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Umar Khayyam

Umar Khayyam
In: Dalal (Ed.) Ethics in Persian poetry (with special reference to Timurid period). Ghulam Abbas Dalal. New Delhi : Abhinav Publications, 1995. ISBN: 8170173140 . Pp. 71–95.

Discusses life of Khayyam and his works, and the views thereon. Was he a poet or not, a drunkard and heretic, and what was his character?

Variants in Khayyamic Poetry

Variants in Khayyamic Poetry. Ralph Groves.
Islamic culture 69 (1995), nr. 3, p. 47-64.

This study will examine some of the variants found in Khayyamic poetry. After a brief introduction to Omar Khayyam, some variants in Khayyamic poetry will be presented to the reader. A hypothesis as to the causes of variations will be put forth and then criteria will be suggested to the reader for choosing the variant roba’i most loyal to Khayyam’s style.

Les quatrains irréligieux d’Omar Khayyâm

Les quatrains irréligieux d’Omar Khayyâm. G. Lazard.
In: Au carrefour des religions: mélanges offerts à Philippe Gignoux. Bures-sur-Yvette, Groupe pour l’Étude de la Civilisation, 1995. p. 177-182.

The Persian poems of Omar Khayyam give interesting information on the religious views of this famous scientist. An investigation of the quatrains preserved by the most reliable sources points to Khayyam most likely being an atheist. This hypothesis explains why his poetry is ignored by the oldest writers who mention his name: it was produced for a small circle of close friends and, out of cautiousness, was not made known outside of it for some time.

Orientalism translated – Omar Khayyam through Persian, English and Hindi

Orientalism translated – Omar Khayyam through Persian, English and Hindi. Harish Trivedi.
In: Colonial transactions. English literature in India. Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1995., p. 29-52.

The Khayyam texts assembled in this essay constitute a partial but significant narrative of the formation of the modem Indian identity not only in terms of a Perso-Indian response to a Perso-Anglian poetic construct, but also in terms of the constantly shifting grounds of the linguistic basis of that response. The progress of Khayyam from Persian not initially into Hindi but into English into Hindi into English-English into Indian-English not only reflects closely the linguistic-cultural evolution of modem India from c. 1780 to 1989: it also provides a complex ‘oriëntalist’ sub-text of our colonial and post-colonial condition over this period.

Omar Khayyam, Mathematicians, and Conversazioni with Artisans

Omar Khayyam, Mathematicians, and Conversazioni with Artisans. A. Özdura.
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 54 (1995) nr. 1, p. 54-71.

Summary

The main purpose of this article is to substantiate the proposition that mathematicians and architect-artisans had collaborated through special meetings, called conversazioni in the text, for the application of geometry to architecture in the Islamic world. A meeting reportedly attended by Omar Khayyam furnishes convincing evidence for this proposition. The study expands on the untitled treatise written by Omar Khayyam as a response to a question raised at this meeting. The treatise is about a problem that concerns an ornamental pattern, the story of which can be traced in two other works on geometry: Abu ‘l-Wafa’ al-Buzajani’s book, What the Artisan Requires of Geometric Constructions, and an anonymous Persian treatise on ornamental geometry, On Interlocking Similar or Corresponding Figures. While these three works are analyzed in the article, the wider implications of the collaboration between mathematicians and artisans concerning the field of architecture are discussed.