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Omar Khayyam. Mathematiker, Astronom und Dichter

Omar Khayyam. Mathematiker, Astronom und Dichter. Nasser Kanani. [S.l.], Köningshausen & Neumann, 2024. 466 p. ISBN: 9783826090257

Omar Khayyam (1048–1131) verfasste Abhandlungen über Mathematik, Astronomie, Physik und Mechanik sowie Theologie, Philosophie und Musiktheorie. Als Mathematiker befasste er sich mit kubischen Gleichungen und fand als Erster ihre Lösungen mithilfe von Kegelschnitten. Im Bereich der Geometrie widmete er sich dem Parallelenpostulat und gelangte zu einem Ergebnis, das die Entdeckung von nichteuklidischen Geometrien einläutete. Ferner gelang es ihm, als Erster die Binomialkoeffizienten zu bestimmen, die später zur Bewältigung zahlreicher Probleme der modernen Mathematik beitrugen. Als Astronom entwickelte er den weltweit genauesten Kalender. Dass er sich neben seinen bahnbrechenden wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten auch mit der Poesie beschäftigte, verheimlichte er jedoch seinen Zeitgenossen, und dies aus gutem Grund: Der damals vorherrschende religiöse Fundamentalismus duldete keinerlei glaubenskritische Äußerungen, schon gar nicht aus dem Munde eines Mannes, der als Autorität im islamischen Recht galt. Erst Jahrhunderte später erfuhr die Nachwelt von seinen Vierzeilern, Rūbā’ijāt, die in verschiedenen Quellen auftauchten. Nachdem sie Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts in englischer Sprache erschienen, wurden sie als die schönsten Vierzeiler der Weltliteratur gefeiert. Die Übersetzungen seiner Vierzeiler liegen nun in fast allen Sprachen der Welt vor und sind ein Beweis für die anhaltende poetische Wirkung Khayyams und begründen auch die Weltgeltung der persischen Poesie.

Zwei deutsche Chajjam-Gesellschaften und ihre Gründer

Zwei deutsche Chajjam-Gesellschaften und ihre Gründer. Eine Spurensuche. Wilfried W. Meijer
In: Persica, vol. 28, (2023-2024), p. 59-127

Part of the Omar Khayyám story in the West is the history of the so called Omar Khayyám clubs. The first one was the Omar Khayyám Club of Londen, established in 1890 and still existing. A second club was the Omar Khayyám Club of America, founded in 1920. A century after the English club a Dutch club was founded in 1990, that too is still alive: the Nederlands Omar Khayyám Genootschap. However, there was also a club in Germany: die Deutsche Chajjam Gesellschaft (DCG) in Tübingen. Other than the mentioned clubs this Gesellschaft was rather a company or enterprise than a society. Its primary purpose was publishing and promoting the work of its founder, Chr. Rempis, who contributed significantly to the study and understanding of Khayyám’s rubáiyát. Unknown to this day however is the story of a second German Gesellschaft. It was founded in Osnabrück in 1949 by Th.F.K. Krohm. Whereas the Tübingen Gesellschaft became known through Rempis’ translations and studies, the Osnabrück club hardly evoked publicity despite its ambitious name: die Omar Khayyam-Gesellschaft zur Pflege iranischer Literatur (OKG).

Edward Heron-Allen and the Quilter Rubaiyat

Edward Heron-Allen and the Quilter Rubaiyat. Bob Forrest
In: The Heron-Allen Society : newsletter, (2021), 39, pp. 5-7

A short biographical sketch of Harry Quilter, producer of one the many, rare pirate editions of the Rubaiyat, issued in 1883. With some details about Potter’s efforts to gather more information about this book.

Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Dick Sullivan.
The Victorian Webb (2014)

We’re lucky to have FitzGerald’s The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam at all. It was by chance that he met Edward Cowell, one of the few Victorians who spoke Persian, and who was friendly enough to help him. (FitzGerald was no linguist.) It was by chance also that Cowell discovered an Omar Khayyam manuscript in the Bodleian (FitzGerald had tried to stop him going to Oxford).

The discovery of the Rubáiyát

The discovery of the Rubáiyát. Robert Bernard Martin.
In: Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyám. Ed. by H. Bloom. Philadelphia, Chelsea House, 2004. p. 77-95.
(From With Friends Possessed: A Life of Edward FitzGerald, 1985.)

Martin considers the death of Fitzgerald’s great friend, William Browne, as the significant event which shaped the author’s life. The consensus to explain the Rubaiyat’s success is that “the times were ripe” for works repudiating the traditional religious morality and attempting to find an alternative to it. It is indeed startling to realise that the date of the Rubaiyat’s first appearance, 1859, coincides with that of Darwin’s Origin of Species.

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. I.B.H. Jewett.
In: Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyám. Ed. by H. Bloom. Philadelphia, Chelsea House, 2004. p. 21-58.
(From Edward FitzGerald. © 1977 by G.K. Hall & Co.)

Jewett pinpoints interesting moments in the correspondence between Fitzgerald and his mentor, Cowell, comparing their versions of the same Khayyam quatrain, thus illustrating “dramatically the difference between translation and creation”. The importance Fitzgerald attached to his earlier translation of Jami’s Salaman and Absal is also touched upon. Fitzgerald emphatic stipulation that Omar never be published without Salaman was apparently disregarded after his death. The article further gives a brief treatment of the problem of the Persian quatrains’ authenticity and of Khayyam’s possible authorship and possible mysticism.

Other Persian quatrains in Holland: the Roseraie du savoir of Husayn-i Ázád

Other Persian quatrains in Holland: the Roseraie du savoir of Husayn-i Ázád. J.T.P. de Bruijn.
In: The great ‘Umar Khayyám. Leiden, Leiden University Press, 2012. pp. 105-114.

De Bruijn explains how, from the nineteenth century onwards, Persian quatrains became fashionable in Dutch poetry. After briefly referring to two great Dutch poets, P.C. Boutens (1870-1943) and J.H. Leopold (1865-1925), De Bruijn concentrates on their common source, an anthology of Persian quatrains in two parts published in 1906 under the titles Gulzár-i ma ‘rifat and La Roseraie du Savoir respectively. The author of these Persian and French anthologies was a Persian by the name of Husayn-i Ázád, who was a physician at the provincial Qajar court of Isfahan. He travelled to London and Paris, but later settled in Paris, where he concentrated on European and Persian poetry. In his chapter, De Bruijn gives a vivid picture of Husayn-i Ázád’s life and how he tried to introduce treasures from the Persian literary tradition to a western public.