Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Lore & Background

Omar Khayyam was famous during his lifetime not as a poet but as an astronomer and mathematician. The earliest reference to his having written poetry appears in a biography written 43 years after his death. Medieval historians such as al-Isfahani, Shahrazuri, and Al-Qifti reinforce this view. The number of quatrains attributed to him in later collections varies from about 1,200 to more than 2,000, but skeptical scholars note that the entire tradition may be pseudepigraphic. Extant manuscripts are dated too late to reconstruct a body of authentic verses. In the 1930s, Iranian scholars like Mohammad-Ali Foroughi attempted to reconstruct authentic verses from scattered 13th- and 14th-century quotes, but post-World War II efforts were delayed by forgeries. De Blois (2004) suggests scholarship has not advanced beyond the 1930s, when Hans Heinrich Schaeder commented that Khayyam's name 'is to be struck out from the history of Persian literature.' Various tests have reduced the quatrains attributable to Khayyam to about 100; Arthur Christensen accepted 121, Foroughi 178, and Ali Dashti 36.

Reader's Guide

Edward FitzGerald's 1859 translation of the Rubáiyát was commercially unsuccessful at first but gained popularity from 1861 onward through Whitley Stokes and admiration from the Pre-Raphaelites. A third edition in 1872 increased interest in the United States, and by the 1880s the book was extremely popular throughout the English-speaking world, leading to 'Omar Khayyam clubs' and a fin de siècle cult. FitzGerald's work has been published in several hundred editions and inspired similar translations into English, Hindi, and other languages. The work sparked a prolonged debate over the correct interpretation of the poems. FitzGerald emphasized religious scepticism, describing Omar's philosophy as Epicurean and claiming Omar was hated by Sufis. Critics accused FitzGerald of misrepresenting Sufi mysticism. The Sufi interpretation is a minority view; modern scholars like Sadegh Hedayat defended the scepticist reading. The authenticity of the poetry remains highly uncertain, with scholars unable to definitively attribute most quatrains to Khayyam.

Did You Know?

• FitzGerald's first edition of 250 copies became extremely sought after by the 1890s, when more than two million copies had been sold in two hundred editions.
• A. J. Arberry showed that some 40 of the 75 quatrains in the first edition were loose translations of a single stanza, while others were 'mashed together' from two quatrains.
• The number of quatrains attributed to Omar Khayyam in more recent collections varies from about 1,200 to more than 2,000.
• Sadegh Hedayat concluded that only 14 quatrains could be attributed to Khayyam with certainty.