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Iranian scholar, poet and philosopher; known for his work in algebra, geometry and astronomy and for the quatrains with which his name became identified in Persian poetry. His full name was Abu al-Fath Ghiyath al-Din 'Umar b. Ibrahim al-Khayyam. The source regards him as a scholar-philosopher of the school of Ibn Sina; he worked on algebra, geometry, astronomy, physics and medicine, and also occupied himself with music.
He was born between 430-439 (1039-1048) at Nishapur, capital of Khorasan. He received his education and spent most of his life there and in Samarkand. Lexically khayyam means “tent-maker”; it is also thought, however, that he may have belonged to the Khayyami tribe, of Arab origin, settled in Iran. 'Ali b. Zayd al-Bayhaqi says that his memory was extraordinarily strong, that he had wide knowledge of language, jurisprudence, history and Qur'anic readings, and that he was unrivalled in mathematics, medicine and the other rational sciences.
He did not care to serve at the courts of the Seljuk sultans and of the vizier Nizam al-Mulk, who showed him great interest; choosing a quiet life devoted to scientific research, he travelled from time to time among centres of science and art such as Samarkand, Bukhara, Balkh and Isfahan. In Samarkand he came under the patronage of a high official named Abu Tahir. According to Ibn al-Athir, in 467 (1074-75) the Great Seljuk sultan Malikshah invited him to Isfahan and placed him at the head of a body of scholars, charging him with founding an observatory and correcting the Yazdagirdi calendar then in use. The body decided that it would be better to devise a new calendar fully in accord with the seasons; thus arose the Jalali calendar, which takes the length of the solar year as 365.2424 days and errs by only 1 day in 5000 years. The body also prepared the Zij-i Malikshahi; the observatory remained active until Malikshah's death (485/1092).
He is estimated to have died at Nishapur between 517-526 (1123-1132), at about eighty-five; the heading of the entry gives his death as 526/1132 with a question mark.
His Circle of Influence — According to the source his influence on the development of mathematics, and of analytic geometry in particular, was very great: his work was not surpassed in Islamic mathematics until Sharaf al-Din al-Tusi, and in Western mathematics until Descartes (d. 1650), who adopted the geometric approach to solving cubic equations. His study of Euclid's fifth postulate shows a remarkable resemblance to the work of Saccheri, who took up the same question in the West six centuries after him. In the West he is among the most admired poets and best-known scholars of the East: in 1892 a club was founded in his name in London, in 1970 a lunar crater and in 1980 a newly discovered comet were named after him. He was the only poet whose name became identified with the quatrain in Persian poetry, and his influence was not confined to that form; features recalling him are found in the ghazals of Hafiz of Shiraz as well.
His Poetry and Sufi Line — In his own time he was known for his fame in mathematics, astronomy and philosophy and not for his poetry; his interest in verse amounted to writing quatrains from time to time. His philosophical quatrains are dominated by the thought that man comes from non-existence and goes to non-existence, and that the present moment should therefore be well used; he sees existence as a riddle and says that trying to solve it is in vain. The source notes that, although he may be said to have been influenced by Abu al-'Ala al-Ma'arri, philosophical despair prevails in al-Ma'arri's poems, philosophical sorrow in his. The chief features of his quatrains are the expression of deep matters in plain language, concision (ijaz), and a fourth line that roofs the first three (for the reading of the wine imagery see Multiple Perspectives).
His Works — The source lists sixteen works. The principal ones are: the Ruba'iyyat; the Risala fi al-Barahin 'ala Masa'il al-Jabr wa al-Muqabala, which classifies equations and gives the geometric solution of cubic equations by conic sections; the Risala fi Sharh ma Ashkala min Musadarat Kitab Uqlidis, written on Euclid's Elements and a forerunner of non-Euclidean geometries; the Nawruznama on calendars including the Jalali calendar; the Zij-i Malikshahi, containing the results of observations; Fi al-Qustas al-Mustaqim, on the hydrostatic balance he invented; the Silsila-i Tartib, on the basic elements of Farabian and Avicennan cosmology; and al-Qawl 'ala al-Ajnas allati bi al-Arba', on musical tones.
Differing Scholarly Views
Date of death — The source gives no firm date: in the text he is estimated to have died between 517-526 (1123-1132), while the heading gives 526/1132 with a question mark. The single year in the atlas's earlier record is one end of this range; since the source makes no choice, neither does the atlas.
Judgements on his religious views — The source sets two opposite assessments side by side: 'Ali b. Zayd al-Bayhaqi praises his learning, while Najm al-Din Daya calls him “an unfortunate philosopher, godless and materialist”, and in his Mirsad al-'Ibad quotes two of his quatrains and directs criticism at their content and at Khayyam. The atlas does not judge between these verdicts; it records them under the names of those who made them.
Wine imagery and the Sufi reading — On the basis of his poems an attempt was made to portray him as fond of wine. The author of the entry's literary section, however, recalls that the drinking vocabulary used by poets, especially those of Sufi inclination, carries symbolic meaning; he notes that many poets of classical Turkish literature known for their piety treated Khayyam in a Sufi context and saw him as a poet of love, and says that he should be regarded as a poet of Malamati temper and his poems interpreted accordingly. This is the view of the source's author; the atlas records both readings.
The attribution of the quatrains — The number of quatrains grows as the dates of the copies approach our own time, and many prove to be poems of other poets ascribed to him over time. The first source to transmit quatrains of his is the Sindbadnama, written by Zahiri of Samarkand after 556 (1161). In the Tarabkhana, compiled by Yar Ahmad Rashidi of Tabriz in 868 (1464), 559 quatrains are ascribed to him; Sa'id Nafisi says he identified 1224 quatrains claimed as his. What researchers have established is far less: Sadiq Hidayat counts 143 quatrains as his, Furughi together with Qasim Ghani 178; 'Ali Dashti concludes that only sixty-five can be his. The first section of the entry puts the quatrains reflecting his own original style at about 100. According to the source the identification of his genuine quatrains has not yet been resolved.
The site of the grave — The text of the entry does not touch on his burial place or tomb; only among the entry's images is there a photograph captioned “Omar Khayyam's tomb at Nishapur”. The architect and construction date of the memorial tomb given in the atlas's earlier text have not been kept, as they are not in this source; the location must be verified separately against the place record's own source.
Sources
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (DİA) — Yavuz Unat · vol. 34, pp. 66-68, entry “ÖMER HAYYÂM”
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (DİA) — Hicabi Kırlangıç · vol. 34, pp. 68-70, entry “ÖMER HAYYÂM (2. Fars Edebiyatında)”
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Permanent ID: EA-Z-000346 · this address reaches the same record even if its name changes; use it when citing.
External records: TDV Encyclopedia of Islam article