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The real Omar Khayyam

The real Omar Khayyam. B. Csillik.
Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 10 (1960), p. 58-77.

Review of Arberry's edition of 1949.
This edition, as the Author-Editor himself tells us in his Introduction, had to fulfill the purpose of quickly presenting to the public, with a minimum of critical apparatus, the newly discovered facts in order to give share to others in the exciting work of further research. Beside the Introduction the book contains nothing but the printed text of the MS with the critical apparatus, the English versions and an alphabetical list of the quatrains. The Editor restored the dotted däl’s wherever the copyist omitted them by obvious inadvertency and — what the copyist did not even try to do — he distinguished the pä and gäf letters from the bä and käf letters. This peculiar employment of the däl, bä and käf letters speaks for the antiquity of the MS. The dots supplied by the Editor are not indicated, and this may be regretted in view of the potential hints which the presence or absence of the dots of the däl’s might have given to the student of phonology and linguistic history.

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.

Theme of Wine-drinking and the Concept of the Beloved in Early Persian Poetry

Theme of Wine-drinking and the Concept of the Beloved in Early Persian Poetry. E. Yarshater.
Studia Islamica 13, (1960), p. 43-53.

Glorification of wine and drinking scenes is, in fact, one of the major themes of early Persian poetry. Descriptions are direct, vivid, and refreshingly varied. Generally, the poet speaks with knowledge and authority on the subject, and his delightfully appealing delineation reveals that sensuous quality so characteristic of Persian art. Many valuable details bearing on the drinking institution at courts, not recorded elsewhere, can be gathered from the poetry of the tenth and eleventh centuries.

Preparing for the Centenary of Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat

Preparing for the Centenary of Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat. Carl J. Weber.
Colby Library Quarterly, 5 (1959) 1, p. 5-14.

When The Variorum and Definitive Edition of the Poetical and Prose Writings of Edward FitzGerald was published with an Introduction by Edmund Gosse, there seemed little doubt about the date of publication of the Rubaiyat. With an assurance that seemed based on certitude, Gosse referred to “the now so-precious pamphlet which Quaritch issued stillborn on the 15th of February, 1859.”

One hundred years of FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

One hundred years of FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. John D. Yohannan.
Epiterea (1959) p. 259-274.

Brief account of the FitzGerald translation, later translations, the public attitude towards Omar Khayyam, interspersed with some interesting observations and facts.

Omar Khayyam, Mathematician

Omar Khayyam, Mathematician. D.J. Struik.
The Mathematics Teacher, 51 (1958) 4, pp. 280-285.

Not all the admirers of the Rubáiyát are aware that their author, Abu-l-Fath Omar ibn Ibrahim Khayyam, of Nishapur in present North Iran, was also a distinguished philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician. As a philosopher, he was a follower of Aristotle, whom he interpreted with a keen rationalism; as an astronomer, he composed a calendar more accurate than that proposed centuries later by Pope Gregory XIII and now adopted by most people. Omar’s mathematics has been brought closer to the English-reading world by the Kasir translation of his Algebra, published in 1931, although a French translation by Woepcke has existed since 1851