Few
people have not heard of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, but the fame of his poetry in the West has
only existed since 1839, when Edward Fitzgerald published an English translation of Khayyam's
Rubaiyat ("Quatrains"). It has since become a classic of world literature, and is largely
responsible for influencing European ideas about Persian poetry and literature. Prior to that it was
his brilliance as a scientist that made his reputation, and his legacy was a calendar more accurate
than the one we currently use.
Ghiyath
al-Din Abul Fatah Omar Ibn Ibrahim Al-Khayyam was born in Nishappin (now in Iran) in 1044. A literal
translation of the name Al-Khayyam means 'tent maker' and this may have been the trade of Ibrahim
his father. Khayyam played on the meaning of his own name when he wrote:
Khayyam,
who stitched the tents of science,
Has
fallen in grief's furnace and been suddenly burned,
The
shears of Fate have cut the tent ropes of his life,
And
the broker of Hope has sold him for nothing!
Avid
Learner in Tumultuous Times
The
political events of the 11th century played a major role in the course of Khayyam's life. The Seljuk
Turks were tribes that invaded southwestern Asia in the 11th century and eventually founded an
empire that included Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, and most of Iran. The Seljuk occupied the
grazing grounds of Khorasan and then, between 1038 and 1040, they conquered all of northeastern
Iran. The Seljuk ruler, Toghrïl Beg, proclaimed himself sultan at Nishapur in 1038 and entered
Baghdad in 1055. It was in this difficult unstable military empire, which also had religious
problems as it attempted to establish an orthodox Muslim state, in which Khayyam grew up.
The
young Omar was an avid student and quickly became skilled in mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy.
He spent most of his life in Persian intellectual centers such as Samarkand and Bukhara, and enjoyed
the favor of the Seljuk sultans who ruled the region.
Khayyam
wrote several works including Problems of Arithmetic, a book on music and one on algebra before he
was 25 years old. In 1070 he moved to Samarkand in Uzbekistan, which is one of the oldest cities of
Central Asia. There, Khayyam was supported by Abu Tahir, a prominent jurist of Samarkand, and this
allowed him to write his most famous algebra work, Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of
Algebra.
Khayyam’s
“Astronomical” Achievements
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Omar Khayyam,
The Rubaiyat of Omar
Khayyam (1901) |
Toghril
Beg, the founder of the Seljuk dynasty, had made Esfahan the capital of his domains and his
grandson, Malik-Shah Jalal al-Din, had ruled there since 1073. An invitation was sent to Khayyam
from Malik-Shah and from his vizier, Nizam al-Mulk, asking Khayyam to go to Esfahan to set up an
observatory there. Other leading astronomers were also brought to the observatory in Esfahan, and
for 18 years Khayyam led the scientists and produced work of outstanding quality. It was a period of
peace during which the political situation allowed Khayyam the opportunity to devote himself
entirely to his scholarly work.
During
this time Khayyam led work on compiling astronomical tables and he also contributed to calendar
reform in 1079. It was to be his greatest achievement. Developed in response to the Seljuk sultan's
need for a new schedule for revenue collection, Khayyam's calendar, called Al-Tarikh-al-Jalali after
the sultan, was even more accurate than the Gregorian calendar presently used in most of the world:
the Jalali calendar had an error of one day in 3770 years, while the Gregorian has an error of one
day in 3330 years. Khayyam measured the length of one year as 365.24219858156 days, which is
remarkably accurate. It has since been discovered that the number changes in the 6th decimal place
over a person's lifetime. For comparison of Khayyam's accuracy, the length of one year at the end of
the 19th century was 365.242196 days, and today it is 365.242190. Although the calendar project was
canceled upon Malik-Shah's death in 1092, the Jalali calendar has survived and is still used in
parts of Iran and Afghanistan today.
The
death of the sultan, a month after his vizier Nizam al-Mulk was murdered on the road from Esfahan to
Baghdad by the terrorist movement called the Assassins, ended Khayyam's period of peaceful
existence. Malik-Shah's second wife took over as ruler for two years but she had argued with Nizam
al-Mulk, so support was withdrawn from his clients and funding for the Observatory ceased and
Khayyam's calendar reform was put on hold. Khayyam also came under attack from the orthodox Muslims
who felt that Khayyam's questioning mind did not conform to the faith.
Despite
being out of favor on all sides, Khayyam remained at the Court. He wrote a work in which he
described former rulers in Iran as men of great honor who had supported public works, science and
scholarship.
The
Mathematician
Malik-Shah's
third son, Sanjar, became the overall ruler of the Seljuk Empire in 1118. Sometime after this
Khayyam left Esfahan and traveled to Merv (now Mary, Turkmenistan) which Sanjar had made the capital
of the Seljuk Empire. Sanjar created a great center of Islamic learning in Merv where Khayyam wrote
further works on mathematics.
Khayyam
produced his Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra that contained a complete
classification of cubic equations with geometric solutions found by means of intersecting conic
sections. Khayyam was the first to conceive a general theory of cubic equations, writing:
In
the science of algebra one encounters problems dependent on certain types of extremely difficult
preliminary theorems, whose solution was unsuccessful for most of those who attempted it. As for the
Ancients, no work from them dealing with the subject has come down to us; perhaps after having
looked for solutions and having examined them, they were unable to fathom their difficulties; or
perhaps their investigations did not require such an examination; or finally, their works on this
subject, if they existed, have not been translated into our language.
Another
achievement in the text is Khayyam's realization that a cubic equation can have more than one
solution. He demonstrated the existence of equations having two solutions, but does not appear to
have found that a cubic can have three solutions.
In
Commentaries on the Difficult Postulates of Euclid's Book, Khayyam made a contribution to
non-Euclidean geometry, although this was not his intention. In trying to prove the parallels
postulate, he accidentally proved properties of figures in non-Euclidean geometries. Khayyam also
gave important results on ratios in this book, extending Euclid's work to include the multiplication
of ratios. He also posed the question of whether a ratio can be regarded as a number but leaves the
question unanswered.
Khayyam's
legacy remains largely in science with his work in geometry so far ahead of its time that it was not
used again until René Descartes built upon Khayyam's theories in 17th century France.
Outside
the world of mathematics, Khayyam is best known for nearly 600 short four-line poems in the Rubaiyat.
Interestingly, Khayyam's poetry was not published in the Muslim world until 200 years after his
death (it would be another 500 years until it appeared in Europe). These delays in publication lead
some to doubt whether Khayyam actually wrote the Rubaiyat, or whether it was a later author. After
careful analysis, however, most scholars now agree that he is the author, revealing a philosophical
side to Khayyam that few of his contemporaries knew.Of all the
verses, the best known is the following:
The
Moving Finger writes, and, having writ,
Moves
on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall
lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor
all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
David
Tschanz is a medical/military historian currently based in
Saudi Arabia
. He is also an epidemiologist, web developer, editor and demographer. You may contact him by
sending your emails to: Desertwriter1121@yahoo.com
