Many around the world celebrated the birth of the great Muslim poet and mathematician Omar Khayyam, who was born in 1048 AD, and this anniversary falls on May 18 of each year.

Khayyam is one of the great poets and philosophers of Persia. He lived in the era of the Seljuks, a contemporary of its kings, Alp Arslan and Malikshah. He grew up in the city of Nishapur, the capital of Khorasan, where he spent most of his life and was influenced by its events. He is Nishapuri par excellence.

Various historical sources indicated that Khayyam had exceptional intelligence and an extraordinary mental prowess that made him master and excel in many of the sciences of his time, such as mathematics, astronomy, medicine, philosophy, logic, natural sciences, as well as philosophy, literature and divine sciences.

The era of Khayyam was political, as it was the era of the Turks ruling Persia, and accordingly the social and political conditions of the country changed.

On the religious side, Islamic linguistics, the Qur’an, jurisprudence, theology, and hadith sciences were active in that era, and the conflict between Sunnis and Shiites was also fierce.

Nishapur was an important scientific center in Khorasan, as it was the pride of Al-Razi and Imam Al-Ghazali.

Despite his fame as a philosopher he was a mathematician of the first class, and contributed to the identification of the Persian calendar followed to the day, also invented trigonometry and algebraic equations method of the third degree by technical repression of the cone, and took monitoring at the Isfahan observatory, solving the equations of the second degree in innovative ways and systems cubism equations .

Nevertheless, Khayyam lived a life full of pain, and he was ascetic and pessimistic about it, and he felt alienated in his city, which had become without a friend who understood him or a friend to console him.

He says in some of his verses:

As a drop returned to the midst or

As a seed has returned to the earth

You came to the world and promised to speak

A fly appeared and left a trail

He also says, expressing his confusion and volatility:

My heart gets more and more confused

And the tears around me are like a spilled urn

My head is not filled with obsessions

It is not filled with jam upside down

Although Khayyam was respected by princes and statesmen in his time, he suffered psychologically from what he witnessed closely from the unfortunate events of his time and the harsh conditions of life, including sectarian fanaticism and the exploitation of cult for sultanistic purposes, and the opposition of philosophers to jurists, political debates, intrigues and conspiracies;

Then came his poems overflowing with pain and filled with monologues and whispers of sorrow, worry and anxiety.

We fell like a bird in a window

We suffer from the harm of eternity

And get lost in a space that doesn't seem

It has a limit, and we have not reached a goal

Scientist or booze advocate?


Islamic philosopher and academic at George Washington University, Sayyed Hussein Nasr, believes that using the literal interpretation of Khayyam's poems to describe his philosophy is a "reduction", especially since many of these poems are not authentic at all.

On the contrary, Khayyam's exegetical translation of Avicenna's work "The Sermon on Monotheism" indicates his embrace of traditional Islamic views of divine monotheism.


Google celebrates Omar Khayyam on his birthday in 2019 (Al Jazeera)

The prose works that are believed to have been written by tents considered faith and pessimistic, deals with topics such as the existence of God, and as a sign of faith in tents and its conformity with Islamic tradition researcher believes Mehdi Omanrazawa that, in his words offers Estpth salute and praise and prayers, and praises God and the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, and which is best known by his titles include described Imam and "Ghayasuddin."

كما يلاحظ أن كتاب السير الذاتية الذين يشيدون بتدينه يتجنبون عموما الإشارة إلى شعره، في حين أن الذين يتناولون أشعاره غالبا ما لا يمتدحون شخصيته الدينية، وعلى سبيل المثال كتب البيهقي عن الخيام باعتباره رجلا متقيا للغاية واعتنق وجهات النظر الإسلامية التقليدية حتى آخر ساعة له.

In any case, the question about Khayyam's personality and thought remains open, and as a result his autobiography receives very mixed appreciation and criticism.

Al-Khayyam mastered the Arabic language and wrote poetry and prose in it, and although it was reported in poetic production, whether in Persian or in Arabic, as we will see, some of his verses were preserved in Arabic, which was the language of science and culture in Iran until the tenth century AH, according to historian Shawqi Dhaif in his book The Age of Countries and Emirates.

Among the indications that many of his quatrains and Khmer poems are not attributed to him is that his poetry in Arabic is limited in purpose compared to all this number of Persian quatrains, which were said to have reached two thousand, according to the researcher in Khayyam Heritage, Taghreed Zaimian.

In contrast to the long debate about the authenticity of the Persian quatrains’ attribution to him, no one contested the authenticity of his Arabic poetry, which appears in it a measure of faith and commitment, compared to the skepticism, philosophizing, rebellious spirit and pleasure in the poetry attributed to him in Persian.

The multiplicity of tents To


explain the contradiction between the tents of the scholar and the believer and the tents that flirt with wine, several theories have emerged, most notably the “multiplicity of tents”;

According to the contemporary historian Muhammad al-Tabtabai and others, there are three or four who are known by the name “Khayyam”.

The first of them tents original poet named Ali tents Alboukharaia, and was a contemporary age Khiyami, and recite poetry in Persian and Arabic and has the Court found in the second half of the seventh century in Azerbaijan before losing later, the second is Khiyami wise, "known as the age Khiyami Alnisabure" which is best known for his skills in philosophy and mathematics.

"Omar Khayyam", the poet of the Persian quatrains and the argument of the athletes (Al Jazeera Documentary)

In contrast to the poet and the philosopher, there are fabricated tents of both of them spread in the novels of the later ones, who took from Ali his poetics and the age of his philosophy, and there is also a fourth tent known as Omar Khayyam Al-Istrabadi, who is famous for his book “Tarabanamah” and the latter is the one who introduced Khayyam’s poetry into the world of khmeriyat and wrote many ghazals In wine, drunkenness, and pleasure, it was not proven to the true philosopher and scientist, Omar Khayami.

There is a great controversy among researchers and historians about the true attribution of the Rubaiyat of Khayyam to the philosopher and scientist Omar Khayyam. Perhaps the theory of “multiple tents” explains part of this confusion. Among Khayyam’s poems attributed to him in Arabic is his saying:

I fast from indecency, openly and secretly

Afafa and my breakfast with innate reverence

As it appears from the poetic verse, it contrasts with the famous Khayyam Khayyam, which is famous for the philosophy of seizing the moment, living the day for the day, and the hedonistic doctrine.

Among his translated Persian poems, he said:

Existence and our mortal age are nothing but

Illusion, delusion, and a slumbering dream