Culture

One recurrent theme in the unconventional quatrains that were later gathered under the rubric of the The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is surprise at having come into being unasked, and at being sentenced to non-being at the end of this bewildering life. This sentiment to my mind is a sign of medieval Persian secularism. The […]

art and photography

“Identity is never fixed:” Interview with Iranian-American Artist Soraya Sharghi

Global Voices

Written byOmid Memarian Soraya Sharghi, ‘Rising with the Song of Nymphs,’ 2021. Acrylic on canvas, 152,4 x 236,2 cm (60 x 93 in). Photo courtesy of the artist. ( GlobalVoices.org ) – In her most recent exhibition, “Sculpture and Painting,” presented at 24 Avenue Matignon in Paris during Art Basel’s October 2025 week, Iranian-American artist […]

Culture

Rumi and Shakespeare: On Forgiveness and Reconciliation

Juan Cole

This essay first appeared at Renovatio, a humanities publication of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, Ca. Thanks to Hamza Yusuf and Safir Ahmad. NB the hyperlinks in the footnotes don’t work, but the numbers are accurate and notes are at the end. Jalaluddin Rumi (d. 1273) has sometimes been called “the Shakespeare of the East.” The […]

Entertainment

“With them the seed of Wisdom:” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:28

Juan Cole

Quatrain no. 28 in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám continues riffing on stanza 121 in the Bodleian manuscript. XXVIII. With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow, And with my own hand labour’d it to grow : And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d- “I came […]

Omar Khayyam

“Came out by the Same Door:” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:27

Juan Cole

The 27th quatrain in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám casts doubt on the value of metaphysical speculation and scholastic learning. XXVII. Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument About it and about: but evermore Came out by the same Door as in I […]

Omar Khayyam

How ‘The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám’ inspired Victorian Hedonists

Aeon

By Roman Krznaric | – ( Aeon ) – How did a 400-line poem based on the writings of a Persian sage and advocating seize-the-day hedonism achieve widespread popularity in Victorian England? The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám was written by the eccentric English scholar Edward FitzGerald, drawing on his loose translation of quatrains by the 12th-century poet and […]

Omar Khayyam

From T. S. Eliot to the Grateful Dead: echoes of FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:26

Juan Cole

Stanza no. 26 in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám calls the notion of an afterlife a “lie” and compares the death of an individual to the demise of a flower such as an individual tulip. Actually I think it is saying that human beings are not like […]

Iran

“All the Saints and Sages:” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:25

Juan Cole

Quatrain no. 25 in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is about the futility of metaphysical teachings in the face of certain death. XXV. 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 […]

Iran

“Your Reward is Neither Here nor There!” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:24

Juan Cole

Stanza no. 24 in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám makes fun, as A. J. Arberry pointed out, of theologians and philosophers who spoke of metaphysical certainties. Personally, I think there is something almost Buddhist about it (see below). XXIV. Alike for those who for to-day prepare, And […]