the Secret, and denied it me? Well, well, what matters it! believe that too.

    Look not above, there is no answer there; Pray not, for no one listens to your prayer; Near is as near to God as any Far, And Here is just the same deceit as There.[70]

    Men talk of heaven,—there is no heaven but here; Men talk of hell,—there is no hell but here; Men of hereafters talk, and future lives, O love, there is no other life—but here.[70]

    An account of him, written in the thirteenth century, shows him as "versed in all the wisdom of the Greeks," and as wont to insist on the necessity of studying science on Greek lines. Of his prose works, two, which were stand authority, dealt respectively with precious stones and climatology. Beyond question the poet-astronomer was undevout; and his astronomy doubtless helped to make him so. One contemporary writes: "I did not observe that he had any great belief in astrological predictions; nor have I seen or heard of any of the great (scientists) who had such belief. He gave his adherence to no religious sect. Agnosticism, not faith, is the keynote of his works. Among the sects he saw everywhere strife and hatred in which he could have no part...."[71]: 263, vol. 1 

    Persian novelist Sadegh Hedayat says Khayyám from "his youth to his death remained a materialist, pessimist, agnostic. Khayyam looked at all religions questions with a skeptical eye", continues Hedayat, "and hated the fanaticism, narrow-mindedness, and the spirit of vengeance of the mullas, the so-called religious scholars."[72]: 13 

    In the context of a piece entitled On the Knowledge of the Principles of Existence, Khayyam endorses the Sufi path.[8]: 8  Csillik suggests the possibility that Omar Khayyam could see in Sufism an ally against orthodox religiosity.[73]: 75  Other commentators do not accept that Khayyam's poetry has an anti-religious agenda and interpret his references to wine and drunkenness in the conventional metaphorical sense common in Sufism. The French translator J. B. Nicolas held that Khayyam's constant exhortations to drink wine should not be taken literally, but should be regarded rather in the light of Sufi thought where rapturous intoxication by "wine" is to be understood as a metaphor for the enlightened state or divine rapture of baqaa.[74] The view of Omar Khayyam as a Sufi was defended by Bjerregaard,[75]: 3  Idries Shah,[76]: 165–166  and Dougan who attributes the reputation of hedonism to the failings of FitzGerald's translation, arguing that Khayyam's poetry is to be understood as "deeply esoteric".[77] On the other hand, Iranian experts such as Mohammad Ali Foroughi and Mojtaba Minovi rejected the hypothesis that Omar Khayyam was a Sufi.[63]: 72  Foroughi stated that Khayyam's ideas may have been consistent with that of Sufis at times but there is no evidence that he was formally a Sufi. Aminrazavi states that "Sufi interpretation of Khayyam is possible only by reading into his Rubāʿīyyāt extensively and by stretching the content to fit the classical Sufi doctrine.".[8]: 128  Furthermore, Boyle emphasizes that Khayyam was intensely disliked by a number of celebrated Sufi mystics who belonged to the same century. This includes Shams Tabrizi (spiritual guide of Rumi),[8]: 58  Najm al-Din Daya who described Omar Khayyam as "an unhappy philosopher, atheist, and materialist",[63]: 71  and Attar who regarded him not as a fellow-mystic but a free-thinking scientist who awaited punishments hereafter.[7]: 663–664 

    Imām, The Patron of Faith (Ghīyāth al-Dīn), and The Evidence of Truth (Hujjat al-Haqq).[8] He also notes that biographers who praise his religiosity generally avoid making reference to his poetry, while the ones who mention his poetry often do not praise his religious character.[8]: 48  For instance, Al-Bayhaqi's account, which antedates by some years other biographical notices, speaks of Omar as a very pious man who professed orthodox views down to his last hour.[17]
    : 174 

    On the basis of all the existing textual and biographical evidence, the question remains somewhat open,[8]: 11  and as a result Khayyam has received sharply conflicting appreciations and criticisms.[61]: 350 

    Reception

    Stamp of Albania in 1997, entitled "850th birth anniversary of Omar Khayyam"

    The various biographical extracts referring to Omar Khayyam describe him as unequalled in scientific knowledge and achievement during his time.

    Shahrazuri (d. 1300) esteems him highly as a mathematician, and claims that he may be regarded as "the successor of Avicenna in the various branches of philosophic learning".[61]: 352  Al-Qifti (d. 1248), even though disagreeing with his views, concedes he was "unrivalled in his knowledge of natural philosophy and astronomy".[61]: 355  Despite being hailed as a poet by a number of biographers, according to Richard N. Frye "it is still possible to argue that Khayyam's status as a poet of the first rank is a comparatively late development."[7]
    : 663 

    Pre-Raphaelites. In 1872 FitzGerald had a third edition printed which increased interest in the work in America. By the 1880s, the book was extremely well known throughout the English-speaking world, to the extent of the formation of numerous "Omar Khayyam Clubs" and a "fin de siècle cult of the Rubaiyat".[80]: 202  Khayyam's poems have been translated into many languages; many of the more recent ones are more literal than that of FitzGerald.[81]

    FitzGerald's translation was a factor in rekindling interest in Khayyam as a poet even in his native Iran.

    Vienna International Center.[83] In 2016, three statues of Khayyam were unveiled: one at the University of Oklahoma, one in Nishapur and one in Florence, Italy.[84] Over 150 composers have used the Rubaiyat as their source of inspiration. The earliest such composer was Liza Lehmann.[85]

    FitzGerald rendered Khayyam's name as "Tentmaker", and the anglicized name of "Omar the Tentmaker" resonated in English-speaking popular culture for a while. Thus, Nathan Haskell Dole published a novel called Omar, the Tentmaker: A Romance of Old Persia in 1898. Omar the Tentmaker of Naishapur is a historical novel by John Smith Clarke, published in 1910. "Omar the Tentmaker" is also the title of a 1914 play by Richard Walton Tully in an oriental setting, adapted as a silent film in 1922. US General Omar Bradley was given the nickname "Omar the Tent-Maker" in World War II.[86]: 13 

    The Moving Finger quatrain

    A line of English translation of the Persian poetry of Omar Khayyam on one of the faculty buildings of Leiden University
    A line of English translation of ''The Moving Finger'' quatrain. Persian Rubiyats of Omar Khayyam on one the faculty buildings of Leiden University

    The quatrain by Omar Khayyam known as "The Moving Finger", in the form of its translation by the English poet Edward Fitzgerald is one of the most popular quatrains in the Anglosphere.[87] It reads:

    The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,

    Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit

    Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

    Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.[88][h]

    The title of the novel "The Moving Finger" written by Agatha Christie and published in 1942 was inspired by this quatrain of the translation of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Edward Fitzgerald.[87] Martin Luther King also cites this quatrain of Omar Khayyam in one of his speeches, "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence":[87][89]

    “We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, ‘Too late.’ There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: ‘The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on.’”

    In one of his apologetic speeches about the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the US, also cites this quatrain.[87][90]

    Other popular culture references

    In 1934 Harold Lamb published a historical novel Omar Khayyam. The French-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf based the first half of his historical fiction novel Samarkand on Khayyam's life and the creation of his Rubaiyat. The sculptor Eduardo Chillida produced four massive iron pieces titled Mesa de Omar Khayyam (Omar Khayyam's Table) in the 1980s.[91][92]

    The

    Lyudmila Zhuravlyova in 1980.[93]

    Google has released two Google Doodles commemorating him. The first was on his 964th birthday on 18 May 2012. The second was on his 971st birthday on 18 May 2019.[94]

    Gallery

    See also

    Notable films

    Noted Khayyamologists

    Notes

    1. ^ [oˈmæɾ xæjˈjɒːm]; /kaɪˈjɑːm, kaɪˈjæm/
    2. ^ With an error of one day accumulating over 5,000 years, it was more precise than the Gregorian calendar of 1582, which has an error of one day every 3,330 years.[8]: 200 
    3. Rashid-al-Din Hamadani,[13]: 409  or in Munis al-ahrar.[14]
      : 435 
    4. ^ In e.g., al-Qifti,[8]: 55  or Bayhaqi.[16]: 463 [17]: 172–175, no. 66 
    5. ^ Katz (1998), p. 270. Excerpt: In some sense, his treatment was better than Ibn al-Haytham's because he explicitly formulated a new postulate to replace Euclid's rather than have the latter hidden in a new definition.
    6. ^ O'Connor & Robertson (July 1999): However, Khayyam himself seems to have been the first to conceive a general theory of cubic equations.
    7. al-Isfahani.[8]
      : 49 
    8. ^ بر لوح نشان بودنی‌ها بوده‌ست — پیوسته قلم ز نیک و بد فرسوده‌ست — در روز ازل هر آنچه بایست بداد — غم خوردن و کوشیدن ما بیهوده‌ست

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    Further reading

    External links

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