OMAR KHAYYAM

 

                                OMAR  KHAYYAM

            “Omar Khayyam” was a poet who had masterly knowledge about many subjects like mathematics, astronomy, Islam, and Persian literature. He was born in Neyshapur, Iran, on 18 May 1048 and died there on 4 December 1131 at the age of 83 years.

            He was influenced by great scholars including  Ibn Sina, Al-Khwarizmi, Albiruni, Euclid, and Apollonius of Perga.

            In Persian literature he is famous for his anthology of about 600 Persian quatrains known as Rubaiyat of Omar  Khayyam. 

            Currently Khayyam is known as a world poet due to the translation of  his quatrains by the English poet and writer Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883). In fact, Fitzgerald himself became famous all over the world due to translating  Khayyam’s  quatrains, which are even now considered the first and the best free adaptation which  touches the hearts of  both the romantic and philosophically minded readers.

            According to a literary opinion about  Khayyam’s philosophy expressed through his quatrains, there is a great emphasis on existentialism , skepticism, and hedonism. He admits that life is short, death is absolute and the future is uncertain; yet he advises his readers to find joy in fleeting moments, wine, books, and companionship.

            Some quatrains translated into English follow:

*Here with a loaf of bread beneath the bough,

A flask of wine, a book of verse ---and thou

Beside me singing in the wilderness –

And wilderness is paradise now.

                        --

**Think, in this batter’d caravanserai

Whose doorways are alternate night and  day,

How Sultan after Sultan with his pomp

Abode his hour or two, and went his way.

                        -----

 ***Then to this earthen bowl did I adjourn

My lip the secret well of life to learn :

And lip to lip it murmur’d –“While you live

Drink ---for once dead you never shall return.”

                         ___

           

****Ah, fill the cup: what boots it to repeat

How Time is slipping underneath our feet:

Unborn To-Morrow and dead YESTERDAY

Why fret about them if To-DAY be sweet !

                                    _____

The moving finger writes: and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all your piety nor wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.

                                    *********

To conclude, the central theme of Khayyam’s quatrains is: The ephemeral   

nature of human life. And his advice to human beings is to  catch the present moment tightly and enjoy it whole-heartedly.  

 

G. R.  Kanwal

20 April 2026