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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.

Omar Khayyam. Mathematiker, Astronom und Dichter

Omar Khayyam. Mathematiker, Astronom und Dichter. Nasser Kanani. [S.l.], Köningshausen & Neumann, 2024. 466 p. ISBN: 9783826090257

Omar Khayyam (1048–1131) verfasste Abhandlungen über Mathematik, Astronomie, Physik und Mechanik sowie Theologie, Philosophie und Musiktheorie. Als Mathematiker befasste er sich mit kubischen Gleichungen und fand als Erster ihre Lösungen mithilfe von Kegelschnitten. Im Bereich der Geometrie widmete er sich dem Parallelenpostulat und gelangte zu einem Ergebnis, das die Entdeckung von nichteuklidischen Geometrien einläutete. Ferner gelang es ihm, als Erster die Binomialkoeffizienten zu bestimmen, die später zur Bewältigung zahlreicher Probleme der modernen Mathematik beitrugen. Als Astronom entwickelte er den weltweit genauesten Kalender. Dass er sich neben seinen bahnbrechenden wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten auch mit der Poesie beschäftigte, verheimlichte er jedoch seinen Zeitgenossen, und dies aus gutem Grund: Der damals vorherrschende religiöse Fundamentalismus duldete keinerlei glaubenskritische Äußerungen, schon gar nicht aus dem Munde eines Mannes, der als Autorität im islamischen Recht galt. Erst Jahrhunderte später erfuhr die Nachwelt von seinen Vierzeilern, Rūbā’ijāt, die in verschiedenen Quellen auftauchten. Nachdem sie Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts in englischer Sprache erschienen, wurden sie als die schönsten Vierzeiler der Weltliteratur gefeiert. Die Übersetzungen seiner Vierzeiler liegen nun in fast allen Sprachen der Welt vor und sind ein Beweis für die anhaltende poetische Wirkung Khayyams und begründen auch die Weltgeltung der persischen Poesie.

Zwei deutsche Chajjam-Gesellschaften und ihre Gründer

Zwei deutsche Chajjam-Gesellschaften und ihre Gründer. Eine Spurensuche. Wilfried W. Meijer
In: Persica, vol. 28, (2023-2024), p. 59-127

Part of the Omar Khayyám story in the West is the history of the so called Omar Khayyám clubs. The first one was the Omar Khayyám Club of Londen, established in 1890 and still existing. A second club was the Omar Khayyám Club of America, founded in 1920. A century after the English club a Dutch club was founded in 1990, that too is still alive: the Nederlands Omar Khayyám Genootschap. However, there was also a club in Germany: die Deutsche Chajjam Gesellschaft (DCG) in Tübingen. Other than the mentioned clubs this Gesellschaft was rather a company or enterprise than a society. Its primary purpose was publishing and promoting the work of its founder, Chr. Rempis, who contributed significantly to the study and understanding of Khayyám’s rubáiyát. Unknown to this day however is the story of a second German Gesellschaft. It was founded in Osnabrück in 1949 by Th.F.K. Krohm. Whereas the Tübingen Gesellschaft became known through Rempis’ translations and studies, the Osnabrück club hardly evoked publicity despite its ambitious name: die Omar Khayyam-Gesellschaft zur Pflege iranischer Literatur (OKG).

Untersuchung zur Rezeption persischer Lyrik in der europäischen Kunstmusik

Untersuchung zur Rezeption persischer Lyrik in der europäischen Kunstmusik am Beispiel der Werke von Saʿdī, Ḥāfeẓ und ʿOmar Ḫayyām. Elgaz Pegah. Heidelberg : Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, 2024.

Summary
Betrachtet man das breite Spektrum musikalischer Werke basierend auf persischer Lyrik und ihre daraus resultierende enorme Bedeutung für die europäische Kunstmusik, ist es verwunderlich, wie wenig dieses Thema bislang erforscht ist. Während zur literarischen Rezeption der persischen Lyrik in europäischen Sprachen zahlreiche Studien vorliegen, ist es bei deren musikalischer Rezeption nicht der Fall.

Quatrains of Many Receptions

Quatrains of Many Receptions: A Survey of Perceptions of ‘Omar Khayyām in Ottoman and Turkish Translations. Efe Murat Balıkçıoğlu
In: Iranian Studies, Vol. 57 (2024), 2, pp. 221–239

This article explores the wide range of responses to Persian polymath and poet ‘Omar Khayyām (d. ca. 526/1132) in Ottoman and Turkish literary sources. There is an extensive bibliography of translations and secondary literature.