Omar Khayyam's Secret: Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination: Book 5: Khayyami Theology: The Epistemological Structures of the Robaiyat in All the Philosophical Writings of Omar Khayyam Leading to His Last Keepsake Treatise

By Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

Omar Khayyam's Secret: Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination, by Mohammad H. Tamdgidi, is a twelve-book series of which this book is the fifth volume, subtitled Khayyami Theology: The Epistemological Structures of the Robaiyat in All the Philosophical Writings of Omar Khayyam Leadi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Okcir Press (imprint of Ahead Publishing House)
• Release date: May 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781640980280

Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

Mohammad H. Tamdgidi, Ph.D., is the founding director and editor of OKCIR: Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics) and its journal, Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge (ISSN: 1540-5699), which have served since 2002 to frame his independent research, pedagogical, and publishing initiatives. Besides his currently in progress work published in the 12-book series Omar Khayyam's Secret: Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination (Okcir Press), he has previously authored Liberating Sociology: From Newtonian Toward Quantum Imaginations: Volume 1: Unriddling the Quantum Enigma (Okcir Press), Advancing Utopistics: The Three Component Parts and Errors of Marxism (Routledge/Paradigm) and Gurdjieff and Hypnosis: A Hermeneutic Study (Palgrave Macmillan). Tamdgidi has published numerous peer reviewed articles and chapters and edited more than thirty journal issues. He is a former associate professor of sociology specializing in social theory at UMass Boston and has taught sociology at SUNY-Binghamton and SUNY-Oneonta.

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Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge

Monograph Series: Tayyebeh Series in East-West Research and Translation

About OKCIR

Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics)

www.okcir.com

OKCIR (est. 2002) is an independent research, pedagogical, and publishing initiative dedicated to exploring, in a simultaneously world-historical and self-reflective framework, the human search for a just global society.

Since the world’s utopian, mystical, and scientific movements have been the primary sources of inspiration, knowledge, and/or practice in this field, OKCIR aims to critically reexamine the shortcomings and contributions of these world-historical traditions—seeking to clearly understand why they have failed to bring about the good society, and what each can integratively contribute toward realizing that end.

The center aims to develop new conceptual (methodological, theoretical, historical), practical, pedagogical, inspirational and disseminative structures of knowledge whereby the individual can radically understand and determine how world-history and her/his selves constitute one another.

OKCIR promotes creative exercises in liberating sociology and alternative pluriversities of knowledge production and publication in the global cyberspace. As a virtual research center, its publications are available in part freely online in its open-stacks digital library, in part via subscription to its own or other academic database member-stacks, and others for purchase online via the Okcir Store and other online distributors. Selected publications are also available in print for online purchase by libraries, institutions, and interested print readers.

OKCIR pursues innovative editorial, digital, and print publishing practices reflecting its substantive goals, and is the publisher of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge (ISSN: 1540-5699, est. 2002) which explores issues pertaining to the center’s interests. Human Architecture is a hybrid scholarly journal whose edited and monographed issues are simultaneously published also as individual books in hardcover, softcover, and pdf and/or epub ebook formats (with separately assigned ISBNs).

Tayyebeh Series in East-West Research and Translation (2014-) and Ahead Publishing House (imprint: Okcir Press) (1991-) respectively honor Tayyebeh Tamjidi (1928-2020) and Mohammed (Ahad) Tamjidi (1930-2007) whose parental love and support made the life and works of Mohammad H. (Behrooz) Tamdgidi, the founder of OKCIR, possible.

Published to Date in the Series

Omar Khayyam’s Secret: Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination: Book 1: New Khayyami Studies: Quantumizing the Newtonian Structures of C. Wright Mills’s Sociological Imagination for A New Hermeneutic Method (Okcir Press, 2021)

Omar Khayyam’s Secret: Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination: Book 2: Khayyami Millennium: Reporting the Discovery and the Reconfirmation of the True Dates of Birth and Passing of Omar Khayyam

(AD 1021-1123) (Okcir Press, 2021)

Omar Khayyam’s Secret: Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination: Book 3: Khayyami Astronomy: How Omar Khayyam’s Newly Discovered True Birth Date Horoscope Reveals the Origins of His Pen Name and Independently Confirms His Authorship of the Robaiyat (Okcir Press, 2021)

Omar Khayyam’s Secret: Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination: Book 4: Khayyami Philosophy: The Ontological Structures of the Robaiyat in Omar Khayyam’s Last Written Keepsake Treatise on the Science of the Universals of Existence (Okcir Press, 2021)

Omar Khayyam’s Secret: Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination: Book 5: Khayyami Theology: The Epistemological Structures of the Robaiyat in All the Philosophical Writings of Omar Khayyam Leading to His Last Keepsake Treatise (Okcir Press, 2022)

Omar Khayyam’s Secret

Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination

BOOK 5

Khayyami Theology

The Epistemological Structures of the Robaiyat in All the Philosophical Writings of Omar Khayyam Leading to His Last Keepsake Treatise

About this Book

Omar Khayyam’s Secret: Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination, by Mohammad H. Tamdgidi, is a twelve-book series of which this book is the fifth volume, subtitled Khayyami Theology: The Epistemological Structures of the Robaiyat in All the Philosophical Writings of Omar Khayyam Leading to His Last Keepsake Treatise. Each book, independently readable, can be best understood as a part of the whole series.

In Book 5, to understand the theological epistemology (or, way of knowing God) framing Khayyam’s Robaiyat as spread out in all his philosophical works, Tamdgidi further offers the texts and his updated Persian and new English translations and analyses of six writings that preceded Khayyam’s last keepsake treatise on the universals of existence.

The six primary texts include: 1: Khayyam’s annotated Persian translation of Avicenna’s sermon in Arabic on God and creation; 2: Khayyam’s treatise in Arabic addressed to Nasawi (who Tamdgidi shows has been wrongly regarded as an Avicenna pupil) on the created world and worship duty; 3-5: Khayyam’s three treatises in Arabic (which Tamdgidi shows were all addressed to Abu Taher, to whom Khayyam also dedicated his treatise on algebra) that are separate chapters of a three-part treatise on existence on topics ranging from the necessity of contradiction, determinism, survival, attributes of existents, and the light of intellect on ‘existent’ as the subject matter of universal science; and 6: Khayyam’s treatise in Arabic addressed to Moshkavi (who Tamdgidi reveals was a supportive Shia intellectual) in response to three questions on soul’s survival, on the necessity of accidents, and on the nature of time.

In this book it is shown that the most fruitful way of understanding Khayyam’s six texts is by regarding them as efforts made at defending his succession order thesis implicitly revealed when commenting on Avicenna’s sermon and finalized in his last keepsake treatise. The texts served to offer the theological epistemology behind Khayyam’s thesis, revealing his creative conceptualist view of existence that informed his poetic way of going about knowing God, creation, and himself within a unitary Islamic creationist-evolutionary worldview.

Khayyam’s way of knowing God and existence is non-dualistic, non-atomistic, and unitary in worldview, allowing for subject-included objectivity, probabilistic determinism, transcontinuous (or ‘discontinuous’) creative causality, transdisciplinarity, and transculturalism; it thus fulfils in a prescient way all the eight attributes of the quantum vision (Tamdgidi 2020). Poetry is most conducive to unitary knowing, and subject-included objectivity must necessarily be self-reflective and thus engage intellective, emotional, and sensible modes of knowing. This explains why Khayyam transcended scholastic learning in favor of a poetic encounter with reality. What he meant by ‘Drunkenness,’ calling it the highest state of mind known to him, can thus be best understood as a unitary, quantum state of mind achieved by way of his poetry as a meditative art of self-purification (what he called tazkiyeh-ye nafs). The goal, metaphorically, is to move from a way of knowing things as divisible grapes to a pure and unitary way of knowing them as indivisible Wine—paralleling what we call today moving from chunky Newtonian toward unitary quantum visions of reality.

Tamdgidi posits that the key for entering Khayyam’s secret tent is realizing that what he primarily meant by ‘Wine’ in his Robaiyat was self-referentially his Robaiyat itself, a key openly hidden therein thanks to his theological epistemology. For him, the Robaiyat was a lifelong work on himself, serving also human spiritual awakening to its place and duty in the succession order of God’s creation. It also served his aspiration for a lasting soul. He knew the now-proven worth of his secret magnum opus, and that is why he so much praised his ‘Wine.’

Omar Khayyam’s Secret

Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination

BOOK 5

Khayyami Theology

The Epistemological Structures of the Robaiyat in All the Philosophical Writings of Omar Khayyam Leading to His Last Keepsake Treatise

Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge • XVIII • 2022

Monograph Series: Tayyebeh Series in East-West Research and Translation

OMAR KHAYYAM’S SECRET

Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination

Book 5: Khayyami Theology: The Epistemological Structures of the Robaiyat in All the Philosophical Writings of Omar Khayyam Leading to His Last Keepsake Treatise

Author: Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

Copyright © 2022 by Mohammad-Hossein Tamdgidi

All English verse translations of the Robaiyat (quatrains) attributed to Omar Khayyam appearing in this book and of its parent series, Copyright © 2022 by Mohammad-Hossein Tamdgidi

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be transmitted or reproduced in any media or form, including electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or informational storage and retrieval systems, without the express written permission of the author and publisher except for brief passages fairly used for the purpose of review or study while fully acknowledging its source.

First Edition: May 1, 2022

Okcir Press • P. O. Box 393, Belmont, MA 02478, USA • www.okcir.com

For ordering or other inquiries contact: info[at]okcir.com

Okcir Press is an imprint of Ahead Publishing House, which is a division of OKCIR:

Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022907262

Publisher Cataloging in Publication Data

Omar Khayyam’s Secret: Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination

Book 5: The Epistemological Structures of the Robaiyat in All the Philosophical Writings of Omar Khayyam Leading to His Last Keepsake Treatise /

Mohammad H. Tamdgidi, 1959- / First Edition: May 1, 2022

Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge • Volume XVIII • 2022

Monograph Series: Tayyebeh Series in East-West Research and Translation

590 pages • 6x9 inches • Includes references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-1-64098-026-6 • ISBN-10: 1-64098-026-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)

ISBN-13: 978-1-64098-027-3 • ISBN-10: 1-64098-027-X (softcover : alk. paper)

ISBN-13: 978-1-64098-028-0 • ISBN-10: 1-64098-028-8 (EPub ebook)

ISBN-13: 978-1-64098-029-7 • ISBN-10: 1-64098-029-6 (PDF ebook)

1. Omar Khayyam—Theology. 2. Omar Khayyam—Epistemology. 3. Omar Khayyam—Philosophy. 4. Omar Khayyam—Manuscripts. 5. Omar Khayyam—Robaiyat (Rubaiyat). 6. Omar Khayyam—Criticisms and Interpretations—Biography. 7. Conceptualism. 8. Creationist-Evolutionism.

9. Quantum Theory. I. Omar Khayyam, AD 1021-1123 II. Title

First Edition: May 1, 2022

Front cover: Grapes in Wine (licensed from Dreamstime: 21097597)

Cover/spine: Statue of Omar Khayyam, by Abolhasan Seddiqi, Laleh Park, Tehran, Iran (author file)

Back cover: Wine in Glass (licensed from Dreamstime: 57780356) /

Jacket flap image: Barrel of Wine (licensed from Dreamstime: 16290805)

Cover and Text Design: Ahead Publishing House, Belmont, MA, USA

The paper used in the print editions of this book is of archival quality and meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper). The production of this book on demand protects the environment by printing only the number of copies that are purchased.

for

Omar Khayyam (AD 1021-1123)

who Phoenix-like flew to the peak empyrean sphere

In celebration of the millennium of Omar Khayyam’s birth and in anticipation of the forthcoming ninth centennial of his passing

«ببايد دانستن كه ايزد عزّ و علا را در هيچ چيز غرض نباشد كه غرض از عجز و نقصان صاحب غرض باشد و جبران غرض با ذات او گردد بلكه همه ى موجودات واجب الوجودند به اضافت با وجود ايزد تعالى و هيچ موجود از ديگر اولىٰ تر نيست به وجود بلكه همه بر صفتى اند از نظام و اتقان و نيكويى و تمامى كه از آن بهتر نشايد كه آن نوع بود و ليكن در سلسله ى نظام مبدائى هر چه ميان او و ميان ايزد جل و جلاله واسطه كمتر است او شريفتر است و در سلسله ى نظام معادى هر چه در ميان او و ميان هيولىٰ واسطه بيشتر است او شريفتر است پس پديد آمد كه همه ى موجودات در تمامى و نيكويى در نوع خويش يكى اند و تفاوت در شرف و خسّت افتاده است نه آنكه يكى اولىٰتر بود به وجود از ديگرى»

— عمر خيام، شرح بر ترجمه فارسى خطبة الغرّاء ابن سينا

It must be understood that God—may He be honored and exalted—does not have a purpose in anything since purpose implies weakness and compensating for a purpose would then be a part of His essence. Rather, all existents necessarily exist by adding from the existence of God—exalted is He—and nothing that exists is higher than another in existence since all represent one or another attribute of order, firmness, goodness, and completeness, such that nothing can be better of its species. However, in the succession order descending from Him, whatever in the beginning is closest to and least mediated with Him—exalted is He—is nobler, and in the order ascending toward Him whatever is most distanced from the material world is nobler. Therefore, it so emerged that all existents are in completeness and goodness among their own kind the same, and a difference has befallen them in nobility and ignobility, not that one is [presumed to be by nature] of a higher status than others in existence.

— Omar Khayyam, annotating his Persian translation of Avicenna’s Splendid Sermon

for my mother,

Tayyebeh Tamjidi

(March 20, 1928 - December 31, 2020)

About the Author

Other books beside this series by Mohammad H. Tamdgidi

Liberating Sociology: From Newtonian Toward Quantum Imaginations: Volume I: Unriddling the Quantum Enigma (Okcir Press, 2020)

Gurdjieff and Hypnosis: A Hermeneutic Study (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)

Advancing Utopistics: The Three Component Parts and Errors of Marxism (Routledge/Paradigm, 2007)

Mohammad-Hossein (a.k.a. ‘Behrooz’) Tamdgidi (pronounced tamjidi) is the founder and editor respectively of OKCIR: Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics) and its publication, Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge (ISSN: 1540-5699) which have served since 2002 to frame his independent research, pedagogical, and publishing initiatives. Formerly an associate professor of sociology specializing in social theory at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Boston, he has also previously taught sociology as full-time lecturer at SUNY-Oneonta, and also as adjunct lecturer at SUNY-Binghamton. He has authored numerous books and edited more than thirty journal collections, in addition to other peer reviewed articles and chapters.

Tamdgidi’s areas of scholarly and applied interest are the sociology of self-knowledge, human architecture, and utopystics—three fields of inquiry he invented in his doctoral studies and has since pursued as respectively intertwined theoretical, methodological and applied fields of inquiry altogether contributing to what he calls the quantum sociological imagination. His research, teaching, and publications have been framed by an interest in understanding how world-historical social structures and personal selves constitute one another. This line of inquiry has itself been a result of his long-standing interest in understanding the underlying causes of failures of the world’s utopian, mystical, and scientific movements in bringing about a just global society.

It was during his undergraduate studies at U.C. Berkeley and in the course of his mentorship by the painter and design architect Jesse Reichek (1916-2005) that Tamdgidi’s notion and project human architecture was born. During his graduate studies at SUNY-Binghamton, he was mentored in methods, theory, and world-systems studies by Terence K. Hopkins (1928-1997) and Immanuel Wallerstein (1930-2019), and further in dialectics by Dale Tomich and on space and society by Anthony D. King, amid a uniquely autonomous and flexible transdisciplinary Graduate Program in Sociology founded by T. K. Hopkins.

Tamdgidi holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in sociology in conjunction with a graduate certificate in Middle Eastern studies from Binghamton University (SUNY). He received his B.A. in architecture from U. C. Berkeley, following enrollment as an undergraduate student of civil engineering in the Technical College of the University of Tehran, Iran. In Dec. 2013 he retired early from his tenured and promoted position at UMass Boston in order to pursue his independent scholarship in quantum sociological imagination and its application in Khayyami studies through the conduit of his research center, OKCIR.

من ظاهر نيستى و هستى دانم

من باطن هر فراز و پستى دانم

با اين همه از دانش خود شرمم باد

گر مرتبه اى وراى مستى دانم

عمر خيّام

The appearance of what exists or not, I know.

The essence of what high-and-low’s about, I know.

I would be ashamed of my knowledge, however,

If higher than this Drunkenness a thought I know.

— Omar Khayyam (Tamdgidi translation)

Contents

About OKCIR

Published to Date in the Series

About this Book

About the Author

Notes on Transliteration

Acknowledgments

Preface to Book 5: Recap from Prior Books of the Series

Introduction to Book 5: Exploring the Theological Epistemology of the Robaiyat in Omar Khayyam’s Philosophical Treatises

CHAPTER I—Omar Khayyam’s Annotated Persian Translation of Avicenna’s Splendid Sermon in Arabic on God’s Unity and Creation: The Manuscript with a New English Translation, Followed by Comparative Textual Analysis

1. Introduction

2. The Persian Manuscript of Omar Khayyam’s Annotated Translation of Avicenna’s Splendid Sermon on God’s Unity and Creation

3. New English Translation of the Manuscript of Omar Khayyam’s Annotated Persian Translation of Avicenna’s Splendid Sermon in Arabic on God’s Unity and Creation

4. Comparative Textual Analysis of Omar Khayyam’s Annotated Persian Translation of Avicenna’s Splendid Sermon in Relation to the Sermon in Arabic

5. Conclusion

CHAPTER II—Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on the Created World and Worship Duty: The Arabic Manuscript with Updated Persian and New English Translations, Followed by Textual Analysis

1. Introduction

2. The Arabic Manuscript of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on the Created World and Worship Duty

3. Updated Persian Translation of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on the Created World and Worship Duty

4. New English Translation of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on the Created World and Worship Duty

5. Textual Analysis of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on the Created World and Worship Duty

6. Conclusion

CHAPTER III—Part 1 of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on Existence Addressed to Abu Taher Regarding the Necessity of Contradiction, Determinism, and Survival: The Arabic Manuscript and Updated Persian and New English Translations, Followed by Textual Analysis

1. Introduction

2. The Arabic Manuscript of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on Existence, Part 1: On the Necessity of Contradiction, Determinism, and Survival

3. Updated Persian Translation of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on Existence, Part 1: On the Necessity of Contradiction, Determinism, and Survival

4. New English Translation of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on Existence, Part 1: On the Necessity of Contradiction, Determinism, and Survival

5. Textual Analysis of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on Existence, Part 1: On the Necessity of Contradiction, Determinism, and Survival

6. Conclusion

CHAPTER IV—Part 2 of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on Existence Addressed to Abu Taher Regarding Attributes: The Arabic Manuscript and Updated Persian and New English Translations, Followed by Textual Analysis

1. Introduction

2. The Arabic Manuscript of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on Existence, Part 2: On Attributes

3. Updated Persian Translation of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on Existence, Part 2: On Attributes

4. New English Translation of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on Existence, Part 2: On Attributes

5. Textual Analysis of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on Existence, Part 2: On Attributes

6. Conclusion

CHAPTER V—Part 3 of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on Existence Addressed to Abu Taher Regarding the Light of Intellect on ‘Existent’ as the Subject Matter of Universal Science: The Arabic Manuscript and Updated Persian and New English Translations, Followed by Textual Analysis

1. Introduction

2. The Arabic Manuscript of Khayyam’s Treatise on Existence, Part 3: On Existent: The Light of Intellect on the Subject Matter of Universal Science

3. Updated Persian Translation of Khayyam’s Treatise on Existence, Part 3: On Existent: The Light of Intellect on the Subject Matter of Universal Science

4. New English Translation of Khayyam’s Treatise on Existence, Part 3: On Existent: The Light of Intellect on the Subject Matter of Universal Science

5. Textual Analysis of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise on Existence, Part 3: On Existent: The Light of Intellect on the Subject Matter of Universal Science

6. Conclusion

CHAPTER VI—Omar Khayyam’s Treatise Addressed to Moshkavi in Response to Three Questions on Soul’s Survival, the Necessity of Accidents, and the Nature of Time: The Arabic Manuscript and Updated Persian and New English Translations, Followed by Textual Analysis

1. Introduction

2. The Arabic Manuscript of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise Response to Three Questions: Soul’s Survival, Necessity of Accidents, and Nature of Time

3. Updated Persian Translation of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise Response to Three Questions: Soul’s Survival, Necessity of Accidents, and Nature of Time

4. New English Translation of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise Response to Three Questions: Soul’s Survival, Necessity of Accidents, and Nature of Time

5. Textual Analysis of Omar Khayyam’s Treatise Response to Three Questions: Soul’s Survival, Necessity of Accidents, and Nature of Time

6. Conclusion

CHAPTER VII—From Grapes to Wine, Khayyam’s Unitary Way of Knowing: Integratively Understanding the Structures of Omar Khayyam’s Theological Epistemology in the Robaiyat as Spread Out in All His Philosophical Writings

1. Introduction

2. Integrating the Structures of Khayyam’s Theological Epistemology and Ontology Framing His Robaiyat As Studied in the Series So Far

3. ‘Drunkenness’ As a Quantum State of Mind: How Omar Khayyam’s Theological Epistemology Fulfills the Eight Attributes of the Quantum Vision

4. What Khayyam Primarily Meant by ‘Wine’ in His Robaiyat Was His Robaiyat Itself

5. Conclusion

Conclusion to Book 5: Summary of Findings

Appendix: Transliteration System and Book 5 Glossary

Book 5 Cumulative Glossary of Transliterations

Book 5 References

Book 5 Index

Notes on Transliteration

In the English edition of this book and its parent series, texts in languages using diacritics in their Latin alphabet are rendered as in the original.

When quoting Persian and Arabic texts transliterated by others, I will render them (including their diacritics) as found in the source, whatever transliteration system the source has used, which can vary from one source to another.

My own transliterations of Persian and Arabic texts will follow their pronunciation in Persian; that is, Arabic (or any other language) words internalized in Persian language will be transliterated according to their Persian pronunciation, except for the commonly transliterated words that have already been established in public discourse, as further explained below.

The main goal of the transliteration system newly designed for and applied in this series as explained in the appendix to each book is to make it possible to pronounce Persian words and those in Arabic (or in other languages) internalized in the Persian language the way a native Persian speaker would usually pronounce it (local dialects of Persian notwithstanding). Fulfilling this need is important, since otherwise we would lose the Persian pronunciations of Persian and its internalized (including Arabic) words over time. In reading Persian poetry, in particular, we need to produce Persian, and not Arabic, pronunciations of the words.

In Persian transliteration systems prevalent today, at times native and internalized words in Persian are transliterated in ways that result in Arabic pronunciation. The word Rubaiyat (used for رباعيّات which is actually an Arabic word), for instance, does not readily produce the Persian pronunciation of the word, which is Robāʿiyāt; Khayyam should be pronounced as Khayyam (not Kayam), Isfahan as Éṣfahān, Ibn Sina as ébn-e Sinā, Iran not as I ran but as Earān (Ear+ān), Ramadan as Rameẓān, Islam as Éslām, and so on.

Some of the above word examples have been already transliterated in Western languages in common forms (such as Iran, Islam, Isfahan, etc.), so I will maintain the same spelling in the main text while providing their full Persian transliteration in a cumulative glossary following the transliteration system introduced in the appendix of each book of the series. In others, when needed or found substantively needed, I will render the word in a way that emphasizes the Persian pronunciation. In doing so, however, in the main text I will strip it of diacritics, while providing its full transliteration in the cumulative glossary placed in the appendix to each book. This is to avoid cumbersome experiences of reading and writing native and internalized Persian words; even in English, we do not use diacritics to distinguish how ‘u’ sounds differently in bus, busy, cute, or mouse.

The use of diacritics in the main text, following one or another transliteration system, poses its own challenges. The difficulties generated by a confusing and at times conflicting diversity of transliteration systems used today for Persian and Arabic do not in my view warrant making the reading and writing of the text itself cumbersome. In this age of the Internet, such diacritics also make online rendering of the texts, and digital searching for them, often challenging, if not impossible and unsuccessful. Moreover, at times, rare diacritics make the words in which they appear impossible to render online depending on browsers used, resulting in their being replaced by wrong or distorted words.

It is for the above reasons that in this series I will avoid using diacritics for the words transliterated in the main text, but will offer full diacritics for them in a glossary following the transliteration system explained in the appendix to each book. So, for instance, while in my proposed system رباعيّات is transliterated as Robāʿiyāt, in the main text I will simply render the same as Robaiyat. If خيام is fully transliterated as Khayyām, in the main text I simply render it as Khayyam. ʿOmar is simply rendered as Omar. All diacritics, including ʿein (ع) and hamzeh (ء) are omitted to simplify the renderings of the words (such as Arouzi, Ismaili, or Shafa), while the transliteration system as described in the appendix is used as a guide to make sure the Persian pronunciations of native and internalized words in Persian are rendered. As noted, for established words such as Isfahan, Iran, Islam, etc., I will just use the common form in the main text.

For substantive reasons, the word Rubaiyat will only be used when referring to the particular tradition arising from the FitzGeraldian and Western translation efforts, while I will use instead Robaiyat to distinguish the new tradition I hope to engender by advancing the new Khayyami studies as initiated in the present series.

Where it is needed in the main text, such as when sharing of transliterations of poetry, for the readers’ convenience I will include them in full transliteration next to the original Persian and my English translations in the main text itself.

Acknowledgments

Without the contributions of countless scholars and writers, past and present, in Iran and abroad, who have explored the life and works of Omar Khayyam over the many centuries, the conduct and results of this study would have been impossible. The list of these individuals is long, and I hope my specific engagements with some of their works throughout this series may serve as expressions of my deep appreciation for their valuable contributions.

I thank my wife Anna Beckwith for her patience and encouragements during the many decades it took me to conduct this research on Khayyam. I also thank Ramón Grosfoguel for his kind interest in my work, including that on Khayyam, and for inviting me to offer a seminar presentation on Khayyam in March 2011 at U.C. Berkeley. I also appreciate the interest Lewis R. Gordon has taken in my research in quantum sociological imagination.

I further thank the staff of the Interlibrary Loan at UMass Boston’s Healey Library for their professionalism and timely processing of my requests.

My sabbatical year (2010-11) after being granted tenure and promotion at UMass Boston allowed me to spend more focused time on earlier phases of this research. Ironically, the sabbatical gave me a sense of the enormity of the effort needed for this research, resulting in my decision to retire early, in Dec. 2013, from my academic position so as to devote full-time to this urgent study while also attending to the needs of my mother in Iran, who unfortunately passed away on the last day of the year 2020, from natural causes in old age.

What ultimately made this study possible have been the love, support, and sacrifices of my parents, Tayyebeh Tamjidi (1928-2020) and Mohammed (Ahad) Tamjidi (1930-2007). My only wish and hope is that this engagement with the immortal spirit of Omar Khayyam will keep the names and memories of both my parents, and my endless love for them, alive forever.

This series as a whole is dedicated, beside Omar Khayyam himself, to the memory of my mother and in celebration of the universe of love, search for justice, and spiritual curiosity she bequeathed to me. I have already shared, in an extended acknowledgement in my recent work Liberating Sociology: From Newtonian Toward Quantum Imaginations: Volume 1: Unriddling the Quantum Enigma (2020), her life’s story in the context of the broader history of contemporary Iran, so I refer interested readers to consult that writing for further insights into the motivations behind this series. It may suffice here again to say that this series is entirely a work of her life as well, as superposed with mine, in search of understanding by way of Omar Khayyam the enigma of our common human existence.

Despite her progressing Alzheimer’s in the last decade or so of her life, during which she became oddly a love poet reliving her younger years, Tayyebeh lived long enough to walk me through the last day of the calendar year 2020 into 2021. Her 94th birth day on March 20, 2021, would have fallen also on the last day of Iran’s calendar year and nominal century 1399 (SH), just a day before the 1400 SH Nowrooz holidays began. So, I see this book and series as also a Nowrooz gift from and to her as well.

Many sources on which this study has drawn are old, out of print, and freely available online. Other acknowledgment and credits are given in the text itself or in footnotes. I draw on others in the spirit of fair use for educational and research purposes.

Preface to Book 5: Recap from Prior Books of the Series

Omar Khayyam’s Secret: Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination is a twelve-book series on the life and works of Omar Khayyam. Each book is independently readable, although it will be best understood as a part of the whole series.

In the overall series, I share the results of my long-standing research on Omar Khayyam, the enigmatic 11th/12th centuries Persian Muslim sage, philosopher, astronomer, mathematician, physician, writer, and poet from Neyshabour, Iran, whose life and works still remain behind a veil of deep mystery. The purpose of my research has been to find definitive answers to the many puzzles still surrounding Khayyam, especially regarding the existence, nature, and purpose of the Robaiyat in his life and works. To explore the questions posed in the series, I advance a new hermeneutic method of textual analysis, informed by what I call the quantum sociological imagination, to gather and study all the attributed philosophical, religious, scientific, and literary writings of Khayyam.

The first book of the series was subtitled New Khayyami Studies: Quantumizing the Newtonian Structures of C. Wright Mills’s Sociological Imagination for A New Hermeneutic Method. In the book, following a common preface and introduction to the series, I developed the quantum sociological imagination method framing my hermeneutic study in the series as a whole. In the prefatory note I shared the origins of this series and how the study is itself a moment in the trajectory of a broader research project. In the introduction, I described how centuries of Khayyami studies, especially during the last two, have reached an impasse in shedding light on his enigmatic life and works, especially his attributed Robaiyat.

The four chapters of the book were then dedicated to developing the quantum sociological imagination as a new hermeneutic method framing the Khayyami studies in the series. The method builds, in an applied way, on the results of my recent work in the sociology of scientific knowledge, Liberating Sociology: From Newtonian Toward Quantum Imagination: Volume 1: Unriddling the Quantum Enigma (2020), where I explored extensively, in greater depth, and in the context of understanding the so-called quantum enigma, the Newtonian and quantum ways of imagining reality. In the first book of this series, I shared the findings of that research in summary amid new applied insights developed in relation to Khayyami studies.

In the first chapter, I raised a set of eight questions about the structure of C. Wright Mills’s sociological imagination as a potential framework for Khayyami studies. In the second chapter, I showed how the questions are symptomatic of Newtonian structures that still continue to frame Mills’s sociological imagination. In the third chapter, I explored how the sociological imagination can be reinvented to be more in tune with the findings of quantum science. In the last chapter, the implications of the quantum sociological imagination for devising a hermeneutic method for new Khayyam and Robaiyat studies were outlined. In conclusion, the findings of the first book of the Omar Khayyam’s Secret series were summarized.

The second book of the series was subtitled Khayyami Millennium: Reporting the Discovery and the Reconfirmation of the True Dates of Birth and Passing of Omar Khayyam (AD 1021-1123). In the book, I laid down an essential foundation for the series by revisiting the unresolved questions surrounding the dates of birth and passing of Omar Khayyam.

Critically reexamining the manner in which Omar Khayyam’s birth horoscope as reported in Zahireddin Abolhassan Beyhaqi’s Tatemmat Sewan al-Hekmat (Supplement to the Chest of Wisdom) was used by Swāmi Govinda Tīrtha in his book The Nectar of Grace: Omar Khayyam’s Life and Works (1941) to determine Khayyam’s birth date, I uncovered a number of serious internal inconsistencies and factual inaccuracies that prevented Tīrtha (and, since then, other scholars more or less taking for granted his results) from arriving at a reliable date for Khayyam’s birth, hurling Khayyami studies into decades of confusion regarding Khayyam’s life and works. I then shared in the book the detailed account of my own discovery of Khayyam’s true date of birth for the first time, a finding that eluded Khayyami studies for centuries and is bound to revolutionize the studies for decades to come.

I then turned my attention to the task of definitively establishing the true date of passing of Omar Khayyam. Conducting an in-depth, superposed analysis of Beyhaqi’s Tatemmat Sewan el-Hekmat (Supplement to the Chest of Wisdom), Abdorrahman Khazeni’s Mizan ol-Hekmat (Balance of Wisdom), Nezami Arouzi’s Chahar Maqaleh (Four Discourses), and Yar Ahmad Rashidi Tabrizi’s Tarabkhaneh (House of Joy), amid other relevant texts, I succeeded in firmly reconfirming and further discovering, in a textually reliable way, not only the year, the season, the month, and the day, but even the most likely time of day at which the poet mathematician, astronomer, and calendar reformer died as a solar centenarian, completing his 102nd solar year age.

Strange was that these discoveries were made just in time as we approached the first solar millennium of Omar Khayyam’s birth date on June 10, AD 1021, at sunrise of Neyshabour, Iran, and the ninth solar centennial of his passing on June 10, AD 1123, on the eve also of his birthday, closing the circle of his life’s coming and going.

The third book of the series simultaneously published with the two preceding books was subtitled, Khayyami Astronomy: How Omar Khayyam’s Newly Discovered True Birth Date Horoscope Reveals the Origins of His Pen Name and Independently Confirms His Authorship of the Robaiyat.

Omar Khayyam’s true birth date horoscope, as newly discovered in this series, is comprised of a dazzling number of Air Triplicities sharing a vertex on a Sun-Mercury Cazimi point on the same Ascendant degree 18 of Gemini. Among other features, his Venus, Sextile with Moon, also plays a lifelong, secretively creative role to intentionally balance his chart. These features would not have escaped the attention of Omar Khayyam, a master astronomer and expert in matters astrological, no matter how much he embraced, doubted, or rejected astrological interpretations.

In the third book, conducting an in-depth hermeneutic analysis of Khayyam’s horoscope, I reported having discovered the origins of Khayyam’s pen name in his horoscope. The long-held myth that Khayyam was a parental name, even if true, in no way takes away from the new finding; it only adds to its intrigue.

My hermeneutic analysis of Khayyam’s horoscope in intersection with extant Khayyami Robaiyat also led me to discover an entirely neglected signature quatrain that I proved could not be from anyone but Khayyam, one that provides a reliably independent confirmation of his authorship of the Robaiyat. I also showed how another neglected quatrain reporting its poet to have aged to a hundred is from Khayyam. This means all the extant Khayyami quatrains are now in need of hermeneutic reevaluation.

My further study of a sample of fifty Khayyami Robaiyat led me to conclude that their poet definitively intended the poems to remain in veil, that they were considered to be a collection of interrelated quatrains and not sporadic separate quatrains written marginally in pastime, that they were meant to offer a life’s intellectual journey as in a book of life, that the poems’ critically nuanced engagement with astrology was not incidental but essential throughout the collection, and that, judging from the signature quatrain discovered, 1000 quatrains were intended to comprise the collection.

Oddly it appears that, after all, The Khayyam who stitched his tents of wisdom was a trope that had its origins in Omar Khayyam’s horoscope heavens.

The fourth book of the series was subtitled Khayyami Philosophy: The Ontological Structures of the Robaiyat in Omar Khayyam’s Last Written Keepsake Treatise on the Science of the Universals of Existence.

Having confirmed in the prior three books of the series the true dates of birth and passing of Omar Khayyam, his pen name origins, and his authorship of a robaiyat collection, In Book 4 I explored the origins, nature, and purpose of such a collection by applying the series’ quantum sociological imagination method to hermeneutically explore the ontological structures of the Robaiyat in Khayyam’s last written treatise.

Khayyam’s treatise, found in the early 20th century and still largely ignored or misread, radically challenges the mythical narratives built over the centuries about him as one who thought existence is unknowable, having died not solving its riddles. Strangely, his treatise instead offers a logically coherent and brilliant worldview of someone who has found his answers as far as human existence is concerned. Khayyam even goes so far as confidently saying he hopes his peers would agree that his brief treatise is more useful than volumes.

Offering the Persian text and my new English translation of the treatise, I undertook in the fourth book a detailed clause-based hermeneutic study of the treatise. I also explored its broader intellectual and historical contexts by examining its relation to the book Savior from Error by Khayyam’s junior (by more than three decades) contemporary foe, Muhammad Ghazali, while questioning the long-held belief that the treatise was requested by and addressed to Fakhr ol-Molk, a son of the famous vizier Nezam ol-Molk.

I found instead that the treatise was written in AD 1095-96, a few years earlier than thought, for another son of Nezam ol-Molk, Moayyed ol-Molk, who served at the time Soltan Muhammad, Malekshah’s son. The treatise was intended as a philosophical foundation to move the post-Malekshah Iran in a more independent direction by way of influencing his son, Muhammad. Ghazali in his book, likely written to please Ahmad Sanjar (Malekshah’s younger son who disliked Khayyam) and his vizier at the time, Fakhr ol-Molk, anonymously chastised Khayyam as a philosopher, duplicitously feeding the cynical metaphors that some theologians and Sufis hurled at Khayyam down the centuries.

Khayyam’s treatise unveils his vision of existence as a participatory universe where the subject has objective status, shedding a new light on the ontological structures of the Robaiyat. His succession order thesis of existence is an alternative Islamic creationist-evolutionary worldview that offers a prescient quantum conceptualist vision of the universe as a unitary, relatively self-reliant, self-knowing, and self-creative, substance lovingly created by an absolutely good God in His own image. Existence is essentially good but, due to its good volitionally self-creative nature, can be potentially subject to incidental defects that are nevertheless knowable and curable to build both a spiritually fulfilling and a joyful life in this world. Other than God’s Necessary Existence there is no another world; judgment days, heavens, and hells are definitely real this-worldly, not after-worldly, existents. In Khayyam’s view, human existence can be what good we artfully make of it, starting here-and-now from our own personal selves in our this-worldly lifetimes. It is to creatively realize such an existence that the Robaiyat must have been intended.

The present volume, the fifth book of the series, is subtitled Khayyami Theology: The Epistemological Structures of the Robaiyat in All the Philosophical Writings of Omar Khayyam Leading to His Last Keepsake Treatise. It is devoted to an in-depth examination of all of Omar Khayyam’s philosophical treatises written before his last keepsake treatise on the science of the universals of existence, one I examined already in depth in Book 4 of the series. The purpose of the study of these texts, applying the quantum hermeneutic method developed for the series, is to arrive at an understanding of the structures of the theological epistemology informing any collection of quatrains or Robaiyat Khayyam may have written in his life.

Abstract

This essay titled Book 5 Preface: Recap From Prior Books of the Series, is an opening to the book Khayyami Theology: The Epistemological Structures of the Robaiyat in All the Philosophical Writings of Omar Khayyam Leading to His Last Keepsake Treatise, which is the fifth volume of the twelve-book series Omar Khayyam’s Secret: Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination, authored by Mohammad H. Tamdgidi. It offers a summary of prior books of the series.

In the overall series, Tamdgidi shares the results of his research on Omar Khayyam, the enigmatic 11th/12th centuries Persian Muslim sage, philosopher, astronomer, mathematician, physician, writer, and poet from Neyshabour, Iran, whose life and works still remain behind a veil of deep mystery. The purpose of his research has been to find definitive answers to the many puzzles still surrounding Khayyam, especially regarding the existence, nature, and purpose of the Robaiyat in his life and works. To explore the questions posed in the series, he advances a new hermeneutic method of textual analysis, informed by what he calls the quantum sociological imagination, to gather and study all the attributed philosophical, religious, scientific, and literary writings of Khayyam.

In the first book of the series, subtitled New Khayyami Studies: Quantumizing the Newtonian Structures of C. Wright Mills’s Sociological Imagination for A New Hermeneutic Method, following a common preface and introduction to the series, Tamdgidi developed the quantum sociological imagination method framing his hermeneutic study in the series.

The second book of the series, subtitled Khayyami Millennium: Reporting the Discovery and the Reconfirmation of the True Dates of Birth and Passing of Omar Khayyam (AD 1021-1123), was dedicated to exploring in depth the hitherto findings and controversies surrounding the dates of birth and passing of Omar Khayyam. Therein, Tamdgidi discovered the true dates of birth and passing of Omar Khayyam.

The third book of the series, subtitled Khayyami Astronomy: How the Newly Discovered True Birth Horoscope of Omar Khayyam Reveals the Origins of His Pen Name and Independently Confirms His Authorship of the Robaiyat, was devoted to a close examination of Omar Khayyam’s newly discovered true birth date horoscope, and what information its hermeneutic study can offer for understanding Khayyam’s life and works, especially the origin, nature, and the purpose of his Robaiyat. Therein, Tamdgidi discovered the horoscope origins of Omar Khayyam’s pen name and independently confirmed his authorship of a collection of robaiyat.

The fourth book of the series was subtitled Khayyami Philosophy: The Ontological Structures of the Robaiyat in Omar Khayyam’s Last Written Keepsake Treatise on the Science of the Universals of Existence. It was devoted to an in-depth examination of Omar Khayyam’s treatise Resaleh dar Elm-e Kolliyat-e Vojood (Treatise on the Science of the Universals of Existence) which was written originally in Persian for keepsake toward the end of his life.

The present volume, the fifth book of the series, is subtitled Khayyami Theology: The Epistemological Structures of the Robaiyat in All the Philosophical Writings of Omar Khayyam Leading to His Last Keepsake Treatise. It is devoted to an in-depth examination of all of Omar Khayyam’s philosophical treatises written before his last keepsake treatise on the science of the universals of existence, one the author examined already in depth in Book 4 of the series. The purpose of the study of these texts, applying the quantum hermeneutic method developed for the series, is to arrive at an understanding of the structures of the theological epistemology informing any collection of quatrains or Robaiyat Khayyam may have written in his life.

Introduction to Book 5: Exploring the Theological Epistemology of the Robaiyat in Omar Khayyam’s Philosophical Treatises

In this fifth book of the Omar Khayyam’s Secret series, I explore all the other extant philosophical writings of Omar Khayyam leading to and in relation to his last keepsake treatise in order to understand the theological epistemology (or, way of knowing God) which informed any Robaiyat collection he may have written.

Since I studied in depth Khayyam’s last keepsake treatise in Book 4 of the series, I will try to integrate in the last chapter of this volume the findings of that book with the findings of this volume in order to gain an integral view of Khayyam’s theological epistemology as it evolved over all his philosophical writings.

It is important to keep in mind that in moving from exploring the theme Khayyami philosophy in Book 4 to that of the present Book 5 on Khayyami theology we are not moving across separate billiard balls, so to speak, as if we could mechanically separate these inquiries from one another, especially in the works of pre-modern thinkers such as Khayyam. Rather, the best way to consider the theme of this book is a further focusing of the theme of Book 4 on theological questions that preoccupied Khayyam’s attention. Here, in this volume, by theology we mean its broadest sense, not the narrower use of it in reference to scripturalism and scripturalists (motekallemin or متكلمين) as when we used it previously in Book 4 when referring to the first group Khayyam identifies among four religious paths.

Historically, we need to realize that contrary to the Newtonian chunky conception of the disciplines prevalent today, in the pre-modern times, including that of Khayyam, philosophy included theology, sciences, the arts, and ethical and social sciences. But even logically, although a chunky view of the disciplines and academic cultures has become habitually prevalent today such that we take the separations for granted, it makes sense for us to maintain a part-whole conception of the specialized branches of knowledge, especially when we study the life and works of a thinker such as Khayyam for whom various fields of human knowledge could not be separately understood.

Except for the first text studied in this volume which was written in Persian, others were originally written in Arabic by Khayyam, given that Arabic was the universal language used in the philosophical sciences in the broader Islamic world at the time. To facilitate the reading and textual analyses of the texts for Persian speaking readers, alongside my new English translations of the texts offered before proceeding to analyze them, I will also provide my updated Persian translations, building on the efforts made by other scholars to date while offering newly translated prose, corrections, additions, or footnote commentaries when needed—using the opportunity to offer clarifying notes in Persian for Persian readers.

These texts, many of which were written by Khayyam in the early 470s LH, beginning in the year 472 LH (AD 1079-1080)—in my estimation sixteen years before his last keepsake treatise on the science of the universals of existence was written (in 488 LH or about AD 1095-1096)—can provide us with snapshots of how Khayyam grappled with various issues in Islamic theology and its epistemology before arriving at his final formulations in his last treatise which I studied in Book 4. They can also offer a sense of how Khayyam’s basic worldview as spread-out in these writings sheds light on the epistemological structures of his poetic writings such as his robaiyat.

In this book one of my aim will be to see in what ways Khayyam’s last keepsake treatise on the universals of existence (as explored in Book 4) confirms and/or departs from the views he shared in the earlier texts we will study in this book. For each text, I will first provide the text in the language it was originally written (which was Arabic, except for the first to be studied), followed by my updated Persian translation building on the efforts of prior Persian translators of the text. Then I will offer my new English translation of the text before proceeding to analyze it. My commentaries for each specific text will be offered both in footnotes to the texts or their translations and then separately in the main text in a textual analysis section to follow the presentation of each text in each chapter.

In the last chapter, I will offer my comparative/integrative comments on all the writings explored in this book, reflecting also on how the findings of this book relate to (confirm and/or depart from) what we learned about Khayyam’s worldview in the previous book of the series when examining his last keepsake treatise on the science of the universals of existence. In the meantime, I will also comment on any new insights this book contributes to our understanding of the epistemological (and broader ontological) structures of any collection of quatrains Khayyam may have written in his life.

The writings of Khayyam studied in this book are explored in their chronological order of writing. In Book 4 I purposely decided to start, in a reverse biographical-historical order, with Khayyam’s last treatise on the universals of existence. However, we should keep in mind that the texts to be studied in this book were written years before Khayyam’s treatise on the universals of existence. Our having studied the latter first provides us with both an opportunity as well as a caution.

The opportunity is that of knowing where Khayyam’s thoughts were heading when he wrote the texts studied in this book, giving us a unique opportunity to follow Khayyam on his road by having already a sense of his destination, so to speak. However, as a matter of caution, we should also be careful not to lose sight of the concrete intellectually exploratory nature of the treatises to be examined in this book, each on its own. So, instead of reminding ourselves of the findings of the prior book of the series here we will postpone that until the end of this book, in the last chapter before conclusion, so that we can have a fuller view of not only what each of the texts examined in this book advanced on its own, but also how they relate and contribute individually and collectively to the overall ontological (including epistemological) worldview Khayyam arrived at when he penned (or dictated) his last keepsake treatise on the universals of existence.

In this book I will study six philosophical/theological texts undisputedly attributed to Omar Khayyam as follows: 1-his invited annotated Persian translation of Avicenna’s Splendid Sermon from Arabic; 2-his writing known as The Treatise on Existence and Duty; 3-his writing known as Answer to Three Questions: On the Necessity of Contradiction in the World, On Determinism, and On Survival; 4-his writing known as the Treatise on Existence (or Attributes) (not to be confused with the treatise on the universals of existence we studied in Book 4 of this series); 5-his writing known as The Light of Intellect on the Subject Matter of Universal Science; and 6-his writing known as Response to Three Questions.

In offering the above titles hitherto used for the writings, the reader is cautioned to regard them as tentative at this point, since the titles themselves and how the writings relate to one another can and must also be subjected to our study as part of the inquiry. In fact, as will be noted, a few of these writings have been considered by some scholars to be fragments of a larger piece of writing, or written in response to questions generated by another in the same list of writing as given above. I will consider such observations in the hermeneutic analysis of the texts that follow, and will consider the most fruitful way the writings should be titled and deemed related to one another.

Khayyam’s annotated translation of Avicenna’s sermon was written during a period he was living in Isfahan and heavily involved, along with other collaborating astronomers, in the project of building a new observatory in that city for the purpose, among others, of reforming the Persian solar calendar so that the first day of the year could again fall exactly on the first day of the spring. It is also most likely that he wrote his treatise on Existence and Duty (which, as I will argue, should be more specifically titled Creation and Duty) was written in Isfahan. It is most certainly the case (based on Khayyam’s own comments in a later letter to be examined), that the three writings that I will show altogether comprise his Treatise on Existence were written while Khayyam was visiting the Fars region. The last letter in response to three questions must have been written possibly in Neyshabour, or at least at a location other than Fars, Isfahan, or Baghdad, since in it Khayyam tells of his lack of access to the copies of his treatise on existence, copies of which he writes exist in those regions.

The first writing to be explored was originally written in Persian (translating and commenting on Avicenna’s Splendid Sermon in Arabic), a language with which I am natively familiar. For others, since I am not native in Arabic language, though I am sufficiently familiar with it to explore reliable ways of translating them and evaluating existing translations using various methods and resources, I will build on the Persian translations of the Arabic texts offered by other scholars to offer mine. However, I will revise and rewrite the Persian translations as needed to improve their clarity.

The reason for the latter is that I have found sometimes, though not always, the Persian translations themselves to be in need of further translating in terms of their clarity and accessibility, and in this study, my purpose is to gain clarity in understanding Khayyam’s texts while aiming for the same in offering my own new English translations of the texts for the purpose of hermeneutic analysis. While doing the research, I often found myself in need of rewriting the Persian translations, so, I thought sharing them in this volume will also prove helpful for Persian speaking readers alongside the translations offered by other scholars which are available in their own works. I will try to footnote where I depart from the translations when the updates imply differences in facts or of my understanding of a passage compared to those offered by another translator. For some Persian translations I have updated, I have offered new interpretive footnotes to improve their readability.

The treatises of Khayyam studied in this book may confront some readers as rather dense and difficult, since they deal with matters dealing with epistemology and abstract philosophical concepts. Since I have tried to clarify the subject matter in more detail in textual analysis sections of chapters following the presentation of the texts, readers may find it more helpful to go directly to the textual analysis section of each chapter to read what the treatise is about, before trying to read the actual texts of Khayyam. In any case, I provide the same original clauses also when analyzing them.

As much as it is possible and feasible, I have cross-checked again the accuracy of the texts (and Persian translations) with the actual extant handwritten manuscript(s) available for them (copies of which I hold), in addition to relying on other scholars’ transcriptions of them, based on their own study of their texts. However, it should again be noted that the extant texts for these writings were copied by scribes at one time or another, subject to their own understanding of what they were transcribing. So, as I noted the same regarding Khayyam’s last treatise on the science of the universals of existence (studied in Book 4), the originals of the texts studied in this fifth book should also be considered to be subject to any errors or omissions by scribes that befalls the survival of any manuscript over the centuries.

For ease of reference when analyzing and commenting on various texts across the originals and their translations, I have also numbered the passages at the beginning of each paragraph, placed in parentheses.

Iranian scholars presenting Khayyam’s original texts have often introduced punctuations in them. Old texts, Persian or Arabic, did not have punctuation marks as they are used today. While it may appear unimportant, sometimes the meaning of a passage may change depending on where and whether the punctuations are added. For this reason, I have deleted the punctuations in the Arabic or Persian originals, although I have used them in making the English (and Persian for Arabic) translations more accessible to readers.

Regarding the variations found among surviving copies of the same text, Iranian scholars have also tended to offer their own preferred variations in the main body of their translations, while offering other variations in footnotes or endnotes. Such a practice implies that one particular manuscript copy is more correct than others, somewhat elevating and foregrounding the variation given in the scholar’s main text as being more authentic than those offered in the background of their footnotes or endnotes.

In order to avoid such a priori authentication of one variation over another, I have included the variations directly in the main body using curved brackets, even though they may appear to interrupt one’s attention from the flow of sentences. However, I think Persian or Arabic speaking readers will actually be able to follow the variations more easily and immediately that way (instead of shifting their attention back and forth to footnotes or endnotes) and be able to ascertain more immediately whether the variations given for any particular word or sentence make any significant difference in the substance and meaning of the text being read.

To avoid further confusions for the English speaking reader, however, I will offer my preferred English translation in the main body of the text and offer in footnotes of my own any commentaries about noteworthy differences various variations can make in meaning. Rather than offering here more details about the challenges facing hermeneutic analyses of Omar Khayyam’s writings in this book and series, I will let each book’s or text’s investigation present and address them on its own.

The footnotes I have added to the Persian or Arabic texts in chapters that follow are also conveyed in English in the main text of my textual analyses, rather than also as English footnotes to the English translations.

As noted in the introduction to the prior books of this series, the main purpose of our study of the life and works of Omar Khayyam is understanding the origins, nature, and purpose of his Robaiyat. We have made significant progress in that direction so far by discovering his true dates of birth and passing and the origins of his pen name, and by independently confirming his authorship of a collection of robaiyat. In the previous book of the series, we also established the basic ontological structures informing such a collection, as found in Omar Khayyam’s treatise on the universals of existence, which was written for keepsake during the last part of his life.

As previously noted, and to inform readers not familiar with prior books of this series, based on the research method introduced and adopted in the first book of the series, at this point in our study we do not yet need to investigate directly how many and what quatrains Khayyam specifically composed, or which of the extant Khayyami quatrains attributed to him are authentically his, or not. For our purpose, even one quatrain discovered to be definitively traceable to him suffices in this and the two other volumes of the series to follow, where I will explore various theological, scientific, and literary writings attributed to Omar Khayyam before turning more directly to study the extant Khayyami quatrains in the remaining books of the series.

In other words, in the previous book, this book, and the two more to follow, I study the Khayyami Robaiyat not directly, but indirectly, by way of hermeneutic analyses of all other writings more or less authentically attributed to Omar Khayyam, be they philosophical, religious/theological, scientific, or literary in focus. This does not mean that I will avoid relating