Omar_Bin_Ibaairtisr_Al-Khayyam

Omar Bin Ibaairtisr Al-Khayyam, the great Persian mathematician, astronomer, freethinker and epigrammatist, who derived the epithet Khayytm (the tentmaker) most likely from his fathers trade, was born in or near NIsh~pflr, where he is said to have died in A.H. 517 (A.D. 1123). At an early age he entered into a close friendship both with Nizgm-ul-mulk and his schoolfellow IJassan ibn Sabbgh, who founded afterwards the terrible sect of the Assassins. When Nizam-ul-mulk was raised to the rank of vizier by the Seljuk sultan Alp-Arslan (A.D. 1063-1073) lie bestowed upon IJassan ibn ~abbab the dignity of a chamberlain, whilst offering a similar court office to Omar Khayyam. But the latter contented hilnself with an annual stipend which would enable him to devote all his time to his favorite studies of mathematics and astronomy. His standard work on algebra, written in Arabic, and other treatises of a similar character raised him at once to the foremost rank among the mathematicians of that age, and induced Sultgn Malik-Shgh to summon him in A.H. 467 (A.D. 1074) to institute astronomical observations on a larger scale, and to aid him in his great enterprise of a thorough reform of the calendar. The results of Omars research werea revised edition of the Zif or astronomical tables, and the introduction of the Tarikh-i-Malikshahi or JalalI, that is, the so-called Jalalian or SeljUk era, which commences in A.H. 471 (A.D. 1079, 15th March).

Omars great scientific fame, however, is nearly eclipsed by his still greater poetical renown, which he owes to his rubais or quatrains, a collection of about 500 epigrams. The peculiar form of the rubaiviz. four lines, the first, second and fourth of which have the same rhyme, while the third usually (but not always) remains rhymelesswas first successfully introduced into Persian literature as the exclusive vehicle for subtle thoughts on the various topics of Sufic mysticism by the sheikh Ab Said bin Abulkhair,1 but Omar differs in its treatment considerably from Ab Said. Although some of his quatrains are purely mystic and pantheistic, most of them bear quite another stamp; they are the breviary of a radical freethinker, who protests in the most forcible manner both against the narrowness, bigotry and uncompromising austerity of the orthodox ulema and the eccentricity, hypocrisy and wild ravings of advanced Sufis, whom he successfully combats with their own weapons, using the whole mystic terminology simply to ridicule mysticism itself. There is in this respect a great resemblance between him and H~fiz, but Omar is decidedly superior. He has often been called the Voltaire of the East, and cried down as materialist and atheist. As far as purity of diction, fine wit, crushing satire against a debased and ignorant clergy, and a general sympathy with suffering humanity are concerned, Omar certainly reminds us of the great Frenchman; but there the comparison ceases. Voltaire never wrote anything equal to Omars fascinating rhapsodies in praise of wine, love and all earthly joys, and his passionate denunciations of a malevolent and inexorable fate which dooms to slow decay or sudden death and to eternal oblivion all that is great, good and beautiful in this world. There is a touch of Byron, Swinburne and even of Schopenhauer in many of his rubais, which clearly proves that the modern pessimist is by no means a novel creature in the realm of philo- sophic thought and poetical imagination.

The Leiden copy of ~Omar Khayygms work on algebra was noticed as far back as i 742 by Gerald Meerman in the preface to his Specimen calculi fluxionalis; further notices of the same work by Sdillot appeared in the Nouv. Jour. As. (1834) and in vol. xiii. of the Notices et extraits des MSS. de la Bibl. roy. The complete text, together with a French translation (on the basis of the Leiden and Paris copies, the latter first discovered by M. Libri, see his Histoire des sciences mathimatiques en Italie, i. 300), was edited by F. Woepcke, LAlghbre dOmar Alkhayyami (Paris, 1851). Articles on Omars life and works are found in Reinauds Geographie dAboulfeda, pref., p. 101; Notices et extraits, ix. 143 seq.; Garcin de Tassy, Note sur les Rubiyat de Omar Ilhaiyam (Paris, 1857); Rieu, Cat. Pers. MSS. in the Br. Mus., ii. 546; A. Christensen, Recherches sur les Rubivat de Omar Ijayyam (Heiddberg, 1905); V. Zhukovskis U,nar Khayym and the Wandering Quatrains, translated from the Russian by E. D. Ross in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, xxx. (1898); E. G. Browne, Literary History of Persia, ii.

246\. The quatrains have been edited at Calcutta (1836) and Teheran (1857 and i862); text and French translation by 3. B. Nicolas (Paris, 1867) (very incorrect and misleading); a portion of the same, rendered in English verse, by E. FitzGerald (London, 1859, 1872 and 1879). FitzGeralds translation has been edited with commentary by H. M. Batson (1900), and the 2nd ed. of the same (1868) by E. Heron Allen (1908). A new English version was published in TrUbners Oriental series (1882) by E. H: Whinfield, and the first critical edition of the text, with translation, by the same (1883). Important later works are N. H. Doles variorum edition (1896), J. Paynes translation (1898), E. Heron Allens edition (1898) and the Life by 3. K. M. Shirazi (f9o5); but the literature in new translations and imitations has recently multiplied exceedingly. (H. E.; X.)

  
'OMAR KHAYYAM [in full, GHIYATHUDDIN ABULFATH