Omar Khayyam (redirected from Omar Khayyám)

Omar Khayyam (ō`mär kīäm`), fl. 11th cent., Persian poet and mathematician, b. Nishapur. He was called Khayyam [tentmaker] probably because of his father's occupation. The details of his life are mostly conjectural, but he was well educated and became celebrated as the outstanding mathematician of his time. As astronomer to Sultan Malik Shah, he was one of a group that undertook to reform the calendar. Their work led to the adoption of a new era, the so-called Jalalian or Seljuk era, beginning Mar. 15, 1079. Although he wrote a number of important mathematical studies, Omar's fame as a scientist has been greatly eclipsed in the West by the popularity of his Rubaiyat, epigrammatic verse quatrains. The work was little known in Europe until the freely paraphrased English translation of them was first published by Edward FitzGerald in 1859. This influenced all subsequent evaluations of his poetry, even among native speakers of Persian, where FitzGerald's translation led to a new appreciation of his output. FitzGerald omitted many of the quatrains (which were independent and unconnected) and rearranged them into a unity expressing his conception of Omar's philosophy; it is, however, impossible to establish definitely that many of the nearly 500 quatrains attributed to Omar are really his work. The hedonism of his verse often masks his serious reflections on metaphysical issues. The verses have been offered in literally hundreds of editions.

Bibliography

See study by A. Dashti (tr. 1972).

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Omar Khayyam

 byname of Ghiyath al-Din Abu al-Fath 'Umar ibn Ibrahim al-Neyshaburi al-Khayyami

(born May 18, 1048, Neyshabur, Khorasan—died Dec. 4, 1131, Neyshabur) Persian poet, mathematician, and astronomer. Educated in the sciences and philosophy, he was renowned in his country and time for his scientific achievements, but few of his prose writings survive. His verses attracted little attention until his roba'iyat (“quatrains”) were loosely translated into English by Edward FitzGerald and published in 1859. Many of the quatrains (each of which was intended as an independent poem) are of doubtful attribution; most scholars agree on the authenticity of about 50, with controversy over some 200 others.