Omar Khayyam was mainly known in the West for his quatrains, but he also wrote numerous other poems and was also a well-known astronomer, philosopher and mathematician in his time.
Historical background
Khayyam was born in an area that was then controlled by the Seljuks. In the eleventh century they conquered an area covering Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and Iran. In 1038, the Seljuk Toghril Beg proclaimed himself sultan and occupied Baghdad in 1055. In this politically unstable empire, where the rulers attempted to establish an orthodox Muslim state, Omar Khayyam grew up.
Study
Khayyam was born in 1048, in Nishapur in Persia. At a young age he studied under renowned scholars of his time, such as Sheikh Mohammed Mansouri in Balkh in present-day Afghanistan and under Imam Muwaffaq Nishapuri. Later, as a scholar, he was dependent on the goodwill of the rulers.
Mathematician and astronomer
Khayyam was best known in his own time as a mathematician and astronomer, a combination common at the time. At a young age, he wrote books, a book on algorithms, a book on music and one on algebra. In 1070 he went to Samarkand in Uzbekistan, one of the oldest cities in Central Asia. There he came into the good graces of Abu Tahir, a well-known lawyer, which gave him the opportunity to write his Treatise on Demonstrations of Problems of Algebra. In this he laid the foundation for the principles of algebra, which were later also adopted in Europe. And he came up with a method for solving cubic equations. In another work, Khayyam contributed to non-Euclidean geometry, although this was not his direct intention.
Calendar
Under Toghril Beg, Isfahan in Iran became the capital of the empire and in 1073 his grandson Malik Shah was in power. He invited Khayyam, under the influence of his vizier Nizam al-Mulk, to set up an observatory. Here Khayyam experienced 18 peaceful and successful years. Here he determined the length of a solar year to six decimal places. This made his calculation more accurate than the Gregorian calendar that came into use in the west four centuries later.
Khayyam was part of a team that introduced reforms to the prevailing Persian calendar. The new calendar was introduced and remained in effect until the twentieth century. The current calendars in Iran and Afghanistan are still based on this new calendar by Khayyam and his colleagues.
In 1092, new political upheaval put an end to Khayyam’s stay in Isfahan. Vizier Nizam al-Mulk was assassinated and Sultan Malik Shah died soon after. Malik Shah’s second wife came to power and withdrew support from all the people previously supported by Nizam al-Mulk. The funds that had financed the observatory were at a standstill and orthodox Muslims also rose up against Khayyam. He remained in Isfahan for several more years, but the support he received was not comparable to that before.
Merv
In 1118, Malik Shah’s third son Sanjar became the new ruler. Sanjar had made Merv, Mary in present-day Turkmenistan, the new capital of the empire. He made it a center of Islamic study. Khayyam moved here and continued his mathematical works here.
The poet
In the West, Khayyam is best known for his quatrains. Many of those quatrains, although it is not clear whether they all really come from Khayyam, have been translated into Western languages. From his poems, Khayyam does not emerge as a particularly devout Muslim, something that sometimes caused him problems in daily life. However, this does not detract from its popularity, even today, in Iran.