I'm sure aggie's asleep as all sensible people are but I wanted to be sure Omar Khayyam was on her birthday list. No, I won't call and ask her. I've mentioned it before but it's worthy of mentioning again. Rubai means quatrain; the plural is rubaiyat.
Omar Khayyám
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The man known in English as the poet Omar Khayyám (May 18, 1048 - December 4, 1123, assumed dates) was born in Nishapur (or Naishapur) in Khorasan, Persia, and named Ghiyath al-Din Abu'l-Fath Umar ibn Ibrahim Al-Nisaburi al-Khayyami (al-Khayyami means "the tentmaker"). His name in Persian is "عمر خیام".
Omar Khayyam the mathematician
He was famous during his lifetime as a mathematician and astronomer who calculated how to correct the Persian calendar. On March 15, 1079, Sultan Jalal al-Din Malekshah Saljuqi (1072-1092) put Omar's corrected calendar into effect, as in Europe Julius Caesar had done in 46 B.C. with the corrections of Sosigenes, and as Pope Gregory XIII would do in February 1552 with Aloysius Lilius' corrected calendar (although Britain would not switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar until 1751, and Russia would not switch until 1918).
He is also well known for inventing the method of solving cubic equations by intersecting a parabola with a circle.
Omar Khayyam the astronomer
In 1073, the Malik-Shah, ruler of Esfahan, invited Khayyám to build and work with an observatory, along with various other distinguished scientists. Eventually, Khayyám very accurately (correct to within six decimal places) measured the length of the year as 365.24219858156 days.
He was famous in Persian and Arab world for his astronomical observations. He built a (now lost) map of stars in the sky.
Omar Khayyam and Islam
The philosophy of Omar Khayyam was quite different from official Islamic dogmas. He agreed with the existence of God but objected to the notion that every particular event and phenomenon was the result of divine intervention. Instead he supported the view that laws of nature explained all particular phenomena of observed life. Religious officials asked him many times to explain his different views about Islam. Khayyam eventually made a hajj [pilgrimage] to Mecca in order to prove he was a faithful follower of the religion.
Omar Khayyam the writer and poet
Omar Khayyám is famous today not for his scientific accomplishments, but for his literary works. He is believed to have written about a thousand four-line verses. In the English-speaking world, he is best known for The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám in the English translations by Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883).
Other people have also published translations of some of the rubáiyát (rubáiyát means "quatrains"), but Fitzgerald's are the best known. Translations also exist in languages other than English.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khayyam
LXXI
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
LXXII
And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,
Lift not your hands to It for help--for It
As impotently moves as you or I.
LXXIII
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And there of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
And the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.
LXXIV
Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare;
To-morrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair:
Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why:
Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.
LXXV
I tell you this--When, started from the Goal,
Over the flaming shoulders of the Foal
Of Heav'n Parwin and Mushtari they flung
In my predestined Plot of Dust and Soul.
LXXI
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
LXXII
And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,
Lift not your hands to It for help--for It
As impotently moves as you or I.
LXXIII
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And there of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
And the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.
LXXIV
Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare;
To-morrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair:
Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why:
Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.
LXXV
I tell you this--When, started from the Goal,
Over the flaming shoulders of the Foal
Of Heav'n Parwin and Mushtari they flung
In my predestined Plot of Dust and Soul.
