'OMAR KHAYYAM [GHIYATHUDDIN ABULFATH 'OMAR BIN IBRAHIM AL-KHAYYAMI], the great Persian mathematician, astronomer, free thinker and epigrammatist, who derived the epithet Khayyam (the tentmaker) most likely from his father's trade, was born in or near Nishapar, where he is said to have died in A.H. 517 (A.D. 1123). His standard work on algebra, written in Arabic, and other treatises of a similar character raised him at once to the foremost rank among the mathematicians of that age. and induced Sultan Malik-Shah to summon him in A.H. 467 (A.D 1074) to institute astronomical observations on a larger scale, and to aid him in his great enterprise of a thorough reform of the calendar. The results of 'Omar's research were—a revised edition of the Zij or astronomical tables, and the introduction of the Ta'rikh-i-Malikshahl or Jalali, that is, the so-called Jalalian or Seljuk era, which commences in A.H. 471 (A.D. 1079, 15th March).
`Omar's great scientific fame, however, is eclipsed in the West, by his still greater poetical renown, which he owes to his rubcris (made famous in the west by FitzGerald's translation, The Ru bdiydt) or quatrains, a collection of about 500 epigrams Although some of his quatrains are purely mystic and pantheistic, most of them bear quite another stamp; they are the breviary of a radical freethinker, who protests in the most forcible manner both against the narrowness, bigotry and uncompromising austerity of the orthodox ulema and the eccentricity, hypocrisy and ravings of advanced Stills.
Leyden copy of 'Omar Khayyam's work on algebra was noticed as far back as 1742 by Gerald Meerman in the preface to his Specimen calculi fluxionalis; further notices of the same work by Skilllot appeared in the Nouv. Jour. As. (1834) and in vol. xiii. of the Notices et extraits des MSS. de la Bibl. roy. The complete
text, together with a French translation (on the basis of the Leyden and Paris copies, the latter first discovered by M. Libri, see his Histoire des sciences mathematiques en Italie, i. 300), was edited by F. Woepcke, L'Algebre d'Omar Alkhayydmi (Paris, 1851). Articles on 'Omar's life and works are found in Reinaud's Geographie d'Aboulfeda, pref., p. 101 ; Notices et extraits, ix. 143 seq.; Garcin de Tassy, Note sur les Rubii:iycit de 'Omar Hhaiyam (Paris, 1857) ; Rieu, Cat. Pers. MSS. in the Br. Mus., ii. 546 ; A. Christensen, Recherches sur les Rubci`iyeit de `Omar Hayyam (Heidelberg, 1905) ; V. Zhukovski's `Uniar Khayyam and the "Wandering" Quatrains, translated from the Russian by E. D. Ross in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, xxx. (1898) ; E. G. Browne, Literary History of Persia, ii. 246. The quatrains have been edited at Calcutta (1836) and Teheran (1857 and 1862) ; in English verse, by Edward FitzGerald (London, 1859, 1872 and 1879) . Fitz Gerald's translation has been edited with commentary by H. M. Batson (1900), and the 2nd ed. of the same (1868) by E. Heron Allen (1908). A new English version was published in Triibner's "Oriental" series (1882) by E. H. Whinfield, and the first critical edition of the text, with translations, by the same (1883) . Important later works are N. H. Dole's variorum edition (1896), J. Payne's translation (1898), E. Heron Allen's edition (1898) and the Life by J. K. M. Shirazi (1905) ; but the literature in new translations and imitations has recently multiplied exceedingly. See A. G. Potter, A bibliography of printed editions of the quatrains of Omar Khayycim in foreign languages (Needham, Mass., 1923) .