Omar Khayyam

On the Value of Time

Nick M. Loghmani

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781032332727
• eBook ISBN: 9781000578188
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Literary Biographies

This book explores the life and work of Omar Khayyam as a provocateur of peace. While Khayyam is known for his poetry, he was foremost a prominent mathematician who looked at the world from a unique perspective. Using the transformative power of mathematics, he brought together seemingly irreconcilable concepts in his work. Through his art, philosophy, and mathematics, Khayyam sought to create harmony between what on the surface looks like a clash between his scientific view, romantic and often provocative poetry, and philosophy. The book sheds light on his spiritual and philosophical journey through a cross-sectional account of his poetry, philosophical view, and mathematics and science. It explores the complex inner life of a multidimensional scholar as he negotiated between faith and science, constructing a framework for peace by looking at the world as it presents itself to us, contemplating the temporality of life and enriching it with wisdom and joy.

Historically and culturally informed, this book will be indispensable to readers of Omar Khayyam's poetry and philosophy. It will also be of interest to students and researchers of peace and conflict studies, mathematics, science, Middle East literature, history, and popular culture.

1 The World Khayyam Was Born Into

DOI: 10.4324/9781003172932-2

Abu’l Fatḥ Omar ibn Ibrāhīm Khayyām, known as Omar Khayyām, was born in the early decades of the first millennium around 1048. The world at the beginning of the second millennium was going through a tectonic shift. The Western world was going through a struggle that would set the stage for the rise of significant powers and foundations of future nations in the centuries to come. Meanwhile, the Muslim world was going through its cultural zenith, with India and China experiencing the rise and expansion of new dynasties. The Byzantine empire experienced a sudden decline while Norman rose to power and domination over much of Europe. Catholicism asserted itself, and the split between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism became permanent (Cross and Livingstone, 2005).

The 11th century is considered the middle ages in Europe. In Western Europe, serfdom was imposed on a significant portion of the population. In England, the Viking age came to an end with King Canute and his son Harthacnut. In 1055, Westminster Abbey was completed, and in 1086, the doomsday book was compiled. In 1066 in the Battle of Hastings, Normans defeated the English Army. One of the notable developments in the 11th century was the foundation of the University of Oxford. It commenced its first lectures in 1096.

Like elsewhere, living a peaceful life was a challenge in most Europe—life was violent, short, and challenging. Religious skirmishes led to numerous wars and bloodshed that was the cause of significant harm and suffering for the peasantry. Following the collapse of the Carolingian Empire in the 9th century, the level of violence became so tense that it required intervention from the Catholic Church to limit violence perpetrated by the nobility (Ariès et al., 1987). It led to Truce of God, the first mass peace movement in history (Backman, 2009), at the Council of Toulouges in 1027.

In Spain, Muslims started to lose their grip. Alfonso VI of Castile defeated the Muslims and captured the city of Toledo in 1085, followed by El Cid conquering Valencia.

The Kingdom of France was emerging from Île-de-France, while Frankish Carolingian kings were struggling to keep order. Meanwhile, the aristocracy was transforming to retain and control political power.

In Bologna, currently, Italy, the University of Bologna, the oldest university in the world, was established (Janin, 2014).

The Song dynasty affirmed its power in China and established central authority by reducing regional commanders’ ability. Confucian practice and influence grew, and the Chinese aristocracy transformed through a merit-based government system (Elman, 2013).

In 1008, Emperor Zhenzong of Song accepted the gifts from the Fatimid ruler of Egypt’s Imam Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, reestablishing diplomatic relations between Egypt and China, lost since the collapse of the Tang dynasty (Shen, 1996).

In 1048, the movable type was invented by Bi Sheng in China (Needham and Ronan, 1978). In 1084, the historical work of the Zizhi Tongjian was compiled by Song dynasty scholars (Xiao-bin, 2003, pp. 1–32).

In India, Rajendra Chola I became the Chola empire king, succeeding his father, Rajaraja Chola. India was the target of numerous Ghaznavid campaigns during the 11th century (Saunders, 1947).

Japan was experiencing the Heian period, named after the capital city of Heian-kyō, modern-day Kyoto, with the imperial court and its associated aristocracy experiencing their zenith. Art and literature were at the focus of the court’s aristocracy in this period (Britannica, 2013).

During the Heian period, The Tale of Genji, often called the world’s first novel, was written (Lyons, 2013).

In Germany, Henry II became the first to be called the “King of the German” (Whaley, 2018), the term Rex Teutonicorum (Eckhard, 1999, pp. 233–266), King of the Germans, came into use around 1000.

In 1099, Jerusalem was captured by the crusaders.

While the Muslim world was defending its western front, in the East, it was expanding in India and what is today Afghanistan.

The Muslim world rule was divided between the Seljuk dynasty and the Fatimid caliphate, following the decline of the Ghaznavid (Bosworth, 1975) dynasty, with Seljuk ruling over most Middle Eastern parts of Western Asia as well as Central Asia, including Persia, Anatolia. Fatimid (Brett, 2017) controlled Egypt, north African territories along the Mediterranean Sea, and Scilly and Levant.

Following the Arab conquest of Persia and the fall of the Sassanid empire, Persian identity and distinct cultural characteristics started to reemerge with poets and literary figures’ work.

While the Arabic language hegemony dominated many local languages, particularly in Syria and Egypt, Persians resisted the dominance of Arab rulers. Still, they transformed it, as the Arab caliphs had to rely on Persian elites for their civilian administration (Morgan, 1976).

In 1010, Ferdowsi completed his epic work, the Shahnameh, arguably the most influential work in Persian literature history (Khaleghi-Motlagh, 2012).

Ibn Sina, or as known in the West, Avicenna, a figure that Khayyam considered himself as his student, passed away in 1037. Avicenna was arguably the most prominent and influential scientist and philosopher of the middle ages. He is regarded as the father of early modern medicine (Colgan, 2009).

While under house arrest in Egypt, Ibn al-Haytham produced his groundbreaking work, Book of Optics (Lindberg, 1976; Bīrūnī and Sachau, 1879).

Another towering figure of that time was Al Biruni, the anthropologist, mathematician, historian (Nasr, 1993),¹ and astronomer, who had an enormous contribution to the advancement and defense of science (George, 2021).

Al-Farabi passed away hundred years before Khayyam’s birth. Still, he left his mark by contributing to the philosophy of society and religion (Germann, 2016), as well as in science, language (Druart, 2020), and music (Druart, 2020).

Asian countries dominated the world economy in the 11th century in technology, trade volumes, and GDP. Excluding Japan, Asian countries’ GDP was almost eight times greater than Western Europe (Maddison, 2001).

West Asia, Persia in particular, played a pivotal role in trade between the West and the East, acting as a bridge for commerce and technology and, equally importantly, culture and philosophy. The merchants did not only import silk and spices from the far East but brought books and ideas. While Europe had, for the most part, Europe had forgotten the Greek philosophers and their work (Dod, 1982). They were translated and widely used by philosophers of the Islamic era in Baghdad, Nishabur, and Damascus. Philosophical work of the Islamic world eventually found its way through Sicily and Spain to Europe, which helped revive philosophy in the West. This revival led to Thomas Aquinas’s work to establish a relationship between faith and reason in his work Summa Theologica (Flannery, 2001) (1265–1274), based on reconciling the teaching of Aristotle with Christianity.

Omar Khayyam was born (Ross and Gibb, 1929) in 1048² in Nishapur (Honigmann and Bosworth) (today Nishabur) Khorasan, Persia, modern-day Iran. At the time of Khayyam’s birth, Nishabur was one of the most prominent cities of the medieval time—a cultural and trade center situated on the Silk Road, connecting the East and the West. It was a familiar city for merchants traveling through the Silk Road, which was considered a passage for not only goods but ideas and adventurous souls curious about the four corners of the world (Frankopan, 2015).

The city of Nishabur, meaning New-Shahpur in middle Farsi, was founded by the Sasanid king Shahpur I in the 3rd century. Nishabur had a tumultuous history. By the 11th century, it had already witnessed numerous wars, devastating earthquakes, and the ruin of various dynasties. While its walls carried th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Introduction
• 1 The World Khayyam Was Born Into
• 2 The Creative Space
• 3 Life as Integration of Moments
• 4 Khayyam, the Peace Provocateur
• Conclusion
• Appendix: A Stylometric Analysis of Khayyam’s Poetry
• References
• Index