1 Nov 2007
Mike Lockaby
Just a note: You mention in this article that Plato was translated into Arabic before Latin or Greek.  Although the Latin is arguable -- I wouldn't be surprised if there were lost translations from Roman times, but they certainly do not exist anymore -- there can be no possible doubt that Plato was "translated" into Greek before Arabic, because its original language was Greek.

8 Nov 2007
Rebecca Bynum
Often during this period the original work was lost and the works did have to be translated back into their original language. This is probably what Mr. Berdichevsky was referring to.

15 Nov 2007
francois
I am glad that you give a chance to people to discover the wonderful Omar Khayyam. However, I will have some comments. First, you are painting a negative relation that Omar Khayyam had with Islam as well as a negative image of Islam. According to you, Omar barely survives from his muslim contemporaries and Islam has mainly destroyed every piece of Persian culture after the Arab conquest. I am not a specialist but I would say this is quite a bias view. It will not be difficult to find evidences that culture and science has flourished under muslim kings and you might surprised how close, although a priori contradictory, his friendship with the leader of the Assasins was. In that respect, I invite you and you readers to read Samarkand by Amin Maalouf, a famous (christian) Lebanese writer. Although half novel half history, the exhilaring story seems to be correct in depicting such a friendship, as other books that I found on Omar Khayyam do.

17 Nov 2007
Norman Berdichevsky

To Francois

 Thank for the reference to the novel by Maalouf. Khayyam can hardly be said to have had a positive view of Islam. On the contrary, practically every verse of The Rubaiyat mocks, refutes, doubts or satirizes the pious Islamic tenants of a merciful benevolent all powerful Deity that rewards the righteous faithful with everlasting life. In the paraphrased verses of Fitzgerald, Khayyam preferred to “take the cash and run”. What must he have thought - the most talented mathematician and astronomer of his time to see his chief work -brilliant calculations for the most precise calendar devised,  rejected by the Islamic religious establishment?

Khayyam was fortunate to have been born and grown up in the province of Khorasan in Northeastern Iran in the latter part of 11th century, two centuries before the region was devastated by Gengis Khan. As I explained in the article, Nishapur and Samarkand had substantial minorities of Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and rival Muslim sects, especially the mystical Sufis - labeled as pantheistic by their critics. Traditionally. The region of Khorasan enjoyed a large degree of autonomy and was a place of refuge for scholars who were regarded as dissidents in Baghdad, the capital of the Caliphate.

It has likewise been the case that Islamic civilization made its greatest achievements in those few places and times as in Northern India, Persia, Egypt, Byzantium (Constantinople) and Spain due in large part to the skills and experience of scientists, doctors, mathematicians and craftsmen who, although they may have written in Arabic, and lived under Muslim rulers, were not Muslims but Greeks, Jews, Armenians, Copts, Nestorians, Assyrians, Zoroastrians, Bahais and Hindus.

20 Mar 2008
Gene Gordon
Beautiful and brilliant piece! I am preparing a talk on Omar Khayyam and find your article more useful than any other I have found on the Internet. thank you...

15 Aug 2009
Cyrus

Omar Khayyam is not a mystic; he does not have sympathy with such passive issues. He is an agnostic philosopher with materialistic views and attitudes; he cares about the active. In his original Persian text he actually discuss that how man created God and not how God created man. One of the simile he uses for God is an "insane potter".

 

He is the messenger of awakening.