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Omar Khayyam’s Transgressive Ethics and Their Socio-Political Implications in Contemporary Iran

Omar Khayyam’s Transgressive Ethics and Their Socio-Political Implications in Contemporary Iran. A.A. Seyed-Gohrab.
In: Iran Namag, Vol. 5, no. 3 (Fall 2020).

Summary:

In this paper, the author examines several social implications of Khayyam’s poetry and the reception history of the Persian sage (hakim) Omar Khayyam, who has become a personification of transgressive ideas in Persian literary history. The fascination of the author is due not only to Khayyam’s poetic genius (although he is not the author of the majority of quatrains attributed to him), but also to his problematic reception in twentieth-century Iran and how he has been connected to the notion of modernity. Both religious and secular intellectuals have tried to position Khayyam in the modern intellectual history of Iran in their own ways.

The Confluence of Wisdom …

The Confluence of Wisdom Along the Silk Road. Omar Khayyam’s Transformative Poetry. Mostafa Vaziri.
[S.l.] : Vernon Press, 2021. 208 p. ISBN: 9781648893162

Summary

For centuries along the vibrant cultural corridor of the Silk Road of Central Asia, philosophers and thinkers from Hellenic, Chinese and Indian traditions debated existential issues. Out of this stimulating milieu, the iconic poet-mathematician Omar Khayyam emerged in the eleventh century, advancing a transformative intercultural philosophy in his poetic work, the Rubaiyat.
Vaziri traces the themes of Khayyam’s Rubaiyat back to the highly influential philosophical traditions of the Silk Road and uncovers fascinating parallels in original works by Heraclitus, Zhuangzi (Daoism), Nagarjuna (Mahayana Buddhism), and the Upanishads. In addition, Vaziri’s elegant translation and unique classification of the verses of the Rubaiyat reveal an existential roadmap laid out by Khayyam.
In this pioneering volume, Vaziri not only fuses the multiple disciplines of literature, philosophy, culture, history and medicine but also takes the approach of the Rubaiyat to a new level, presenting it as a source of wisdom therapy that stands the test of time in the face of doubt and confusion, offering a platform for self-restoration.