Rijk met het onvolmaakte. Frans Dijkstra
In: Trouw, 12-7-2010
Portret van Gerard Burger (1948-2010). Hij ontworstelde zich aan een benauwd katholiek milieu en omarmde de onzekerheid van het bestaan. Een boekenwurm in actie.
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The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Muslim secularism
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Muslim secularism. Juan Cole
Studies in People’s History 3 (2016) 2, pp. 138-150.
The fact that quatrains known as Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam were not really composed by the twelfth century astronomer of that name, but composed by various hands and made into collections later, is widely accepted. This paper examines under what political and social atmosphere in later times, the collections began to be compiled, and what elements of scepticism, irreligion, mysticism and even rationalism entered into them. It is argued that the collections retained their popularity and freely circulated wherever Persian was cultivated down to modern times.
FitzGerald’s Anglo-Persian Rubáiyát
FitzGerald’s Anglo-Persian Rubáiyát. R. Taher-Kermani.
Translation and Literature, 23 (2014), nr. 3 (324-335)
This article examines Edward FitzGerald’s translation practice and the poetics of his Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859) in order to to enrich and supplement previous critiques. FitzGerald succeeded in ‘Persianising’ his re-writing of the rubáiyát by importing matter of peculiar Persian significance. In order to identify it, his translation of Khayyám needs to be read with, so to speak, a Persian eye; it has to be scrutinized as a native critic would read and analyse the poetry of, for example, Hāfiz. This is the fundamental approach of this essay.
Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat – an Antidote for Islamic Fundamentalism
Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat – an Antidote for Islamic Fundamentalism. N. Berdichevsky.
New English Review, (2007) November.
Omar Khayyam (1044-1123) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, and mystic. His reputation was for a time highly regarded in Iran under the regime of the last Shah but by and large he has been held either in ignominy, contempt, total disregard or intentional oblivion by almost the entire Muslim world, and especially the Arab countries and his native Iran, ruled today by the clique of fanatical mullahs who represent the very targets of bigotry, asceticism and ignorance his verses derided in The Rubaiyat.
Reading the Rubá’iyyát as “resistance literature”
Reading the Rubá’iyyát as “resistance literature”. Mehdi Aminrazavi.
In: The great ‘Umar Khayyám. Leiden, Leiden University Press, 2012. pp. 39-53.
Aminrazavi argues that many of the Rubáiyát were written as a reaction to the rise of Islamic orthodoxy and the demise of the intellectual freedom which was so prevalent in the first four centuries of the Islamic history. He argues that once Khayyám’s Rubáiyát are placed within the historical context of his time, they will no longer appear to be the pessimistic existential bemoaning of a poet-philosopher like Schopenhauer. Rather, one can see the Rubáiyát as an intellectual critique of the rise of orthodox and legalistic Islam as represented by the faith-based theology of the Ash‘arite.
‘Omar Khayyám et les activités mathématiques en Pays d’Islam aux XIe-XIIe siècles
‘Omar Khayyám et les activités mathématiques en Pays d’Islam aux XIe-XIIe siècles. A. Djebbar.
Farhang 12 (2000) nr. 29-32, p. 1-31.
The Fame of Omar Khayyam
The Fame of Omar Khayyam. Abd al-Haqq Fádil.
The Muslim World, 50 (1960) 4, pp. 259-268
Omar Khayyam’s popularity has two phases. In his life he was tremendously famous for his copious learning; after his death he became celebrated for his brilliant Rubáiyyát. In both he was unique and matchless. But he did not enjoy his fame completely either in life or in death. It is time now for us to grant him his due in full as a man of learning and as a poet.