Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer. In his own country, Omar Khayyam was renowned for his scientific achievements, but not as a poet. His quatrains were rediscovered by the English scholar and poet Edward FitzGerald (1809-83). By the mid-20th century, many academics thought that Khayyam had not written the verses attributed to him.

12
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou
   Beside me singing in the Wilderness—-
O, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

13
Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
   Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!
(from Rubáiyát by Omar Khayyam, Fourth Edition, 1879, in Edward FitzGerald's Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: A Famous Poem and Its Influence, edited by William H. Martin and Sandra Mason, Anthem Press, 2011, p. 45)

Omar Khayyam was born Ghiyath al-Din Abul Fateh Omar Ibn Ibrahim al-Khayyam in Nishapur, the capital of Khurasan. At that time the commercially rich province was under the rule of Seljuq Turks, who were completing their infiltration of Iran, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor. Eventually they confronted the Crusades from Europe. Little is known of Omar's early life. Nishapur was along the Silk Road; it has been said that his famous work of poetry, the Rubaiyat, manifests the "Wisdom of the Silk Road." (The Confluence of Wisdom along the Silk Road: Omar Khayyam's Transformative Poetry by M. Vaziri, 2022) A silk product is even mentioned in the poem: "At once the silken tassel of my Purse / Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw." (Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Fourth Edition, translated by Edward FitzGerald, 1879, p. 43)

The epithet Khayyam signifies "tent-maker" – it is possible that Omar or his father, Ibrahim the Tentmaker, one time exercised that trade. Omar was educated at his native town, where he studied under the celebrated teacher the Iman Mowaffak. In Samarqand, also a city situated on the Silk Road, he completed his treatise on algebra. When the Seljuq Sultan Malik Shah offered him preferment at court, Omar made a request: "'The greatest boon you can confer on me,' he said, 'is to let me live in a corner under the shadow of your fortune, to spread wide the advantages of Science, and pray for your long life and prosperity.'" (Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Fourth Edition, p. 21)

The Vizier Nizam al-Mulk granted Omar a pension, which enabled him to devote himself to learning and research, especially in mathematics and astronomy. In 1074 he was invited to undertake astronomical research. Omar was also commissioned to build an observatory in the city of Isfahan in collaboration with other astronomers. Malik Shah appointed him a member of a group of eight scholars assigned to reform the Moslem calendar, a task comparable to Pope Gregorius XIII's revision of the Julian calendar. Their work inaugurated the Jalalaean or Seljuq era, beginning March 15, 1079. Omar's revision of the old Persian solar calendar was discontinued when Islamic orthodoxy gained power, but in 1925 it was again introduced in Iran.

Omar's series of astronomical tables is known as Ziji Malikshahi. Among his other mathematical writings are a work on algebra and a study of The Difficulties of Euclid's Definitions (1077). He tried to classify equations of the first degree and his algebra textbook, dealing with quadric and cubic equations in particular, was very advanced compared to contemporary European studies of mathematics. The earliest known reference to Omar as a poet occurs in Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani's (1125-1201) Kharidat al-Qasr, a well-documented anthology of Arabic poetry, which quotes four two-line verses by Khayyam. The work was written some fifty-five years after the poet's death.

In the West Omar's reputation as a poet has shadowed his achievements as a mathematician. Louisa Costello was the first to publish English version of Omar's poems in her anthology The Rose Garden of Persia (1845), but his worldwide fame began to spread when Edward FitzGerald translated his verses from the original Persian to English. More accurately Omar's name should be transliterated as "Umar-i-Khayyam," but after FitzGerald's English versions of the rubáiyát (literally, quatrains) he was generally known as Omar Khayyam. The first edition was published anonymously. It contained 101 rubáiyát (or rubáis), 143 quatrains according to the version of Sadiq Hedayat (Taraneh-haye Khayyam, 1313/1934). Only 250 copies were printed and soon forgotten.

The fullest translation (878 quatrains) was published by E.F. Thompson in 1906. FitzGerald, well aware of his inadequacy as a translator, arranged the scattered quatrains in long, continuous elegy. The "exotic" verses caught the attention of Rossetti and Swinburne, who wrote that FitzGerald "has given to Omar Khayyam a permanent place among the major English poets". ('The Enigma of Edward FitzGerald,' in A Personal Anthology by Jorge Luis Borges, edited and with a foreword by Anthony Kerrigan, Grove Press, 1967, p. 95)

The second edition of the work in 1868 marked the beginning of Omar Khayyam cult. "Isaac Luria the Lion taught that the soul of a dead man can enter an unfortunate soul to nourish or instruct it," wrote the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, "perhaps, around 1857, Omar's soul took up residence in FitzGerald's." ('The Enigma of Edward FitzGerald,' in A Personal Anthology, p. 96) Omar's rubáiyát did not circulate in his homeland during his lifetime. Also contemporary biographers did not note him as a great poet, but he became one because it was common to attribute otherwise anonymous poetry to some well-know figure. (The Robā'īyāt of Omar Khayyām' by Juan Cole, Routledge Handbook of Ancient, Classical and Late Classical Persian Literature, edited by Kamran Talattof, Routledge, 2023, p. 188)

FitzGerald's work was more than an ordinary translation, it was so inspired and visionary, that some critics later believed that it was an English poem with Persian allusions. "Without question the man who, though not the first to pay attention to Khayyam, did more than any other European to spread his name throughout the world was Edward FitzGerald, a talented and sensitive poet . . .  This must not blind us to the fact that FitzGerald made no kind of scholarly research into Khayyam's poetry, but merely drew inspiration from some of his verses in order to compose an entirely independent masterpiece." (In Search of Omar Khayyam by Ali Dashti, translated from the Persian by L. P. Elwell-Sutton, Columbia University Press, 1971, p. 167)

According to convention, in quatrains the first, second and last lines are rhymed, while the third line rarely follows the rhyme of the other lines. Thus a rubái (plural rubáiyát) has the form aaba. Each line expresses a complete thought.

Omar Khayyam, whose daily thoughts in his rubáiyátwere often pessimistic and who was troubled by eternal question of life, death, deity, and the nature of the universe, was viewed with suspicion by orthodox Muslims. For his philosophy he was "said to have been especially hated and dreaded by the Súfis, whose practise he ridiculed, and whose faith amounts to little more than his own when stript of the mysticism and forml compliment to Islamism which Omar would not hide under." (The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: The Astronomer Poet of Persia, translated into English verse by Edward FitzGerald, edited by Edmund R. Brown, International Pocket Library, p. 9) However, the Sufi poets read his works, many of which were irreligious, and the rubáiyát in general were frequently sung at mystical concerts. His quatrains were included in a Sufi textbook by Sheykh Najm al-Din Daya, written about 1223. The thoughts of Avicenna (980-1037) and Omar were condemned by the highly influential Islamic philosopher Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111) in Incoherence of the Philosophers. Al-Ghazali saw that the Muslim Aristotelian and Neoplatonic philosophers were is many questions in conflict with the fundamentals of religion.

Major themes in Omar's rubáiyát is the fragility of human life. The future pleasures of Paradise do not give any comfort for the poet: "Fill the wine-cup, put it in my hand— / Cash is better than a thousand promises." (Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol by Iain Gately, Gotham Books, 2008, p.73) But wine can dispel sorrow: "Drink! For you know not whence you came not why: / Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where." (Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Fourth Edition, p. 63) The subject was inflammable, because wine and drunkenness was prohibited by the principles of Islamic law. However, these poems could be interpreted metaphorically, referring to spiritual or romantic intoxication. 

After the death of his patron, Nizam al-Mulk, in 1092, Omar went on a pilgrimage to Mecca. In one poem, assigned to Omar, the poet wrote: "Khayyám, who stitched the tents of science, / Has fallen in grief's furnace and been sudden burned; / The shears of Fate have cut the tent ropes of his life, / And the broker of Hope has sold him for nothing!" (The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: The Astronomer Poet of Persia, [1st Edition], Bernard Quaritch, 1859, p.vii)

Before returning to Nishapur, he also visited Baghdad. Reputedly, Omar was a miserable tacher but  continued as a teacher and reluctantly made some astrological predictions. Like Avicenna, he was skeptical of astrology. Qufti's Tarikh al-Hukama (History of the Philosophers) states that after his return from the pilgrimage, "he strove to conceal his innermost thoughts, making a show of piety." (In Search of Omar Khayyam, p. 43)

Omar did not believe in forecasts, but according to an anecdote, he said to one of his pupils, with whom he hold conversations in a garden: "My tomb shall be in a spot where the north wind my scatter roses over it." (The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: The Astronomer Poet of Persia, Fifth Edition, Macmillan & Co., 1899, p. 9) Omar Khayyam died on December 4, 1131 in Nishapur. Ali ibn Zeid Beihaqi wrote in his biography, Tatimma Siwan al-Hikma, that Omar was reading  Avicenna's The Metaphysics of Healing. He then called his household to hear his will and last instructions, and said before his death: "Oh God, I have known Thee to the extent of my ability; have mercy on me, for my knowledge of Thee is my only path to The!" (In Search of Omar Khayyam, pp. 86-87) Ali ibn Zeid's book, which appeared sometime between 1158 and 1170, has the oldest biographical notice on Omar. Decades after Omar's death appeared a work, in which his verses were described as "poisonous snakes, deadly to the Holy Law". (In Search of Omar Khayyam, p. 152)

Not much of Omar's prose writings have survived and  his poetry has preserved only in mutilated manuscripts. Perhaps the most complete is the one in the library of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta. The manuscript contains 516 quatrains. Other important manuscripts are in the Chester Beatty collection and at Cambridge. In 1897 Vladimir Zhukovsky, a professor at the University of St. Petersburg, showed that a great number of the "wandering quatrains" could be attributed to other poets as well.

The problem whether or not Omar composed all the poem attributed to him, including the famous piece with the words "A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread— and Thou", has been hard to solve. A.J. Avberry, who used 13th-century manuscripts, identified at least 250 authentic poems. When a fourth new manuscript was found in 1959, Vladimir Minorsky revealed in an article in 1967, that a forgery factory was producing fake Khayyam quatrains in Tehran. Moreover, the Orientalist L. P. Elwell-Sutton described the source text of The Original Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayyam: A New Translation with Critical Commentaries (1968) by Robert Graves and Omar Ali-Shah as a "clumsy forgery". ('Robert Graves’s Mythopoetic Hospitality: Translating The Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayaam' by Sara Greaves, The Robert Graves Review, 2022, p, 263) Graves himself slandered FitzGerald as a "dilettante faggot" whose work shouldn't be trusted. ('The Exquisite Amateur: FitzGerald, the Rubáiyát, and Queer Dilettantism' by Benjamin Hudson, Victorian Poetry, Vol. 54, No. 2, Summer 2016, p. 155) Garves's collaborator Omar Ali-Shah was a former General in the Afghan army, the brother of the better-known phony guru Idries Shah (1924.1996). He claimed the manuscipt, containing 111 quatrains and dated 1153, had been in his family for several generations.

For further reading: The Confluence of Wisdom along the Silk Road: Omar Khayyam's Transformative Poetry by Mostafa Vaziri (2022); Nearer the Heart's Desire: Poets of the Rubaiyat: a Dual Biography of Omar Khayyam and Edward FitzGerald by Robert D. Richardson (2016); Rethinking Khayyaamism: His Controversial Poems and Vision by Khodadad (Khodi) Kaviani (2014);  The Wine of Wisdom: The Life, Poetry and Philosophy of Omar Kayyam by Mehdi Aminrazsavi (2005); Omar Khayyam, the Mathematician by R. Rashed and B. Vahabzadeh (2000); Rediscovery of Hakim Omar Khayyam by Ali A. Parsa (1998), Wine of the Mystic: The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Paramahansa Yogananda (1994); The Rubaiyat of Omar hKhayyam Explained by Paramhansa Yogananda, edited by Donald Walters (1994); Omar Khayyam, the Philosopher-poet of Medieval Islam by Irfan Shahîd (1982); 'Introduction' by Peter Avery, in The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam, translated by Peter Avery and John Heath-Stubbs (1979); Omar Khayyám as a Mystic by J. E. Saklatwalla (1977); Omar Khayyam Revisited by Hakim Yama Khayyam (1974); In Search of Omar Khayyam by Ali Dasti (1971); Omar Khayyam: Astronomer, Mathematician and Poet' by ' John Andrew Boyle in Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Vol. 52, no. 1, Autumn (1969); The Algebra of Omar Khayyam by D.S. Kasir (1951); The Nectar of Grace; Omar Khayyam's Life and Works by Swami Govinda Tirtha (1941); Critical Studies in the Ruba'iyat of 'Umar-i-Khayyam by Arthur Christensen (1927); Edward Fitzgerald's Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam with Their Original Persian Sources by E. Heron-Allen (1899); L'Algèbre d'Omar Alkhayyami by F. Woepke (1851) - Suomennoksia: Teltantekijän lauselmia: Omar Khaijamin epigrammeja, 1929 (suom. Toivo Lyy); Omarin malja: uusia Omar Khaijamin nelisäkeitten suomennoksia, 1942 (suom. Toivo Lyy); Teltantekijä, 1949 (suom. Toivo Lyy); Viisaan viini, 1955 (suom. Toivo Lyy); Malja ja mennyt maine, 1999 (suom. Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila); Ruukku  rubiiniviiniä ja muita runoja, 2008 (suom. Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila); Khaijamin lauluja, 2009 (suom. Kiamars Baghbani ja Leevi Lehto)  

Translations:

• Selections from the Rubáiyàt in English Meter, 1840
• Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, the Astronomer-Poet of Persia, 1859 (translated by Edward FitzGerald, revised editions 1868, 1872, 1879, 1889)
• The Quatrains of Omar Khayyam, 1882 (tr. E.H. Whinfield)
• Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 1889 (translated by Justin Huntly McCarthy, M.P.)
• The Rubá'íyat of Omar Khayyâm: Being a Facsimile of the Manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, 1898 (ed. Edward Heron-Allen)
• Quatrains of Omar Khayyam: in English Prose, 1898 (translated by Justin Huntly McCarthy)
• The Quatrains of Omar Kheyyam of Nishapour, 1898 (tr. John Payne)
• Rubâiyaât of Omar Khayyaâm, 1898 (rendered into English verse by E. Fitzgerald and into Latin by H.W. Greene)
• Edward FitzGerald's Rubâ'iyât of Omar Khayyâm with Their Original Persian Sources, 1899 (ed. Edward Heron-Allen)
• The Quatrains of Omar Khayyam of Nishapur, 1906 (translated by Eben Francis Thompson)
• Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: With a Critical Essay by Clarence Darrow, 1919
• The Quatrains of 'Omar Khayyam, 1930 (translated by Friedrich Rosen)
• The Rubá'íyát of Omar Khayyám, 1949 (ed. A.J. Arberry)
• The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: a New Version, 1955 (by Horace Thorner)
• Omar Khayyám; a New Version Based Upon Recent Discoveries, 1959 (by Arthur J. Arberry)
• A New Selection from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Rendered into English Verse, 1961 (by John Charles Edward Bowen)
• The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 1964 (translated by Frank Newton)
• The Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayaam, 1967 (translation with critical commentaries by Robert Graves and Omar Ali-Shah)
• One Hundred and Fifty Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 1968 (translated by W. G. Burton)
• The Ruba'iyat of 'Umar Khayyam, 1975 (translated by Parichehr Kasra)
• The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam, 1979 (translated by Peter Avery and John Heath-Stubbs)
• Omar Khayyam Rediscovered: The Rob'iyat Translated from the Original with a Preface, 1988 (by Sunil B. Ray)
• Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam, 1991 (translated and annotated by Ahmad Saidi, preface by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)
• The Authentic Rubaiyyat of Sufi poet Omar Khayaam: A New Translation with Critical Commentaries, 1993 (translated by Omar Ali-Shah; designed and illustrated by Eugenio Zanetti)
• The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: A Personal Selection from Five Editions of Edward Fitzgerald, 1994 (by Cecile Mactaggart)
• An Essay by the Uniquely Wise 'Abel Fath Omar Bin Al-Khayyam on Algebra and Equations: Algebra wa al-muqabala, 2008 (translated by Roshdi Khalil; reviewed by Waleed Deeb)
• Edward Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 2016 (original art by Lincoln Perry; introduction and notes by Robert D. Richardson)