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Vernacularizing Rubaiyat: the politics of Madhushala in the context of the Indian nationalism

Vernacularizing Rubaiyat: the politics of Madhushala in the context of the Indian nationalism. A. Castaing.
In: The great ‘Umar Khayyám. Leiden, Leiden University Press, 2012. pp. 215–232.

Anne Castaing shows the influence of Khayyám on the young Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bacchan (1907-2003), who translated the quatrains into Hindi under the title of Umar khayyám kī Madhuśálá (“Omar Khayyám’s House of Wine”). Bacchan wrote his own collection of quatrains entitled Madhuśálá (“The house of wine,” 1935) that deals with the same motifs and symbolism and are interpreted as an “allegory of poetic creation, homeland, universe, love etc., with wine and intoxication symbolising the duality of existence, both sweet and bitter.” By using themes and motifs from Khayyám’s poetry, Bacchan readdresses the questions of orthodoxy versus free thinking, hierarchy of being and man’s place in the universe.

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 Khayam: messager de l’Iran universel

Omar Khayam: messager de l’Iran universel. Nabhani Koribaa. Paris, Publisud, 1988. 62 p. ISBN: 9782866003432

Summary:
La vie mouvementée de ce génie iranien connu pour ses célèbres quatrains ou roubaïates. Il sut briser les entraves du fanatisme et apparaître comme le représentant de l’esprit libre.