Omar Khayyam - The Name Where Mathematics Met Poetry

Penpals of Science History: Letters of Avicenna and Al Biruni

6 November 2019

Omar Khayyam – The Name Where Mathematics Met Poetry

“The eternal secrets, neither you know nor I Answers to the riddles, neither you know nor I Behind the veil is the conversation of me and you When the veil falls, neither you remain nor I”

I am Ghiyath ad-Din Abu’l-Fath Omar ibn Ibrahim al-Khayyam. Friend of great Nizam al-Mulk, classmate of infamous Hassan-i Sabbah. An astronom, and a mathematician as you call it but I am more of a poet. I’m troubled, looking for the meaning. Verses pass through me all the time. I didn’t know that you would call them rubai. Iran is my motherland. A land that you see the art wherever you look and you find an artist wherever you go. And I, Khayyam, a tent-maker’s son, make tents with an unbearable curiosity in my head. I create equations and solve equations, out of curiosity. Maths is a secret door and astronomy is a deep ocean to me. I spent my days and my night for this cause.

“Up from Earth’s centre through the seventh Gate I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate And many Knots unravel’d by the Road; But not the Knot of Human Date and Fate.”

I, Omar Khayyam; it was 11th century and I woke up in Nishapur. I passed thorugh Baghdad, Balkh and other beautiful cities but I will pass away to the eternal life from my city. And “My tomb shall be in a spot where the north wind may scatter roses over it.” But pay no mind to my passing because, one day after a long long time, when you read one of my poems, I’ll be blowing to my verses over apricot trees in Nishapur.

1. Omar Khayyam Quadratic Equation, Encyclopedia Britannica
(online https://www.britannica.com/biography/Omar-Khayyam-Persian-poet-and-astronomer , 18.09.2019)