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Omar Khayyám was one of the greatest mathematicians, astronomers, and poets of Iran whose Ruba’iyat (quatrains) are translated into most of the languages of the world and who has earned a universal recognition by everyone. He was an epicurean philosopher, a rationalist skeptic and freethinker and follower of Greek philosophy, and scornful of religion and in particular of Islam. His views on Islam were in sheer contradiction with its fundamental precepts. He objected to the notion that every particular event and phenomenon was the result of the intervention of Allah. He did not believe in resurrection, Judgment Day or rewards and punishments in an alleged afterlife. Instead he was a naturalist and maintained all phenomena of observed on earth were guided by the laws of nature.
The following poem from his famous Rubayyat, will clearly highlight his mindset about his love of freethinking rational Greek philosophy against blind-faith theological Islamic doctrines:
If Madrasahs of those drunks
Became the educational institutes
Of teaching philosophy of
Epicures, Plato and Aristotle;
If Abode and Mazars of Peer and Dervish
Is turned into research institutes,
If men instead of following blind faith of religion
Should have cultivated ethics,
If the abode of worships were turned into
Centers of learning of all academic activities,
If instead of studying religion, men
Would have devoted to develop mathematics - algebra,
If logic of science would have occupied the place of
Sufism, faith and superstition,
Religion that divides human beings
Would have replaced by humanism…
Then world would have turned into haven,
The world on other side then would have extinguished
The world would then become full of
Love-affection-freedom-joy,
And there is no doubt about it.
Edward Fitzgerald sums up the delightful nature of Omar Khayyam and his philosophy thus:
“...Omar’s Epicurean Audacity of thought and Speech caused him to be regarded askance in his own time and country. He is said to have been especially hated and dreaded by the Sufis, whose practice he ridiculed, and whose faith amounts to little more than his own, when strips of the Mysticism and formal recognition of Islamism under which Omar would not hide.”
Khayyam did not believe in any other world except this one. He was more concerned to enjoy the simple pleasures of life than confused world of the unknown. He was an agnostic par excellence “preferring rather to soothe the soul through the senses into acquiescence with things as he saw them, than to perplex it with vain disquietude after what they might be.”
Here are some examples Omar’s quatrains translated by Fitzgerald
Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet’s Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter’d, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.
Dreaming when Dawn’s Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry:
‘Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life’s Liquor in its Cup be dry.
The following poem from his famous Rubayyat, will clearly highlight his mindset about his love of freethinking rational Greek philosophy against blind-faith theological Islamic doctrines:
If Madrasahs of those drunks
Became the educational institutes
Of teaching philosophy of
Epicures, Plato and Aristotle;
If Abode and Mazars of Peer and Dervish
Is turned into research institutes,
If men instead of following blind faith of religion
Should have cultivated ethics,
If the abode of worships were turned into
Centers of learning of all academic activities,
If instead of studying religion, men
Would have devoted to develop mathematics - algebra,
If logic of science would have occupied the place of
Sufism, faith and superstition,
Religion that divides human beings
Would have replaced by humanism…
Then world would have turned into haven,
The world on other side then would have extinguished
The world would then become full of
Love-affection-freedom-joy,
And there is no doubt about it.
Edward Fitzgerald sums up the delightful nature of Omar Khayyam and his philosophy thus:
“...Omar’s Epicurean Audacity of thought and Speech caused him to be regarded askance in his own time and country. He is said to have been especially hated and dreaded by the Sufis, whose practice he ridiculed, and whose faith amounts to little more than his own, when strips of the Mysticism and formal recognition of Islamism under which Omar would not hide.”
Khayyam did not believe in any other world except this one. He was more concerned to enjoy the simple pleasures of life than confused world of the unknown. He was an agnostic par excellence “preferring rather to soothe the soul through the senses into acquiescence with things as he saw them, than to perplex it with vain disquietude after what they might be.”
Here are some examples Omar’s quatrains translated by Fitzgerald
Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet’s Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter’d, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.
Dreaming when Dawn’s Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry:
‘Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life’s Liquor in its Cup be dry.
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