Omar Khayyám in German Reformulations: Translation between Politics, Scholarship and Belief

Omar Khayyám in German Reformulations: Translation between Politics, Scholarship and Belief. Amir Theilhaber
In: Sufi non-conformism : antinomian trends in the Persianate cultural traditions. A.A. Seyed-Gohrab (ed.) Amsterdam : Leiden University Press, 2024. (Iranian Studies Series; 32) ISBN: 9789087284541. Pp. 203–226

Summary
Khayyām’s legacy extends to Europe and the present day. Amir Theilhaber’s chapter studies how Khayyām’s quatrains (rubāʿiyyāt) were canonised in the German-speaking world through the translation of Friedrich Rosen (1856–1935), Die Sinnsprüche Omars des Zeltmachers. Rosen was a diplomat and scholar of Oriental studies, who had an impact on Khayyām studies in Europe. Theilhaber examines Rosen’s life and the role Khayyām played in his intellectual and religious life. One of the many interesting topics that Theilhaber examines is how Rosen sees in Khayyām the ideas of a freethinker openly challenging Islamic religious orthodoxy, seeing in the Persian scientist an “Aryan-Indo-Germanic spirit that seeks cognisance, in a cultural war against the dogma of Semitic ‘Arabianness.’” Theilhaber demonstrates how such perverse antisemitic ideas were rightly refuted by scholars such as Ignaz Goldziher. The discussion shows how scholars in modern times treated nonconformist mediaeval ideas to explain the rise and popularity of antinomian movements. Aside from such original insights, Theilhaber’s chapter elaborates upon Rosen’s collaboration with Persian intellectuals such as Taqī Arānī in Berlin.

A Polemic on Knowledge: An Analysis of Two Persian Quatrains

A Polemic on Knowledge: An Analysis of Two Persian Quatrains. A. Ghajarjazi
In: Sufi non-conformism : antinomian trends in the Persianate cultural traditions. A.A. Seyed-Gohrab (ed.) Amsterdam : Leiden University Press, 2024. (Iranian Studies Series; 32) ISBN: 9789087284541. Pp. 179–201

Summary
Arash Ghajarjazi’s chapter is an excellent example of how Persian religious intellectuals discussed their ideas through quatrains. His chapter deals with a dispute elaborated in two Persian quatrains in a manuscript from 644/1256 that is preserved in the Shahīd ʿAlī Pashā Library in Istanbul. These quatrains deal with the use of reason, as opposed to tradition, to understand doctrinal religious issues. This is an allusion to the animosity between philosophers, who preferred discursive reasoning to explain religious doctrines, and those whose approach to religious principles was theological and based on prophetic tradition. The two approaches are indicated in each poem by a different term: rāy or “opinion,” and “reason,” and khabar or “tradition,” in both its general sense and as a term for the prophetic traditions, i.e., ḥadīth.

 

‘Umar Khayyám’s Transgressive Ethics and their Socio-Political Implications in Contemporary Iran

‘Umar Khayyám’s Transgressive Ethics and their Socio-Political Implications in Contemporary Iran. A.A. Seyed-Gohrab
In: Sufi non-conformism : antinomian trends in the Persianate cultural traditions. A.A. Seyed-Gohrab (ed.) Amsterdam : Leiden University Press, 2024.  (Iranian Studies Series; 32) ISBN: 9789087284541. Pp. 155–177

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.

A Persian Christmas

A Persian Christmas. M.R.
In: The Bystander – Wednesday 05 December 1906
Also in: Northampton Mercury – Friday 21 December 1906 , and some other newspapers

6 quatrains

Omaresques

Omaresques. W.G. Priest
In: Tonbridge Free Press – Friday 05 January 1940

7 quatrains

Beer Rubaiyat

Beer Rubaiyat. M.L.
In: The bulletin.Vol. 31 No. 1580 (26 May 1910)

2 quatrains