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Omar Khayyam

May 18, 2023

For other uses, see Omar Khayyam (disambiguation).

Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Nīsābūrī[3][4] (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131), commonly known as Omar Khayyam (Persian: عمر خیّام),[a] was a Persian[5] polymath, known for his contributions to mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, and poetry.[6] He was born in Nishapur, the initial capital of the Seljuk Empire. As a scholar, he was contemporary with the rule of the Seljuk dynasty around the time of the First Crusade.

Hakim

Omar Khayyam
عمر خیّام
Statue of Omar Khayyam by Abolhassan Sadighi
Born18 May[1] 1048[2]
Nishapur, Khorasan, Seljuk Empire
Died4 December[1] 1131 (aged 83)[2]
Nishapur, Khorasan, Seljuk Empire
Academic background
InfluencesAvicenna, al-Khwārizmī, Euclid, Apollonius of Perge
Academic work
Main interestsMathematics (medieval Islamic), astronomy, Persian philosophy, Persian poetry
InfluencedTusi, Al-Khazini, Nizami Aruzi of Samarcand, Hafez, Sadegh Hedayat, André Gide, John Wallis, Saccheri, Edward FitzGerald, Maurice Bouchor, Henri Cazalis, Jean Chapelain, Amin Maalouf

As a mathematician, he is most notable for his work on the classification and solution of cubic equations, where he provided geometric solutions by the intersection of conics.[7] Khayyam also contributed to the understanding of the parallel axiom.[8]: 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[9][10]: 659  that provided the basis for the 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, of Khorasani Persian ancestry, in Nishapur in 1048.[11][12][5][13][14] In medieval Persian texts he is usually simply called Omar Khayyam.[15] 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.[16]: 30  The historian Bayhaqi, who was personally acquainted with Omar, provides the full details of his horoscope: "he was Gemini, the sun and Mercury being in the ascendant[...]".[17]: 471  This was used by modern scholars to establish his date of birth as 18 May 1048.[10]: 658 

 
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,[10]: 659  a leading metropolis under the Great Seljuq Empire,[18]: 15 [19] and it had been a major center of the Zoroastrian religion.[11]: 68  His full name, as it appears in the Arabic sources, was Abu’l Fath Omar ibn Ibrahim al-Khayyam.[20] 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. Omar made a great friendship with him through the years.[11]: 20  Khayyam was also taught by the Zoroastrian mathematician, Abu Hassan Bahmanyar bin Marzban.[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.[22] Omar 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 [Omar] beside him on his throne".[16]: 34 [11]: 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[11]: 28  when Omar Khayyam and his colleagues concluded their measurements of the length of the year, reporting it as 365.24219858156 days.[23] 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 Ismaili order of Assassins), Omar fell from favor at court, and as a result, he soon set out on his pilgrimage to Mecca. A possible ulterior motive for his pilgrimage reported by Al-Qifti, was a public demonstration of his faith with a view to allaying suspicions of skepticism and confuting the allegations of unorthodoxy (including possible sympathy or adherence to Zoroastrianism) levelled at him by a hostile clergy.[24][11]: 29  He was then invited by the new Sultan Sanjar to Marv, possibly to work as a court 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.[25]: 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 Al-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".[16]: 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.[16]

Mathematics

Khayyam was famous during his life as a mathematician. His surviving mathematical works include: A commentary on the difficulties concerning the postulates of Euclid's Elements (Risāla fī šarḥ mā aškala min muṣādarāt kitāb Uqlīdis, completed in December 1077),[citation needed] 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),[citation needed] and On proofs for problems concerning Algebra (Maqāla fi l-jabr wa l-muqābala, most likely completed in 1079).[8]: 281  He furthermore wrote a treatise on the binomial theorem and extracting the nth root of natural numbers, which has been lost.[11]: 197 

Theory of parallels

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

A part of Khayyam's commentary on Euclid's Elements deals with the parallel axiom.[8]: 282  The treatise of Khayyam can be considered the first treatment of the axiom not based on 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.[citation needed] Drawing upon Aristotle's views, he rejects the usage of movement in geometry and therefore dismisses the different attempt by Al-Haytham.[26][27] Unsatisfied with the failure of mathematicians to prove Euclid's statement from his other postulates, Omar tried to connect the axiom with the Fourth Postulate, which states that all right angles are equal to one another.[8]: 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.[8]: 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.[citation needed] 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.[28]

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

Tusi's commentaries on Khayyam's treatment of parallels made its way to Europe. John Wallis, professor of geometry at Oxford, translated Tusi's commentary into Latin. Jesuit geometer 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."[25]: 104 [29][11]: 195 

The 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.[citation needed] 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. Rosenfeld and Youschkevitch (1973) argue that "by placing irrational quantities and numbers on the same operational scale, [Khayyam] began a true revolution in the doctrine of number." 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."[8]: 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.[30]: 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.[30]: 248 

The solution of cubic equations

Khayyam seems to have been the first to conceive a general theory of cubic equations[31] and the first to geometrically solve every type of cubic equation, so far as positive roots are concerned.[32] The treatise on algebra contains his work on cubic equations.[33] It is divided into three parts: (i) equations which can be solved with 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.[34]

Khayyam produced an exhaustive list of all possible equations involving lines, squares, and cubes.[35]: 43  He considered three binomial equations, nine trinomial equations, and seven tetranomial equations.[8]: 281  For the first and second degree polynomials, he provided numerical solutions by geometric construction. He concluded that there are fourteen different types of cubics that cannot be reduced to an equation of a lesser degree.[citation needed] For these he could not accomplish the construction of his unknown segment with compass and straight edge. He proceeded to present geometric solutions to all types of cubic equations using the properties of conic sections.[36]: 157 [8]: 281  The prerequisite lemmas for Khayyam's geometrical proof include Euclid VI, Prop 13, and Apollonius II, Prop 12.[36]: 155  The positive root of a cubic equation was determined as the abscissa of a point of intersection of two conics, for instance, the intersection of two parabolas, or the intersection of a parabola and a circle, etc.[37]: 141  However, he acknowledged that the arithmetic problem of these cubics was still unsolved, adding that "possibly someone else will come to know it after us".[36]: 158  This task remained open until the sixteenth century, where algebraic solution of the cubic equation was found in its generality by Cardano, Del Ferro, and Tartaglia in Renaissance Italy.[8]: 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[38]

In effect, Khayyam's work is an effort to unify algebra and geometry.[39]: 241  This particular geometric solution of cubic equations has been further investigated by M. Hachtroudi and extended to solving fourth-degree equations.[40] Although similar methods had appeared sporadically since Menaechmus, and further developed by the 10th-century mathematician Abu al-Jud,[41][42] Khayyam's work can be considered the first systematic study and the first exact method of solving cubic equations.[43] 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."[44]: 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 Demonstration of Problems of Algebra[45]

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.[37] This book was most likely titled The difficulties of arithmetic (Moškelāt al-hesāb),[citation needed] and is not extant. 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.[8]: 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.[46] 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;[47] Khayyam popularized this triangular array in Iran, so that it is now known as Omar Khayyam's triangle.[37]

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 observatory at Isfahan and reform the Persian calendar. There was a panel of eight scholars working under the direction of Khayyam to make large-scale astronomical observations and revise the astronomical tables.[37]: 141  Recalibrating the calendar fixed the first day of the year at the exact moment of the passing of the Sun's center across vernal equinox. This marks the beginning of spring or Nowrūz, a day in which the Sun enters the first degree of Aries before noon.[48][49] The resultant calendar was named in Malik-Shah's honor as the Jalālī calendar, and was inaugurated on 15 March 1079.[50] The observatory itself was disused after the death of Malik-Shah in 1092.[10]: 659 

The Jalālī calendar was a true solar calendar where the duration of each month is equal to the time of the passage of the Sun across the corresponding sign of the Zodiac. The calendar reform introduced a unique 33-year intercalation cycle. As indicated by the works of Khazini, Khayyam's group implemented an intercalation system based on quadrennial and quinquennial leap years. Therefore, the calendar consisted of 25 ordinary years that included 365 days, and 8 leap years that included 366 days.[51] 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,[10]: 659  with an error of one day accumulating over 5,000 years, compared to one day every 3,330 years in the Gregorian calendar.[11]: 200 Moritz Cantor considered it the most perfect calendar ever devised.[25]: 101 

One of his pupils Nizami Aruzi of Samarcand relates that Khayyam apparently did not have a belief in astrology and divination: "I did not observe that he (scil. Omar Khayyam) had any great belief in astrological predictions, nor have I seen or heard of any of the great [scientists] who had such belief."[44]: 11  While working for Sultan Sanjar as an astrologer he was asked to predict the weather – a job that he apparently did not do well.[11]: 30  George Saliba (2002) explains that the term ‘ilm al-nujūm, used in various sources in which references to Omar's life and work could be found, has sometimes been incorrectly translated to mean astrology. He adds: "from at least the middle of the tenth century, according to 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."[52]: 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.[11]: 198 

Another short treatise is concerned with music theory in which he discusses the connection between music and arithmetic. Khayyam's contribution was in providing a systematic classification of musical scales, and discussing the mathematical relationship among notes, minor, major and tetrachords.[11]: 198 

Poetry

 
Rendition of a ruba'i from the Bodleian manuscript, rendered in Shekasteh calligraphy.

The earliest allusion to Omar Khayyam's poetry is from the historian Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani, a younger contemporary of Khayyam, who explicitly identifies him as both a poet and a scientist (Kharidat al-qasr, 1174).[11]: 49 [53]: 35  One of the earliest specimens of Omar Khayyam's Rubiyat is from Fakhr al-Din Razi. In his work Al-tanbih ‘ala ba‘d asrar al-maw‘dat fi’l-Qur’an (ca. 1160), he quotes one of his poems (corresponding to quatrain LXII of FitzGerald's first edition). Daya in his writings (Mirsad al-‘Ibad, ca. 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, ca. 1226–1283).[53]: 36–37 [11]: 92  In 1340 Jajarmi includes thirteen quatrains of Khayyam in his work containing an anthology of the works of famous Persian poets (Munis al-ahrār), two of which have hitherto been known from the older sources.[54] 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.

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

There are occasional quotes of verses attributed to Omar 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.[53]: 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 (2004) presents a bibliography of the manuscript tradition, concluding pessimistically that the situation has not changed significantly since Schaeder's time.[55]

Five of the quatrains later attributed to Omar 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 doesn't 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.[56] 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".[10]: 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, ca. 1201–1211), Qifti (Tārikh al-hukamā, 1255), and Hamdallah Mustawfi (Tarikh-i guzida, 1339).[11]: 39 

Boyle and Frye (1975) emphasize that there are a number of other Persian scholars who occasionally wrote quatrains, including Avicenna, Ghazzali, 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".[10]: 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,[57] and many more have been published since.[58]

Philosophy

Khayyam considered himself intellectually to be a student of Avicenna.[59] According to Al-Bayhaqi, he was reading the metaphysics in Avicenna's the Book of Healing before he died.[10]: 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.[59]: 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).

Khayyum himself once said:[60]

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 pessimism, nihilism, Epicureanism, fatalism, and agnosticism.[11]: 6 [61] This view is taken by Iranologists such as Arthur Christensen, H. Schaeder, Richard N. Frye, E. D. Ross,[62]: 365  E. H. Whinfield[44]: 40  and George Sarton.[18]: 18  Conversely, the Khayyamic quatrains have also been described as mystical Sufi poetry.[63] In addition to his Persian quatrains, J. C. E. Bowen (1973) mentions that Khayyam's Arabic poems also "express a pessimistic viewpoint which is entirely consonant with the outlook of the deeply thoughtful rationalist philosopher that Khayyam is known historically to have been."[64]: 69  Edward FitzGerald emphasized the religious skepticism he found in Khayyam.[65] In his preface to the Rubáiyát he claimed that he "was hated and dreaded by the Sufis",[66] and denied any pretense at divine allegory: "his Wine is the veritable Juice of the Grape: his Tavern, where it was to be had: his Saki, the Flesh and Blood that poured it out for him."[67]: 62  Sadegh Hedayat is one of the most notable proponents of Khayyam's philosophy as agnostic skepticism, and according to Jan Rypka (1934), he even considered Khayyam an atheist.[68] 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."[69] Omar Khayyam's poetry has been cited in the context of New Atheism, such as in The Portable Atheist by Christopher Hitchens.[70]

Al-Qifti (ca. 1172–1248) appears to confirm this view of Omar's philosophy.[10]: 663  In his work The History of Learned Men he reports that Omar's poems were only outwardly in the Sufi style, but were written with an anti-religious agenda.[62]: 365  He also mentions that he was at one point indicted for impiety, but went on a pilgrimage to prove he was pious.[11]: 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.[62]: 355 

Khayyum on the Koran (quote 84):[71]

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.[71]

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.[71]

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...."[72]

Persian novelist Sadegh Hedayat says Khayyám from "his youth to his death remained a materialist, pessimist, agnostic."[73][page needed]

In the context of a piece entitled On the Knowledge of the Principles of Existence, Khayyam endorses the Sufi path.[11]: 8  Csillik (1960) suggests the possibility that Omar Khayyam could see in Sufism an ally against orthodox religiosity.[74]: 75  Other commentators do not accept that Omar'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 Omar'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.[75] The view of Omar Khayyam as a Sufi was defended by Bjerregaard (1915),[76] Idries Shah (1999),[77] and Dougan (1991) who attributes the reputation of hedonism to the failings of FitzGerald's translation, arguing that Omar's poetry is to be understood as "deeply esoteric".[78] On the other hand, Iranian experts such as Mohammad Ali Foroughi and Mojtaba Minovi rejected the hypothesis that Omar Khayyam was a Sufi.[64]: 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 (2007) 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."[11]: 128  Furthermore, Frye (1975) 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),[11]: 58  Najm al-Din Daya who described Omar Khayyam as "an unhappy philosopher, atheist, and materialist",[64]: 71  and Attar who regarded him not as a fellow-mystic but a free-thinking scientist who awaited punishments hereafter.[10]: 663 

Seyyed Hossein Nasr argues that it is "reductive" to use a literal interpretation of his verses (many of which are of uncertain authenticity to begin with) to establish Omar Khayyam's philosophy. Instead, he adduces Khayyam's interpretive translation of Avicenna's treatise Discourse on Unity (Al-Khutbat al-Tawhīd), where he expresses orthodox views on Divine Unity in agreement with the author.[79] The prose works believed to be Omar's are written in the Peripatetic style and are explicitly theistic, dealing with subjects such as the existence of God and theodicy.[11]: 160  As noted by Bowen these works indicate his involvement in the problems of metaphysics rather than in the subtleties of Sufism.[64]: 71  As evidence of Khayyam's faith and/or conformity to Islamic customs, Aminrazavi mentions that in his treatises he offers salutations and prayers, praising God and Muhammad. In most biographical extracts, he is referred to with religious honorifics such as Imām, The Patron of Faith (Ghīyāth al-Dīn), and The Evidence of Truth (Hujjat al-Haqq).[11] 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.[11]: 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.[80]: 174 

On the basis of all the existing textual and biographical evidence, the question remains somewhat open,[11]: 11  and as a result Khayyam has received sharply conflicting appreciations and criticisms.[62]: 350 

Reception

The various biographical extracts referring to Omar Khayyam describe him as unequalled in scientific knowledge and achievement during his time.[81] Many called him by the epithet King of the Wise (Arabic: ملك الحکماء).[54]: 436 [37]: 141  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".[62]: 352  Al-Qifti (d. 1248), even though disagreeing with his views, concedes he was "unrivalled in his knowledge of natural philosophy and astronomy".[62]: 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."[10]: 663 

Thomas Hyde was the first European to call attention to Omar and to translate one of his quatrains into Latin (Historia religionis veterum Persarum eorumque magorum, 1700).[82]: 525  Western interest in Persia grew with the Orientalism movement in the 19th century. Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (1774–1856) translated some of Khayyam's poems into German in 1818, and Gore Ouseley (1770–1844) into English in 1846, but Khayyam remained relatively unknown in the West until after the publication of Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in 1859. FitzGerald's work at first was unsuccessful but was popularised by Whitley Stokes from 1861 onward, and the work came to be greatly admired by the 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".[83] Khayyam's poems have been translated into many languages; many of the more recent ones are more literal than that of FitzGerald.[84]

FitzGerald's translation was a factor in rekindling interest in Khayyam as a poet even in his native Iran.[85] Sadegh Hedayat in his Songs of Khayyam (Taranehha-ye Khayyam, 1934) reintroduced Omar's poetic legacy to modern Iran. Under the Pahlavi dynasty, a new monument of white marble, designed by the architect Houshang Seyhoun, was erected over his tomb. A statue by Abolhassan Sadighi was erected in Laleh Park, Tehran in the 1960s, and a bust by the same sculptor was placed near Khayyam's mausoleum in Nishapur. In 2009, the state of Iran donated a pavilion to the United Nations Office in Vienna, inaugurated at Vienna International Center.[86] In 2016, three statues of Khayyam were unveiled: one at the University of Oklahoma, one in Nishapur and one in Florence, Italy.[87] Over 150 composers have used the Rubaiyat as their source of inspiration. The earliest such composer was Liza Lehmann.[citation needed]

FitzGerald rendered Omar'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.[88]

The Moving Finger quatrain

 
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.[89] 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.[90][b]

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.[89] Martin Luther King also cites this quatrain of Omar Khayyam in one of his speeches "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence":[89][91]

“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.[89][92]

Other popular culture references

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.[93][94]

The lunar crater Omar Khayyam was named in his honour in 1970, as was the minor planet 3095 Omarkhayyam discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Zhuravlyova in 1980.[95]

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.[96]

Gallery

See also

Notable films

Noted Khayyamologists

Notes

  1. ^ [oˈmæɾ xæjˈjɒːm]; /kaɪˈjɑːm, kaɪˈjæm/
  2. ^ ... بر لوح نشان بودنی‌ها بوده‌است ... پیوسته قلم ز نیک و بد فرسوده‌است ... در روز ازل هر آنچه بایست بداد غم خوردن و کوشیدن ما بیهوده‌است

References

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Further reading

  • Arberry, Arthur John (2008). Aspects of Islamic Civilization: As Depicted in the Original Texts. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-42600-8.
  • Biegstraaten, Jos (2008). "Omar Khayyam (Impact On Literature And Society In The West)". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. 15. Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation.
  • Boyle, J. A., ed. (1968). The Cambridge History of Iran (5): The Saljug and Mongol Periods. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-06936-X.
  • Browne, E. (1899). "Yet More Light on 'Umar-i-Khayyām". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 409–420. JSTOR 25208104.
  • Katz, Victor (1998). A History of Mathematics: An Introduction (2nd ed.). Addison-Wesley. p. 879. ISBN 0-321-01618-1.
  • Knoebel, Art; Laubenbacher, Reinhard; Lodder, Jerry (2007). Mathematical Masterpieces: Further Chronicles by the Explorers. Springer. ISBN 978-0387330617.
  • Nasr, S. H. (2006). Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy. SUNY Press. ISBN 0-7914-6799-6.
  • Ross, E. (1927). "Omar Khayyam". Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, 4(3), 433–439. JSTOR 606948.
  • Rozenfeld, Boris A. (1988). A History of Non-Euclidean Geometry: Evolution of the Concept of a Geometric Space. Springer Verlag. pp. 65, 471. ISBN 0-387-96458-4.
  • Rypka, Jan (1968). History of Iranian Literature. Reidel Publishing Company. OCLC 460598. ISBN 90-277-0143-1
  • Smith, David Eugene (1935). "Euclid, Omar Khayyâm, and Saccheri". Scripta Mathematica. III (1): 5–10. OCLC 14156259.
  • Turner, Howard R. (1997). Science in Medieval Islam: An Illustrated Introduction. University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-78149-0.

External links

 
Wikisource has original works by or about:
Omar Khayyám
 
Wikiquote has quotations related to Omar Khayyam.
 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Omar Khayyam.
  • Works by or about Omar Khayyam at Internet Archive
  • Works by Omar Khayyam at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)  
  • Hashemipour, Behnaz (2007). "Khayyām: Ghiyāth al‐Dīn Abū al‐Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm al‐Khayyāmī al‐Nīshāpūrī". In Thomas Hockey; et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer. pp. 627–8. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0. (PDF version)
  • Umar Khayyam, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • The illustrated Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám at Internet Archive.

May 18, 2023
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For other uses see Omar Khayyam disambiguation Ghiyath al Din Abu al Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrahim Nisaburi 3 4 18 May 1048 4 December 1131 commonly known as Omar Khayyam Persian عمر خی ام a was a Persian 5 polymath known for his contributions to mathematics astronomy philosophy and poetry 6 He was born in Nishapur the initial capital of the Seljuk Empire As a scholar he was contemporary with the rule of the Seljuk dynasty around the time of the First Crusade HakimOmar Khayyam عمر خی امStatue of Omar Khayyam by Abolhassan SadighiBorn18 May 1 1048 2 Nishapur Khorasan Seljuk EmpireDied4 December 1 1131 aged 83 2 Nishapur Khorasan Seljuk EmpireAcademic backgroundInfluencesAvicenna al Khwarizmi Euclid Apollonius of PergeAcademic workMain interestsMathematics medieval Islamic astronomy Persian philosophy Persian poetryInfluencedTusi Al Khazini Nizami Aruzi of Samarcand Hafez Sadegh Hedayat Andre Gide John Wallis Saccheri Edward FitzGerald Maurice Bouchor Henri Cazalis Jean Chapelain Amin MaaloufAs a mathematician he is most notable for his work on the classification and solution of cubic equations where he provided geometric solutions by the intersection of conics 7 Khayyam also contributed to the understanding of the parallel axiom 8 284 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 9 10 659 that provided the basis for the 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 rubaʿiyat 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 siecle Contents 1 Life 2 Mathematics 2 1 Theory of parallels 2 1 1 The real number concept 2 2 Geometric algebra 2 2 1 The solution of cubic equations 2 3 Binomial theorem and extraction of roots 3 Astronomy 4 Other works 5 Poetry 6 Philosophy 6 1 Religious views 7 Reception 7 1 The Moving Finger quatrain 7 2 Other popular culture references 8 Gallery 9 See also 9 1 Notable films 9 2 Noted Khayyamologists 10 Notes 11 References 12 Further reading 13 External linksLife EditOmar Khayyam was born of Khorasani Persian ancestry in Nishapur in 1048 11 12 5 13 14 In medieval Persian texts he is usually simply called Omar Khayyam 15 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 16 30 The historian Bayhaqi who was personally acquainted with Omar provides the full details of his horoscope he was Gemini the sun and Mercury being in the ascendant 17 471 This was used by modern scholars to establish his date of birth as 18 May 1048 10 658 Mausoleum of Omar Khayyam in Nishapur Iran Some of his rubaiyats are used as calligraphic taliq script decoration on the exterior body of his mausoleum Khayyam s boyhood was spent in Nishapur 10 659 a leading metropolis under the Great Seljuq Empire 18 15 19 and it had been a major center of the Zoroastrian religion 11 68 His full name as it appears in the Arabic sources was Abu l Fath Omar ibn Ibrahim al Khayyam 20 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 Omar made a great friendship with him through the years 11 20 Khayyam was also taught by the Zoroastrian mathematician Abu Hassan Bahmanyar bin Marzban 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 22 Omar 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 Omar beside him on his throne 16 34 11 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 11 28 when Omar Khayyam and his colleagues concluded their measurements of the length of the year reporting it as 365 24219858156 days 23 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 Ismaili order of Assassins Omar fell from favor at court and as a result he soon set out on his pilgrimage to Mecca A possible ulterior motive for his pilgrimage reported by Al Qifti was a public demonstration of his faith with a view to allaying suspicions of skepticism and confuting the allegations of unorthodoxy including possible sympathy or adherence to Zoroastrianism levelled at him by a hostile clergy 24 11 29 He was then invited by the new Sultan Sanjar to Marv possibly to work as a court 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 25 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 Al 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 16 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 16 Mathematics EditThis section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section Unsourced material may be challenged and removed May 2022 Learn how and when to remove this template message Khayyam was famous during his life as a mathematician His surviving mathematical works include A commentary on the difficulties concerning the postulates of Euclid s Elements Risala fi sarḥ ma askala min muṣadarat kitab Uqlidis completed in December 1077 citation needed On the division of a quadrant of a circle Risalah fi qismah rub al da irah undated but completed prior to the treatise on algebra citation needed and On proofs for problems concerning Algebra Maqala fi l jabr wa l muqabala most likely completed in 1079 8 281 He furthermore wrote a treatise on the binomial theorem and extracting the nth root of natural numbers which has been lost 11 197 Theory of parallels Edit See also Non Euclidean geometry History and Parallel postulate History A part of Khayyam s commentary on Euclid s Elements deals with the parallel axiom 8 282 The treatise of Khayyam can be considered the first treatment of the axiom not based on 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 citation needed Drawing upon Aristotle s views he rejects the usage of movement in geometry and therefore dismisses the different attempt by Al Haytham 26 27 Unsatisfied with the failure of mathematicians to prove Euclid s statement from his other postulates Omar tried to connect the axiom with the Fourth Postulate which states that all right angles are equal to one another 8 282 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 8 283 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 citation needed 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 28 Cubic equation and intersection of conic sections the first page of a two chaptered manuscript kept in Tehran University Tusi s commentaries on Khayyam s treatment of parallels made its way to Europe John Wallis professor of geometry at Oxford translated Tusi s commentary into Latin Jesuit geometer 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 25 104 29 11 195 The real number concept Edit 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 citation needed 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 Rosenfeld and Youschkevitch 1973 argue that by placing irrational quantities and numbers on the same operational scale Khayyam began a true revolution in the doctrine of number 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 8 284 Geometric algebra Edit 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 30 248 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 30 248 The solution of cubic equations Edit Khayyam seems to have been the first to conceive a general theory of cubic equations 31 and the first to geometrically solve every type of cubic equation so far as positive roots are concerned 32 The treatise on algebra contains his work on cubic equations 33 It is divided into three parts i equations which can be solved with 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 34 Khayyam produced an exhaustive list of all possible equations involving lines squares and cubes 35 43 He considered three binomial equations nine trinomial equations and seven tetranomial equations 8 281 For the first and second degree polynomials he provided numerical solutions by geometric construction He concluded that there are fourteen different types of cubics that cannot be reduced to an equation of a lesser degree citation needed For these he could not accomplish the construction of his unknown segment with compass and straight edge He proceeded to present geometric solutions to all types of cubic equations using the properties of conic sections 36 157 8 281 The prerequisite lemmas for Khayyam s geometrical proof include Euclid VI Prop 13 and Apollonius II Prop 12 36 155 The positive root of a cubic equation was determined as the abscissa of a point of intersection of two conics for instance the intersection of two parabolas or the intersection of a parabola and a circle etc 37 141 However he acknowledged that the arithmetic problem of these cubics was still unsolved adding that possibly someone else will come to know it after us 36 158 This task remained open until the sixteenth century where algebraic solution of the cubic equation was found in its generality by Cardano Del Ferro and Tartaglia in Renaissance Italy 8 282 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 38 In effect Khayyam s work is an effort to unify algebra and geometry 39 241 This particular geometric solution of cubic equations has been further investigated by M Hachtroudi and extended to solving fourth degree equations 40 Although similar methods had appeared sporadically since Menaechmus and further developed by the 10th century mathematician Abu al Jud 41 42 Khayyam s work can be considered the first systematic study and the first exact method of solving cubic equations 43 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 44 10 Binomial theorem and extraction of roots Edit 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 Demonstration of Problems of Algebra 45 In his algebraic treatise Khayyam alludes to a book he had written on the extraction of the n displaystyle n th root of the numbers using a law he had discovered which did not depend on geometric figures 37 This book was most likely titled The difficulties of arithmetic Moskelat al hesab citation needed and is not extant 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 a b n displaystyle a b n where n is a positive integer 8 282 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 46 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 47 Khayyam popularized this triangular array in Iran so that it is now known as Omar Khayyam s triangle 37 Astronomy EditMain 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 observatory at Isfahan and reform the Persian calendar There was a panel of eight scholars working under the direction of Khayyam to make large scale astronomical observations and revise the astronomical tables 37 141 Recalibrating the calendar fixed the first day of the year at the exact moment of the passing of the Sun s center across vernal equinox This marks the beginning of spring or Nowruz a day in which the Sun enters the first degree of Aries before noon 48 49 The resultant calendar was named in Malik Shah s honor as the Jalali calendar and was inaugurated on 15 March 1079 50 The observatory itself was disused after the death of Malik Shah in 1092 10 659 The Jalali calendar was a true solar calendar where the duration of each month is equal to the time of the passage of the Sun across the corresponding sign of the Zodiac The calendar reform introduced a unique 33 year intercalation cycle As indicated by the works of Khazini Khayyam s group implemented an intercalation system based on quadrennial and quinquennial leap years Therefore the calendar consisted of 25 ordinary years that included 365 days and 8 leap years that included 366 days 51 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 10 659 with an error of one day accumulating over 5 000 years compared to one day every 3 330 years in the Gregorian calendar 11 200 Moritz Cantor considered it the most perfect calendar ever devised 25 101 One of his pupils Nizami Aruzi of Samarcand relates that Khayyam apparently did not have a belief in astrology and divination I did not observe that he scil Omar Khayyam had any great belief in astrological predictions nor have I seen or heard of any of the great scientists who had such belief 44 11 While working for Sultan Sanjar as an astrologer he was asked to predict the weather a job that he apparently did not do well 11 30 George Saliba 2002 explains that the term ilm al nujum used in various sources in which references to Omar s life and work could be found has sometimes been incorrectly translated to mean astrology He adds from at least the middle of the tenth century according to Farabi s enumeration of the sciences that this science ilm al nujum was already split into two parts one dealing with astrology and the other with theoretical mathematical astronomy 52 224 Other works EditSee 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 11 198 Another short treatise is concerned with music theory in which he discusses the connection between music and arithmetic Khayyam s contribution was in providing a systematic classification of musical scales and discussing the mathematical relationship among notes minor major and tetrachords 11 198 Poetry Edit Rendition of a ruba i from the Bodleian manuscript rendered in Shekasteh calligraphy The earliest allusion to Omar Khayyam s poetry is from the historian Imad ad Din al Isfahani a younger contemporary of Khayyam who explicitly identifies him as both a poet and a scientist Kharidat al qasr 1174 11 49 53 35 One of the earliest specimens of Omar Khayyam s Rubiyat is from Fakhr al Din Razi In his work Al tanbih ala ba d asrar al maw dat fi l Qur an ca 1160 he quotes one of his poems corresponding to quatrain LXII of FitzGerald s first edition Daya in his writings Mirsad al Ibad ca 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 ca 1226 1283 53 36 37 11 92 In 1340 Jajarmi includes thirteen quatrains of Khayyam in his work containing an anthology of the works of famous Persian poets Munis al ahrar two of which have hitherto been known from the older sources 54 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 Ottoman Era inscription of a poem written by Omar Khayyam at Morica Han in Sarajevo Bosnia and Herzegovina There are occasional quotes of verses attributed to Omar 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 53 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 2004 presents a bibliography of the manuscript tradition concluding pessimistically that the situation has not changed significantly since Schaeder s time 55 Five of the quatrains later attributed to Omar 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 doesn t 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 56 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 10 663 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 ca 1201 1211 Qifti Tarikh al hukama 1255 and Hamdallah Mustawfi Tarikh i guzida 1339 11 39 Boyle and Frye 1975 emphasize that there are a number of other Persian scholars who occasionally wrote quatrains including Avicenna Ghazzali 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 10 662 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 siecle period that a bibliography compiled in 1929 listed more than 300 separate editions 57 and many more have been published since 58 Philosophy EditKhayyam considered himself intellectually to be a student of Avicenna 59 According to Al Bayhaqi he was reading the metaphysics in Avicenna s the Book of Healing before he died 10 661 There are six philosophical papers believed to have been written by Khayyam One of them On existence Fi l wujud 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 tadad fi l alam wa l jabr wa l baqa is written in Arabic and deals with free will and determinism 59 475 The titles of his other works are On being and necessity Risalah fi l kawn wa l taklif The Treatise on Transcendence in Existence Al Risalah al ula fi l wujud On the knowledge of the universal principles of existence Risalah dar ilm kulliyat i wujud and Abridgement concerning natural phenomena Mukhtasar fi l Tabi iyyat Khayyum himself once said 60 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 Edit A literal reading of Khayyam s quatrains leads to the interpretation of his philosophic attitude toward life as a combination of pessimism nihilism Epicureanism fatalism and agnosticism 11 6 61 This view is taken by Iranologists such as Arthur Christensen H Schaeder Richard N Frye E D Ross 62 365 E H Whinfield 44 40 and George Sarton 18 18 Conversely the Khayyamic quatrains have also been described as mystical Sufi poetry 63 In addition to his Persian quatrains J C E Bowen 1973 mentions that Khayyam s Arabic poems also express a pessimistic viewpoint which is entirely consonant with the outlook of the deeply thoughtful rationalist philosopher that Khayyam is known historically to have been 64 69 Edward FitzGerald emphasized the religious skepticism he found in Khayyam 65 In his preface to the Rubaiyat he claimed that he was hated and dreaded by the Sufis 66 and denied any pretense at divine allegory his Wine is the veritable Juice of the Grape his Tavern where it was to be had his Saki the Flesh and Blood that poured it out for him 67 62 Sadegh Hedayat is one of the most notable proponents of Khayyam s philosophy as agnostic skepticism and according to Jan Rypka 1934 he even considered Khayyam an atheist 68 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 69 Omar Khayyam s poetry has been cited in the context of New Atheism such as in The Portable Atheist by Christopher Hitchens 70 Al Qifti ca 1172 1248 appears to confirm this view of Omar s philosophy 10 663 In his work The History of Learned Men he reports that Omar s poems were only outwardly in the Sufi style but were written with an anti religious agenda 62 365 He also mentions that he was at one point indicted for impiety but went on a pilgrimage to prove he was pious 11 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 62 355 Khayyum on the Koran quote 84 71 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 71 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 71 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 72 Persian novelist Sadegh Hedayat says Khayyam from his youth to his death remained a materialist pessimist agnostic 73 page needed In the context of a piece entitled On the Knowledge of the Principles of Existence Khayyam endorses the Sufi path 11 8 Csillik 1960 suggests the possibility that Omar Khayyam could see in Sufism an ally against orthodox religiosity 74 75 Other commentators do not accept that Omar 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 Omar 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 75 The view of Omar Khayyam as a Sufi was defended by Bjerregaard 1915 76 Idries Shah 1999 77 and Dougan 1991 who attributes the reputation of hedonism to the failings of FitzGerald s translation arguing that Omar s poetry is to be understood as deeply esoteric 78 On the other hand Iranian experts such as Mohammad Ali Foroughi and Mojtaba Minovi rejected the hypothesis that Omar Khayyam was a Sufi 64 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 2007 states that Sufi interpretation of Khayyam is possible only by reading into his Rubaʿiyyat extensively and by stretching the content to fit the classical Sufi doctrine 11 128 Furthermore Frye 1975 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 11 58 Najm al Din Daya who described Omar Khayyam as an unhappy philosopher atheist and materialist 64 71 and Attar who regarded him not as a fellow mystic but a free thinking scientist who awaited punishments hereafter 10 663 Seyyed Hossein Nasr argues that it is reductive to use a literal interpretation of his verses many of which are of uncertain authenticity to begin with to establish Omar Khayyam s philosophy Instead he adduces Khayyam s interpretive translation of Avicenna s treatise Discourse on Unity Al Khutbat al Tawhid where he expresses orthodox views on Divine Unity in agreement with the author 79 The prose works believed to be Omar s are written in the Peripatetic style and are explicitly theistic dealing with subjects such as the existence of God and theodicy 11 160 As noted by Bowen these works indicate his involvement in the problems of metaphysics rather than in the subtleties of Sufism 64 71 As evidence of Khayyam s faith and or conformity to Islamic customs Aminrazavi mentions that in his treatises he offers salutations and prayers praising God and Muhammad In most biographical extracts he is referred to with religious honorifics such as Imam The Patron of Faith Ghiyath al Din and The Evidence of Truth Hujjat al Haqq 11 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 11 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 80 174 On the basis of all the existing textual and biographical evidence the question remains somewhat open 11 11 and as a result Khayyam has received sharply conflicting appreciations and criticisms 62 350 Reception EditThe various biographical extracts referring to Omar Khayyam describe him as unequalled in scientific knowledge and achievement during his time 81 Many called him by the epithet King of the Wise Arabic ملك الحکماء 54 436 37 141 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 62 352 Al Qifti d 1248 even though disagreeing with his views concedes he was unrivalled in his knowledge of natural philosophy and astronomy 62 355 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 10 663 Thomas Hyde was the first European to call attention to Omar and to translate one of his quatrains into Latin Historia religionis veterum Persarum eorumque magorum 1700 82 525 Western interest in Persia grew with the Orientalism movement in the 19th century Joseph von Hammer Purgstall 1774 1856 translated some of Khayyam s poems into German in 1818 and Gore Ouseley 1770 1844 into English in 1846 but Khayyam remained relatively unknown in the West until after the publication of Edward FitzGerald s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in 1859 FitzGerald s work at first was unsuccessful but was popularised by Whitley Stokes from 1861 onward and the work came to be greatly admired by the 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 siecle cult of the Rubaiyat 83 Khayyam s poems have been translated into many languages many of the more recent ones are more literal than that of FitzGerald 84 FitzGerald s translation was a factor in rekindling interest in Khayyam as a poet even in his native Iran 85 Sadegh Hedayat in his Songs of Khayyam Taranehha ye Khayyam 1934 reintroduced Omar s poetic legacy to modern Iran Under the Pahlavi dynasty a new monument of white marble designed by the architect Houshang Seyhoun was erected over his tomb A statue by Abolhassan Sadighi was erected in Laleh Park Tehran in the 1960s and a bust by the same sculptor was placed near Khayyam s mausoleum in Nishapur In 2009 the state of Iran donated a pavilion to the United Nations Office in Vienna inaugurated at Vienna International Center 86 In 2016 three statues of Khayyam were unveiled one at the University of Oklahoma one in Nishapur and one in Florence Italy 87 Over 150 composers have used the Rubaiyat as their source of inspiration The earliest such composer was Liza Lehmann citation needed FitzGerald rendered Omar 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 88 The Moving Finger quatrain Edit 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 89 It reads The Moving Finger writes and having writ Moves on nor all your Piety nor WitShall lure it back to cancel half a Line Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it 90 b 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 89 Martin Luther King also cites this quatrain of Omar Khayyam in one of his speeches Beyond Vietnam A Time to Break Silence 89 91 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 89 92 Other popular culture references Edit 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 93 94 The lunar crater Omar Khayyam was named in his honour in 1970 as was the minor planet 3095 Omarkhayyam discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Zhuravlyova in 1980 95 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 96 Gallery Edit A Ruby kindles in the vine illustration for FitzGerald s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Adelaide Hanscom Leeson c 1905 At the Tomb of Omar Khayyam by Jay Hambidge 1911 The statue of Khayyam in United Nations Office in Vienna as a part of Persian Scholars Pavilion donated by Iran Statue of Omar Khayyam in Bucharest Monument to Omar Khayyam in Ciudad Universitaria of MadridSee also Edit Iran portal Biography portal Poetry portal Astronomy portal Mathematics portalNozhat al MajalesNotable films Edit Omar Khayyam film The Keeper The Legend of Omar KhayyamNoted Khayyamologists Edit Badiozzaman Forouzanfar Abdolhossein ZarrinkoobNotes Edit oˈmaeɾ xaejˈjɒːm k aɪ ˈ j ɑː m k aɪ ˈ j ae m بر لوح نشان بودنی ها بوده است پیوسته قلم ز نیک و بد فرسوده است در روز ازل هر آنچه بایست بداد غم خوردن و کوشیدن ما بیهوده استReferences Edit a b c Omar Khayyam Persian poet and astronomer Britannica com Retrieved 30 May 2012 a b Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Mehdi Aminrazavi An Anthology of Philosophy in Iran Vol 1 From Zoroaster to Umar Khayyam I B Tauris in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies 2007 Dehkhoda Ali Akbar Dehkhoda Dictionary in Persian Tehran Omar Khayyam Persian poet and astronomer Britannica www britannica com Retrieved 15 April 2022 a b Al Khalili Jim 30 September 2010 Pathfinders The Golden Age of Arabic Science Penguin UK ISBN 978 0 14 196501 7 Later al Karkhi Ibn Tahir and the great Ibn al Haytham in the tenth eleventh century took it further by considering cubic and quartic equations followed by the Persian mathematician and poet Omar Khayyam in the eleventh century Levy Reuben 2011 The Persian Language RLE Iran B Taylor amp Francis Group p 94 ISBN 9780415608558 O Connor John J Robertson Edmund F Omar Khayyam MacTutor History of Mathematics archive University of St Andrews a b c d e f g h i j Struik D 1958 Omar Khayyam mathematician The Mathematics Teacher 51 4 280 285 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 in 3 330 years in the Gregorian calendar Aminrazavi 2007 200 a b c d e f g h i j k The Cambridge History of Iran Volume 4 Cambridge University Press 1975 Richard Nelson Frye a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Mehdi Aminrazavi The Wine of Wisdom The Life Poetry and Philosophy of Omar Khayyam Oneworld Publications 2007 Arberry 2008 p 16 Omar composed his shafts of wit and shapes of beauty in his native Persian which by the tenth century had recovered from the stunning blow dealt it by Arabic Rosenfeld B A Fouchecour Ch H De 24 April 2012 ʿUmar K h ayyam Encyclopaedia of Islam Second Edition Peter Avery and John Heath Stubbs The Ruba iyat of Omar Khayyam Penguin Group 1981 14 These dates 1048 1031 tell us that Khayyam lived when the Seljuq Turkish Sultans were extending and consolidating their power over Persia and when the effects of this power were particularly felt in Nishapur Khayyam s birthplace Frye 1975 658 e g in Rashid al Din Hamadani Browne 1899 409f or in Munis al ahrar Ross 1927 436 a b c d Boyle J A Omar Khayyam astronomer mathematician and poet Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 1969 52 1 30 45 E D R amp H A R G 1929 The Earliest Account of Umar Khayyam Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies University of London 5 3 467 473 a b The Tomb of Omar Khayyam George Sarton Isis Vol 29 No 1 Jul 1938 15 a b Edward FitzGerald Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Ed Christopher Decker University of Virginia Press 1997 xv The Seljuq Turks had invaded the province of Khorasan in the 1030s and the city of Nishapur surrendered to them voluntarily in 1038 Thus Omar Khayyam grew to maturity during the first of the several alien dynasties that would rule Iran until the twentieth century in e g Al Qifti Aminrazavi 2007 55 or Abu l Hasan Bayhaqi E D R amp H A R G 1929 436 His own man The Spectator US 21 November 2007 Retrieved 10 November 2019 Boris A Rosenfeld Umar al Khayyam in Helaine Selin Encyclopaedia of the History of Science Technology and Medicine in Non Western Cultures Springer Verlag 2008 p 2175 2176 Omar Khayyam Biography Maths History Retrieved 13 November 2021 Aminrazavi Mehdi 2010 Review of Omar Khayyam Poet Rebel Astronomer Iranian Studies 43 4 569 571 doi 10 1080 00210862 2010 495592 ISSN 0021 0862 JSTOR 23033230 S2CID 162241136 a b c Great Muslim Mathematicians Penerbit UTM July 2000 Mohini Mohamed Rozenfeld 1988 pp 64 65 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 Rolwing R amp Levine M 1969 The Parallel Postulate The Mathematics Teacher 62 8 665 669 Smith David 1935 Euclid Omar Khayyam and Saccheri Scripta Mathematica a b Cooper G 2003 Journal of the American Oriental Society 123 1 248 249 Khayyam biography www history mcs st and ac uk Retrieved 13 July 2018 However Khayyam himself seems to have been the first to conceive a general theory of cubic equations Howard Eves 1958 Omar Khayyam s Solution of Cubic Equations The Mathematics Teacher 1958 pp 302 303 Omar Al Hay of Chorassan about 1079 AD did most to elevate to a method the solution of the algebraic equations by intersecting conics Guilbeau Lucye 1930 The History of the Solution of the Cubic Equation Mathematics News Letter 5 4 8 12 doi 10 2307 3027812 JSTOR 3027812 S2CID 125245433 Bijan Vahabzadeh Khayyam Omar xv As Mathematician Encyclopaedia Iranica Netz R 1999 Archimedes Transformed The Case of a Result Stating a Maximum for a Cubic Equation Archive for History of Exact Sciences 54 1 1 47 a b c Deborah A Kent amp David J Muraki 2016 A Geometric Solution of a Cubic by Omar Khayyam in Which Colored Diagrams Are Used Instead of Letters for the Greater Ease of Learners The American Mathematical Monthly 123 2 149 160 a b c d e Kennedy E 1958 Omar Khayyam The Mathematics Teacher Vol 59 No 2 1966 pp 140 142 A R Amir Moez A Paper of Omar Khayyam Scripta Mathematica 26 1963 pp 323 437 The Mathematics Teacher 25 4 238 241 1932 A R Amir Moez Khayyam s Solution of Cubic Equations Mathematics Magazine Vol 35 No 5 November 1962 pp 269 271 This paper contains an extension by the late Mohsen Hashtroodi of Khayyam s method to degree four equations Waerden Bartel L van der 2013 A History of Algebra From al Khwarizmi to Emmy Noether Springer Science amp Business Media p 29 ISBN 978 3 642 51599 6 Sidoli Nathan Brummelen Glen Van 30 October 2013 From Alexandria Through Baghdad Surveys and Studies in the Ancient Greek and Medieval Islamic Mathematical Sciences in Honor of J L Berggren Springer Science amp Business Media p 110 ISBN 978 3 642 36736 6 Mathematical Masterpieces Further Chronicles by the Explorers p 92 a b c E H Whinfield The Quatrains of Omar Khayyam Psychology Press 2000 Muslim extraction of roots Mactutor History of Mathematics J L Coolidge The Story of the Binomial Theorem Amer Math Monthly Vol 56 No 3 Mar 1949 pp 147 157 Susan Nichols Al Karaji Tenth Century Mathematician and Engineer 2017 Rosen Publishing p 60 Akrami Musa 2011 The development of Iranian calendar historical and astronomical foundations arXiv 1111 4926 physics hist ph Panaino A Abdollahy R Balland D Calendars In the Islamic period Encyclopaedia Iranica Retrieved 21 November 2017 Farrell Charlotte 1996 The ninth century renaissance in astronomy The Physics Teacher 34 5 268 272 Bibcode 1996PhTea 34 268F doi 10 1119 1 2344432 Heydari Malayeri M 2004 concise review of the Iranian calendar arXiv astro ph 0409620 Saliba G 2002 Iranian Studies 35 1 3 220 225 a b c Ali Dashti translated by L P Elwell Sutton In Search of Omar Khayyam Routledge Library Editions Iran 2012 a b Edward Denison Ross Omar Khayyam Bulletin of the School Of Oriental Studies London Institution 1927 Francois De Blois Persian Literature A Bio Bibliographical Survey Poetry of the Pre Mongol Period 2004 p 307 Francois De Blois Persian Literature A Bio Bibliographical Survey Poetry of the Pre Mongol Period 2004 p 305 Ambrose George Potter A Bibliography of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam 1929 Francois De Blois Persian Literature A Bio Bibliographical Survey Poetry of the Pre Mongol Period 2004 p 312 a b Nasr S H amp Aminrazavi M 2007 Anthology of philosophy in Persia from Zoroaster to Omar Khayyam ISBN missing Moss Joyce 2004 Middle Eastern Literature and Their times p 431 ISBN 9780787637316 Boscaglia F 2015 Pessoa Borges and Khayyam Variaciones Borges a b c d e f Ross E 1898 Al Musaffariye Containing a Recent Contribution to the Study of Omar Khayyam Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 349 366 Aminrazavi Mehdi Umar Khayyam Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 22 November 2017 a b c d J C E Bowen 1973 The Rubaՙiyyat of Omar Khayyam A Critical Assessment of Robert Graves and Omar Ali Shah s Translation Iran 11 63 73 Davis Dick FitzGerald Edward Encyclopaedia Iranica Retrieved 15 January 2017 FitzGerald E 2010 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam p 12 Champaign Ill Project Gutenberg Schenker D 1981 Fugitive Articulation An Introduction to The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Victorian Poetry 19 1 49 64 Hedayat s Blind Owl as a Western Novel Princeton Legacy Library Michael Beard Katouzian H 1991 Sadeq Hedayat The life and literature of an Iranian writer p 138 London I B Tauris Hitchens C 2007 The portable atheist Essential readings for the nonbeliever p 7 Philadelphia PA Da Capo a b c Omar Khayyam 18 May 2017 The World in Pictures Omar Khayyam Rubayat Aegitas Publishing ISBN 9781773132372 Robertson John Mackinnon 2016 A Short History of Freethough Ancient and Modern Volume I p 263 Khayyam Omar 1934 The Taranes of Khayyam Roschenal Printing House Csillik B 1960 The Real Omar Khayyam Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 10 1 59 77 Retrieved from https www jstor org stable 23682646 Albano G 2008 The Benefits of Reading the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as Pastoral Victorian Poetry 46 1 55 67 C H A Bjerregaard Sufism Omar Khayyam and E Fitzgerald The Sufi Publishing Society 1915 p 3 Idries Shah The Sufis Octagon Press 1999 pp 165 166 Every line of the Rubaiyat has more meaning than almost anything you could read in Sufi literature Abdullah Dougan Who is the Potter Gnostic Press 1991 ISBN 0 473 01064 X S H Nasr 2006 Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present Chapter 9 pp 165 183 Meyerhof M 1948 Ali al Bayhaqi s Tatimmat Siwan al Hikma A Biographical Work on Learned Men of the Islam Osiris 8 122 217 e g by the author of Firdaws al tawarikh Ross 1898 356 author of Tarikh alfi Ross 1898 358 and al Isfahani Aminrazavi 2007 49 Beveridge H 1905 XVIII Omar Khayyam Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 37 3 521 526 J D Yohannan Persian Poetry in England and America 1977 p 202 The Great Umar Khayyam A Global Reception of the Rubaiyat AUP Leiden University Press by A A Seyed Gohrab 2012 Simidchieva M 2011 FitzGerald s Rubaiyat and Agnosticism In A Poole C Van Ruymbeke amp W Martin Eds FitzGerald s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Popularity and Neglect pp 55 72 Anthem Press UNIS Monument to Be Inaugurated at the Vienna International Centre Scholars Pavilion donated to International Organizations in Vienna by Iran Khayyam statue finally set up at University of Oklahoma Tehran Times Archived from the original on 5 April 2016 Retrieved 4 April 2016 Jeffrey D Lavoie The Private Life of General Omar N Bradley 2015 p 13 a b c d The Moving Finger Glimpses into the Life of a Persian Quatrain www leidenmedievalistsblog nl 13 April 2018 Retrieved 14 May 2022 FitzGerald Stanza LXXI 4th ed 17 MLK Beyond Vietnam pdf hawaii edu PDF Archived PDF from the original on 10 October 2022 Quatrain 36 exploring khayyaam US 21 December 2006 Retrieved 14 May 2022 Omar Khayyam s Table II Retrieved 8 August 2021 Omar Khayyam s Table III Retrieved 8 August 2021 Dictionary of Minor Planet Names 1979 p 255 Retrieved 8 September 2012 via Google Books How Omar Khayyam changed the way people measure time The Independent 17 May 2019 Archived from the original on 24 May 2022 Retrieved 18 May 2019 Further reading EditArberry Arthur John 2008 Aspects of Islamic Civilization As Depicted in the Original Texts Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 42600 8 Biegstraaten Jos 2008 Omar Khayyam Impact On Literature And Society In The West Encyclopaedia Iranica Vol 15 Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation Boyle J A ed 1968 The Cambridge History of Iran 5 The Saljug and Mongol Periods Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 06936 X Browne E 1899 Yet More Light on Umar i Khayyam Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 409 420 JSTOR 25208104 Katz Victor 1998 A History of Mathematics An Introduction 2nd ed Addison Wesley p 879 ISBN 0 321 01618 1 Knoebel Art Laubenbacher Reinhard Lodder Jerry 2007 Mathematical Masterpieces Further Chronicles by the Explorers Springer ISBN 978 0387330617 Nasr S H 2006 Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy SUNY Press ISBN 0 7914 6799 6 Ross E 1927 Omar Khayyam Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies University of London 4 3 433 439 JSTOR 606948 Rozenfeld Boris A 1988 A History of Non Euclidean Geometry Evolution of the Concept of a Geometric Space Springer Verlag pp 65 471 ISBN 0 387 96458 4 Rypka Jan 1968 History of Iranian Literature Reidel Publishing Company OCLC 460598 ISBN 90 277 0143 1 Smith David Eugene 1935 Euclid Omar Khayyam and Saccheri Scripta Mathematica III 1 5 10 OCLC 14156259 Turner Howard R 1997 Science in Medieval Islam An Illustrated Introduction University of Texas Press ISBN 0 292 78149 0 External links Edit Wikisource has original works by or about Omar Khayyam Wikiquote has quotations related to Omar Khayyam Wikimedia Commons has media related to Omar Khayyam Works by or about Omar Khayyam at Internet Archive Works by Omar Khayyam at LibriVox public domain audiobooks Hashemipour Behnaz 2007 Khayyam Ghiyath al Din Abu al Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrahim al Khayyami al Nishapuri In Thomas Hockey et al eds The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers New York Springer pp 627 8 ISBN 978 0 387 31022 0 PDF version Umar Khayyam in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy The illustrated Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam at Internet Archive Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Omar Khayyam amp oldid 1155449805, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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