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By:
V Sundaram vsundaram@newstodaynet.com |
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About
the Columnist |
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Saturday, 16 May, 2009 ,
02:15 PM
In these columns yesterday (14-5-2009), I had described how Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883) made the great Persian Poet Omar Khayyam (May 18, 1048-December 4, 1131) immortal by translating ‘The Rubaiyat’ in 1859. I fully endorse the view of the American critic and writer Gene Gordon who has hailed Omar Khayyam as ‘The Shakespeare of Iran’.
 | Omar Khayyam's statue in the Iranian city of Nishapur |
Why has Gene Gordon hailed Omar Khayyam as the Shakespeare of Iran? Khayyam and Shakespeare were alike in a number of ways. First, they both came from a humble background. Shakespeare’s father was a glove maker; Khayyam’s father a tent maker. The word ‘khayya’ means a maker of tents. Both valued love and placed it in the heart of their writing. Both emerged from the people with their feet planted firmly on the ground – not with noses in the air. And not with heads in the clouds either, for both were concerned with the here and now, not the hereafter. Both were sceptical, in fact, about a life after death and the existence of gods. In short both were totally free from cosmic pretentions with their feet solidly grounded in terrestrial reality. But in one vital respect they were alike—both Shakespeare and Omar Khayyam were completely familiar with the writings of the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341 BC-270 BC).
Gene Gordon has explained in a very interesting way as to how Shakespeare was influenced by Epicurus by way of Ovid (43 BC – 17AD). The great Roman poet Ovid was Shakespeare’s favourite poet. Ovid said: ‘All things change, nothing perishes.’ According to Ovid matter cannot be created nor destroyed, it just changes form. Shakespeare adored Ovid. Ovid admired Epicurus! In some of the plays of Shakespeare there are references to Epicurus. In the play Julius Caesar, for example, Cassius says ‘You know that I held Epicurus strong and his opinion.’
Though Omar Khayyam does not specifically mention Epicurus, yet the Epicurean philosophy comes through loud and clear in his poetry. This in spite of the fact that it was extremely dangerous to hold such a philosophy in Omar’s time and place! The philosophy of Epicurus was considered as subversive by both the religious and the governmental rulers of Omar’s time.
Omar Khayyam, poet, astronomer, and mathematician was born on May 18, 1048 in Nishapur, Persia. Khayyam’s full name is Ghiyāth ad-Dīn Abul-Fat'h Umar ibn Ibrāhīm Khayyām Neyshābūri (Persian: غیاث الدین ابو الفتح عمر بن ابراهیم خیام نیشابوری). According to the claims of tradition, he died on December 4, 1131. He spent part of his childhood in the town of Balkh (present northern Afghanistan), studying under the well-known scholar Sheik Muhammad Mansuri. Subsequently, he studied under Imam Mowaffaq Nishapuri, who was considered one of the greatest teachers of the Khorassan region.
Omar was offered a post at the Court of Sultan Malik Shah. Omar requested instead, and received, permission to live in retirement, and was given a pension that enabled him to devote himself to scientific and literary pursuits.  | | "Cubic equation and intersection of conic sections" the first page of two-chaptered manuscript kept in Tehran University |
Omar became famous as one of the major mathematicians and astronomers of the medieval period. He wrote the influential Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra (1070), which laid down the principles of algebra, giving a geometric method for solving cubic equations by intersecting a hyperbola with a circle. This crucial part of the body of Persian Mathematics was eventually transmitted to Europe. In particular, Omar derived general methods for solving cubic equations and even some higher orders. Omar was the first Persian mathematician to call the unknown factor of an equation (i.e., the x) shiy (meaning thing or something in Arabic). This word was transliterated to Spanish during the Middle Ages as xay, and, from there, it became popular among European mathematicians to call the unknown factor either xay, or more usually by its abbreviated form, x, which is the reason that unknown factors are usually represented by an x.
In the Treatise he also wrote on the triangular array of binomial coefficients known as Pascal's triangle. In 1077, Omar wrote Sharh ma ashkala min musadarat kitab Uqlidis (Explanations of the Difficulties in the Postulates of Euclid. Omar's attempt was a distinct advance, and his criticisms made their way to Europe, and may have contributed to the eventual development of non-Euclidean geometry. Omar Khayyám also produced another notable work in geometry, specifically on the theory of proportions.
Omar was fully familiar with the great Greek Mathematician Euclid (323 BC-283 BC), and he wrote papers on Euclid’s mathematics. Omar Khayyam was a Renaissance Man more than 300 years before the European Renaissance began in the 16th century. He was called “King of the Wise Men” in his time.
Omar wrote a book titled Explanations of the difficulties in the postulates in Euclid's Elements. The book consists of several sections on the parallel postulate (Book I), on the Euclidean definition of ratios and the Anthyphairetic ratio (modern continued fractions) (Book II), and on the multiplication of ratios (Book III).
Omar Khayyam also became famous for his researchers in the field of astronomy. In astronomy, heliocentrism is the theory that the Sun is at the center of the Universe. The word came from the Greek (ήλιος Helios = sun and κέντρον kentron = center). Historically, heliocentrism was opposed to geocentrism, which placed the Earth at the center. According to many experts, Omar proposed a heliocentric theory in the 12th century long before Copernicus (1473-1543) did in the 16th century.
Like most Persian mathematicians of the period, Omar Khayyám was also famous as an astronomer. In 1073, the Seljuk Sultan Sultan Jalal al-Din Malekshah Saljuqi (Malik-Shah I, 1072-92), invited Omar Khayyám to build an observatory, along with various other distinguished scientists. Eventually, Omar Khayyám and his colleagues measured the length of the solar year as 365.24219858156 days (correct to six decimal places). This calendaric measurement has only a one-hour error every 5,500 years, whereas the Gregorian calendar, adopted in Europe four centuries later, has a 1-day error in every 3,330 years, but is easier to calculate.
Taking note of Omar’s researches into the field of astronomy, he was appointed as the royal astronomer by Persian King Sultan Malik Shah I to reform the Muslim calendar. Omar Khayyam was part of a panel that introduced several reforms to the Persian calendar, largely based on ideas from the Hindu calendar. On March 15, 1079, Sultan Malik Shah I accepted this corrected calendar as the official Persian calendar. This calendar was known as Jalali calendar after the Sultan, and was in force across Greater Iran from the 11th to the 20th centuries. It is the basis of the Iranian calendar which is followed today in Iran and Afghanistan.
I cannot resist quoting Omar Khayyam on the philosophy of his mathematics: “Whoever thinks algebra is a trick in obtaining unknowns has thought it in vain. No attention should be paid to the fact that algebra and geometry are different in appearance. Algebras are geometric facts which are proved by propositions five and six of Book two of Elements.” This philosophical view of mathematics had a great impact on Khayyam's celebrated approach and method in geometric algebra and in particular in solving cubic equations. In that his solution is not a direct path to a numerical solution and in fact his solutions are not numbers but rather line segments. In this regard Omar’s work can be considered as the first systematic study and the first exact method of solving cubic equations.
| | Tomb of Omar KhTomb of Omar Khayyam in Nishapur, Iran.ayyam in Nishapur, Iran. |
Omar’s significance as a philosopher and teacher, and his few remaining philosophical works, has not received the same attention as his scientific and poetic writings. Zamakhshari referred to him as “the philosopher of the world”. Many sources have also testified that he taught for decades the philosophy of Ibn Sina in Nishapur where Omar Khayyam lived most of his life, and he breathed his last, and was buried and where his mausoleum remains today a masterpiece of Iranian architecture visited by many people every year.
But as a poet Omar Khayyam remains supreme. ‘The Rubaiyat’ is extraordinary in its moving imagery, fascinating verse and depth of philosophy. Omar’s poetry is among the finest in World poetry, bringing out the deeper currents of the human story, the fundamental probing of man in the Universe and the mystery of life against the backdrop of an inscrutable divinity—on the inescapable problems confronting all thinking people everywhere in all ages. To pose them in poignant and penetrating poetry is a literary wonder of which only a genius is capable. Omar Khayyam was such a genius. His poetry, at once mystic and majestic, essays the navigation of those fathomless oceans, like a master mariner. (to be continued...)
(The writer is a retired IAS officer)
e-mail the writer at
vsundaram@newstodaynet.com |
