The complete corpus of poetry attributed to Omar Khayyam consists of numerous robāʿis (quatrains, ruba’is) and three qeṭʿas (short topical poems) composed in Persian, as well as approximately forty verses in Arabic.

Khayyam’s poems in Arabic. In contrast to his Persian quatrains, which first appear in sources nearly a century after his death, a scattering of verses (bayts) in Arabic date from the poet’s own lifetime, or shortly afterwards, and appear in anthologies of Arabic verse in the early 6th/12th century.

Ḥosayn b. Moḥammad b. ʿAbd-al-Wahhāb Ḥāreṯi, usually referred to as Bāreʿ Baḡdādi (443-524/1051-1129), was the first anthologist to include some of Khayyam’s verses in his Ṭarāʾef al-ṭoraf. His collection is divided into twelve chapters, and three qeṭʿas of Khayyam’s Arabic poetry (seven verses in all) are recorded in the opening chapter, which is devoted to sayings and adages (nos. 42-44, pp. 40-41). Ṭarāʾef al-ṭoraf was most likely compiled in Khayyam’s lifetime. Perhaps the two had met during Khayyam’s visit to Baghdad (Ebn al-Qefṭi, p. 244), and the anthologist had noted down the verses directly from him.

Another early author who included Khayyam’s verse in an anthology is ʿEmād-al-Din Kāteb Eṣfahāni (q.v.; 519-97/1125-1201) with a qeṭʿa of four verses in his Ḵaridat al-qaṣr wa jaridat al-ʿaṣr (II, p. 85). These verses may date to the years that Khayyam had spent in Isfahan (467-472/1074-1079; Barg-nisi, p. 161). The same qeṭʿa appears in the Taʾriḵ al-ḥokamāʾ (p. 244) of Jamāl-al-Din Abu’l-Ḥasan Ebn al-Qefṭi (568-646/1172-1248). Šams-al-Din Moḥammad b. Maḥmud Šahrazuri (d. 676/1277), in his Nozhat al-arwāḥ wa rawżat al-afrāḥ (Taʾriḵ al-ḥokamāʾ), includes additional Arabic verses under his entry for Khayyam (pp. 325-26; Qazvini, pp. 211-14).

There are differing evaluations of the relative significance of these Arabic verses. Some scholars detect a more intimate and palpable affinity with his stature as a man of science in these extant Arabic verses, rather than in his Persian quatrains. Some go further and maintain that his Arabic verses present a touchstone for ascertaining the authenticity of the Persian verses attributed to him. Others, however, regard them as merely run-of-the-mill poetical exercises, of some interest solely because they happen to have been composed by a celebrated thinker and scientist (Ebn Rasul, p. 187). Moreover, some of the Arabic verses attributed to Khayyam share the fate of many of his Persian ones: their authenticity has been questioned given that they also appear in perhaps more creditable sources under other names, including those of Abu’l-ʿAlāʾ Maʿārri (d. 449/1058), Moʿayyed-al-Din Ḥosayn b. ʿAli Ṭoḡrāʾi (453-514/1061-1121), and Abu Sahl Saʿid b. ʿAbd-al-ʿAziz Nili (353-420/964-1029; Ebn Rasul, pp. 238-40).

Khayyam’s Persian poetry. Almost all of the Persian poems attributed to Khayyam are robāʿis. There are, however, also three qeṭʿas reputedly by him recorded in different sources. A manuscript in Konya of the Rabāb-nāma of Solṭān Walad (d. 712/1312), dated to before 704/1304, includes a poem of eleven verses under his name, couched in the manner of a homiletic qaṣida (Minovi, 1957, pp. 74-75; Homāʾi, p. 167). The second poem, a dialogue in the form of question and answer interrogating the figurative persona of the Intellect, appears in the marginalia of the edition and Turkish translation of Khayyam’s Robāʿiyāt by Ḥosayn Dāneš (q.v.; p. 312; Homāʾi, p. 168). The third poem is a qeṭʿa of three lines that Maḥmud Golestāna (d. 801/1398) attributed to Khayyam in his Anis al-waḥda wa janis al-ḵalwa (p. 113), a compendium of quoted counsel and exempla on sundry topics. The identical verses appear in the divān of Ebn Yamin (q.v.; p. 354). Immediately after the above-mentioned qeṭʿa, there are two others in Anis al-waḥda, which have been erroneously attributed to Khayyam by the editor of Anis al-waḥda and some other authors (Yakāni, p. 404).

The quatrains attributed to Khayyam are among the masterpieces of Persian poetry, and the poet himself is universally regarded as one of the most renowned of all Persian poets. His worldwide fame is based not only on his scientific stature and his learned treatises but also on the memorable verses attributed to him.

These attributed verses have multiplied with the passage of time. Until the early years of the 9th/15th century, they amounted to nearly 140 quatrains (Mirafżali, 2003). Fifty years later, their number had reached 550, as recorded in the Ṭarab-ḵāna of Yār Aḥmad Rašidi Tabrizi (d. 867/1462). The Indian scholar Swāmī Govinda Tīrtha’s comprehensive collection of Khayyam’s quatrains, published in 1941, which drew upon all the manuscripts and printed editions available to him, increased the number to 1,096.

The robāʿi is one of the earliest and most authentic forms of Persian poetry (Elwell-Sutton, pp. 633-39), with its origins traditionally traced back to the poetry of Rudaki (d. 329/941). The earliest extant poems as recorded in different sources such as anthologies, histories, and literary and mystical texts, date from the 4th/10th century. The few predating this period lack sufficient documentary evidence.

Until the middle of the 5th/11th century, the contents of a robāʿi were mainly devoted to a celebration of amatory or panegyric themes. There was as yet no room for philosophic or mystical ruminations. The verses of Sanāʾi (q.v.) and Khayyam ushered in new themes, and endowed the form with a new mystical and philosophically speculative identity. Khayyam’s distinctive ontological ruminations, as expressed in his authentic verses, pioneered a novel and distinct sub-branch in the history of the Persian robāʿi: the robāʿiyāt-e Ḵayyāmāna (Khayyamesque or Khayyamian robāʿis).

The emergence of Khayyam’s poetry and its collection. Khayyam’s quatrains first appeared as dispersed quotations cited in Persian prose works a few decades after his death, usually in support of an observation in the text. Toward the end of the 7th/13th century, a selection of quatrains attributed to him began to appear in the manuscripts of anthologies. The evidence from authentic manuscripts and reliable sources suggests that the actual collection and arrangement of Khayyam’s robāʿiyāt began in earnest in the middle of the 9th/15th century and were gradually followed by the production of numerous manuscripts of his poems. One of the earliest and most famous collections is in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (MS Ouseley 140). It was completed in Ṣafar 865/December 1460, transcribed by Šayḵ Maḥmud Pirbudāqi in Shiraz, and it provided the basis for Edward FitzGerald’s (q.v.) famous rendering of Khayyam. Edward Heron-Allen (q.v.) published a facsimile of the manuscript with a translation and commentary that also included observations on FitzGerald’s idiosyncratic use of the manuscript (London, 1898).

Another significant collection of the robāʿiyāt is Yār Aḥmad Rašidi Tabrizi’s Ṭarab-ḵāna of 867/1462, which is divided into ten chapters based on a thematic classification of the contents. The Istanbul edition of the text, published by Abdülbaki Gölpinarli (q.v.) in 1332/1953, contains 422 quatrains, while the later edition of 1342/1963 by Jalāl-al-Din Homāʾi includes 559 quatrains.

More recent scholars from Iran and elsewhere have offered very different selections of Khayyam, both in number and substance, depending on their chosen criteria for selection, as the following varying numbers of quatrains demonstrate: Ḥosayn Dāneš (249 authentic, 147 doubtful), Ṣādeq Hedāyat (q.v.; 143), Moḥammad ʿAli Foruḡi (q.v.; 179), ʿAli Dašti (q.v.; 74), Moḥsen Farzāna (70), Moḥammad Rowšan (96), Raḥim Reżāzāda Malek (95), ʿAli-Reżā Ḏakāvati Qaragozlu (142), Kāẓem Barg-nisi (36), Esmāʿil Yakāni (492), Louis Jean Baptiste Nicolas (464), Friedrich Rosen (330), Arthur Christensen (q.v.; 121), Gilbert Lazard (101).

This apparent discordance in the quatrains attributed to Khayyam as seen from different perspectives, including aesthetic, stylistic, as well as ethical and metaphysical, has proved a challenge to many scholars. Various stratagems and solutions have been proposed to narrow the distances and present a more homogeneous corpus of poems, which would, moreover, conform to his reputation as an erudite scholar and renowned scientist.

The theory of two Khayyams. One of the theories propounded to address this apparent discordance, and that has attracted some support, proposes the existence of two Khayyams. It distinguishes between ʿOmar Ḵayyām or Ḵayyāmi of Nishabur and a poet using Ḵayyām as his nom de plume (de Blois, p. 356, n. 3). This theory was first put forward by Moḥammad Moḥiṭ Ṭabāṭabāʾi in a series of articles. He based his argument (pp. 17-27) on a reference by Ebn al-Fowaṭi (q.v.; d. 723/1323) to an otherwise unknown poet: ʿAli Ḵayyām from Khorasan. According to Ebn al-Fowaṭi’s Majmaʿ al-ādāb (II, p. 331), ʿAlāʾ-al-Din ʿAli b. Moḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Ḵalaf Ḵorāsāni, known as Ḵayyām, had a substantial divān of Persian poetry and enjoyed fame in both Azarbaijan and Khorasan. It should be pointed out, however, that this single piece of evidence carries little weight when set against the cumulative evidence of Persian sources, from the earliest times on, which have attributed the poems to ʿOmar Ḵayyām (or Ḵayyāmi) Nišāburi and not to a certain ʿAli Ḵayyām. Furthermore, and in spite of Ebn al-Fowaṭi’s reference to his fame, there is not even a passing reference to this poet in biographical accounts (taḏkeras) of Persian poets or elsewhere in Persian literary sources; and the only two verses quoted by Ebn al-Fowaṭi happen to be in Arabic. In his account, Moḥiṭ Ṭabāṭabāʾi (pp. 57-58) referred to ʿAlāʾ-al-Din ʿAli Ḵayyām as a contemporary of ʿOmar Ḵayyām Nišāburi, but Kāżem Barg-nisi (p. 116) suggests that ʿAli Ḵayyām must have been a contemporary of Ebn al-Fowaṭi himself.

Earliest sources. One of the basic requirements for the establishment of Khayyam’s authentic verses is locating the relevant references and citations closest to his time. The earliest attempt in this line of research dates to 1897 and the publication of a pioneering article by Valentin Alekseevich Zhukovskiĭ (q.v.; see Ross, pp. 356, 362). The Russian scholar referred to two early texts, with quotations from Khayyam: Merṣād al-ʿebād by Najm-al-Din Rāzi, known as Dāya (q.v.; d. 654/1256), and Ḵosrow b. ʿĀbed Abarquhi (Ebn Moʿin; fl. 808/1405-6)’s Ferdaws al-tawāriḵ (Barthold, pp. 54-55). The latest contribution and discovery in this particular line of research was made in 2005, noting a reference in the Jong-e Qoṭb-e Širāzi (Bašari, pp. 532-33).

This approach, focused on the retrieval of early sources, proved initially fruitful by itself. However, the discovery in these early sources of some exceedingly pedestrian verses, out of joint with the general tone and temper of Khayyam’s poetry, suggested that the early sources could not be relied upon exclusively and that other criteria such as affinities in embedded thoughts and thematic content within the corpus of the poems should also have a bearing on their authenticity.

The earliest source citing a robāʿi under Khayyam’s name appears in an exegesis on four suras of the Qur’an, Resālat al-tanbih ʿala baʿż al-asrār al-mudaʿa fi baʿż sowar al-Qorʾān al-ʿaẓim, by Faḵr-al-Din Rāzi (d. 606/1210). In the third chapter, in his comments on the concept of resurrection, Rāzi cites and criticizes a quatrain from Khayyam (Minovi, 1957, pp. 71-72; Mirafżali, 2003, pp. 23-24).

Two other early sources should also be noted. The already cited Merṣād al-ʿebād by Najm-al-Din Rāzi (Dāya) quotes Khayyam (p. 31; tr. Algar, p. 54) and pours scorn on his views (Mirafżali, 2003, pp. 27-29). By contrast, ʿAbd-al-Qāder Ahari (d. 1261), in his al-Aqṭāb al-qoṭbiyya, cites Khayyam’s poems approvingly (Ahari, p. 121, pp. 198-99, 203-4; Dašti, pp. 159-64, tr. Elwell-Sutton, pp. 119-23; Mirafżali, 2003, pp. 31-33).

Historical works are another important source for retrieving Khayyam’s verses. These include ʿAlāʾ-al-Din ʿAṭā-Malek Jovayni’s (q.v.; d. 681/1283) Tāriḵ-e jahāngošāy (I, p. 128, II, p. 218; tr. Boyle, I, 164, II, p. 482); Šehāb-al-Din ʿAbd-Allāh Širāzi Waṣṣāf-al-Ḥażrat’s (fl. 702/1303) Tajziyat al-ʿamṣār wa tazjiyat al-ʿaṣār (or Tāriḵ-e Waṣṣāf; p. 407; Mirafżali, 2003, pp. 63-65); Sayf b. Moḥammad Heravi’s (fl. 721/1321) Tāriḵ-nāma-ye Herāt (p. 165); Ḥamd-Allāh Mostawfi’s (q.v.; d. 744/1344) Tāriḵ-e gozida (p. 728; tr. Browne, p. 748); and the already cited Ferdaws al-tawāriḵ (Mirafżali, 2003, pp. 121-22).

The historical sources tend to cite only a few verses of Khayyam as a way of buttressing or rounding off an authorial observation. It is in anthologies and other literary collections that most of Khayyam’s verses appear in some number and are treated from a broader literary perspective. The most important of these sources are as follows: (1) The Nozhat al-majāles (q.v.) of Jamāl-al-Din Ḵalil Šarvāni (mid. 7th/13th century), a fundamental source for the study of Persian quatrains in general, contains 4,000 poems by 300 poets, including 33 quatrains by Khayyam, to whom and to those replicating his themes a separate chapter is specifically devoted (Chapter 15, “dar maʿāni-ye Ḥakim ʿOmar Ḵayyām”; Ḵalil Šarvāni, pp. 671-76). (2) There are seven quatrains by Khayyam, along with some verses by other poets, in the colophon page of a manuscript of a version of the seven sages/ten viziers framed stories, Lamʿat al-serāj le-ḥażrat al-tāj (Baḵtiār-nāma; q.v.), in the Leiden University Library (Codex Or. 593) dated 6 Ḏu’l-qaʿda 695/5 September 1296 (Nöldeke, p. 101; Mirafżali, 2003, pp. 59-61.) (3) The greatest number of verses (forty-four quatrains) recorded in these various literary sources is in a manuscript in the Ayatollah Marashi Library in Qom (no. 1259; 7th/13th century), published as Safina-ye kohan-e robāʿiyāt.

Other early sources include Moḥammad b. Badr Jājarmi’s (q.v.; fl. 741/1340) Moʾnes al-aḥrār fi daqāʾeq al-ašʿār, which has also a section devoted to Khayyam’s poetry (included in Miraf˙żali, 2003, pp. 86-87). An as yet unpublished compendium of Persian poems and correspondence (majmuʿa-ye ašʿār wa morāsalāt) is kept at the Süleymaniye Library in Istanbul (MS Lala İsmail no. 487), apparently copied in Egypt by several scribes in 741-42/1340-41. It contains thirty-three (one repeated) quatrains by Khayyam (included in Miraf˙żali, 2003, 94-95). The already mentioned Anis al-waḥda wa janis al-ḵalwa (written in 750/1349) cites a quatrain by Khayyam not recorded elsewhere (Golestāna, p. 250). Also dating from 750/1349 is a compendium of prose and poetry (majmuʿa-ye naẓm wa naṯr) compiled by Abu’l-Fażl Moḥammad b. Maḥmud b. ʿAli b. Sadid b. Aḥmad (Majles Library, Tehran, MS 633) with eleven quatrains by Khayyam (Miraf˙żali, 2003, pp. 105-8; Mahfuz-ul-Haq, pp. 89-91). Another relevant anthology of Persian and Arabic poems is Rawżat al-nāẓerwa nozhat al-ḵāṭer, composed by a poet and litterateur, ʿEzz-al-Din ʿAbd-al-Aziz Kāšāni (Kāši), in the first half of the 8th/14th century. Several copies of this anthology, some abridged, exist in different libraries, including an early copy belonging to Istanbul University Library (MS 766) and another, an abridgement by the author himself, in the British Library (Or. 9602; Meredith-Owens, p. 82). There are four quatrains directly attributed to Khayyam in the wine poetry (ḵamriya, q.v.) section of the anthology and three without attribution (Miraf˙żali, 2003, p. 97-99). Another anthology of poems from the 8th/14th century with verses by Khayyam is preserved in the Government Oriental Manuscripts Library in Madras (MS 183), transcribed by Moḥammad b. Yaḡmur in Termeḏ. The manuscript has been studied by Sayyed Amir Ḥasan ʿĀbedi (pp. 229-46) who refers to it as Bayāż-e Termeḏ and quotes four quatrains of Khayyam that appear first in this volume (pp. 232-34). Another anthology from the 8th/14th century, acquired by the Ganj Bakhsh Library in Islamabad in 1993 (MS 14456, usually referred to as Jong-e Ganj-Baḵš), contains four quatrains under Khayyam’s name in its chapter on wine poetry and two quatrains elsewhere in the anthology without his name (Miraf˙żali, 2003, pp. 117-18). The voluminous collection of different topics in verse and prose compiled in 782/1380 on the order of an otherwise unidentified patron, Tāj-al-Din Aḥmad Wazir, contains several quatrains by Khayyam. The manuscript is preserved at the central library of Isfahan University; a facsimile edition was published in 1975 (Tāj-al-Din Aḥmad, pp. 310, 295, 306, 796) and a printed edition in two volumes in 2003. Finally, one should mention a quatrain under the name of Ḥakim ʿOmar Ḵayyām (British Library, London, MS Add. 27261, f. 148v; Rieu, II, p. 871) in the wine poetry section in the exquisitely illustrated and wide-ranging miscellany, Jong-e Eskandar Mirzā, compiled in 813-814/1410-1411 for Timur’s grandson, Jalāl-al-Din Eskandar b. ʿOmar Šayḵ (q.v.; executed in 817/1414).

The key quatrains. One of the techniques employed by scholars in the past two centuries for assessing the authenticity of Khayyam’s verses is that of identifying key quatrains from the earliest sources and using them as a yardstick for evaluating other quatrains attributed to him. In the west, the pioneer in this line of research was the German scholar Friedrich Rosen (1856-1935). In the preface to his edition of Khayyam’s Robāʿiyāt (Berlin, 1925), he selected twenty-three robāʿis as authentic and suggested that they could be instrumental in evaluating his other quatrains. In Iran, Ṣādeq Hedāyat was the first to follow the same route (1934) and was later followed by Moḥammad ʿAli Foruḡi (in 1941), ʿAli Dašti (tr. 109-28), Rašid Yāsami, Moḥsen Farzāna, Ḥasan Dānešfar, and Moḥammad Rowšan (further details in the bibliography).

This use of key quatrains as a decisive arbiter has also had its critics. According to Jalāl-al-Din Homāʾi, “there are assuredly genuine quatrains belonging to Khayyam himself among the 66 quatrains selected by Foruḡi as key verses,” but he adds the cautionary proviso, “it is also possible that they contain amongst them pieces definitely ascribed to others or of doubtful origin” (Homāʾi, p. 44).

Authenticating and editing the “Robāʿiyāt”. The frequently used descriptive phrase, “the wandering robāʿi” was first coined by V. A. Zhukovskiĭ (Ross, pp. 360-61) in his contribution to the festschrift of Baron V. Rosen in 1897, which was later translated into English by Edward Denison Ross (1871-1940). Zhukovskiĭ extracted 82 quatrains from the 464 in Jean Baptiste Nicolas’ edition that had been attributed to some 39 other poets in various literary sources and divāns. Further research by Denison Ross and Arthur Christensen increased the number of the wandering quatrains to 108 (Dašti, p. 255, tr. p. 179). This trend reached its peak in the study by Swāmī Govinda Tīrtha in 1941, which designated as wandering quatrains (Tīrtha, pp. 162-67) some 753 quatrains out of the 2,213 attributed to Khayyam but actually belonging to 143 poets over the time span of six centuries (Christensen, tr. Badraʾi, p. 29).

Looking at the quatrains of Khayyam from the perspective of the wandering robāʿis can only be partially helpful for it merely suggests which robāʿi might not be authentic. According to ʿAli Dašti (p. 256, tr. pp. 179-80), this line of enquiry is not applicable to all cases, and given the doubtful nature of some of the information in the sources, there is scope for error. The problem of authorial attribution regarding the robāʿis, whether the verses belong to Khayyam or to another poet, is a perennial one, from the earliest times to the present.

The quatrains from the perspective of their rhyme scheme. Little research has so far been carried out in stylistics regarding Khayyam’s quatrains, and no thorough scrutiny of the authentic robāʿis in the context of poetry in Khayyam’s time, the Saljuq era, has yet been published.

Having studied 2,399 quatrains extant in the collected poetry of ten poets contemporary to Khayyam, the present contributor has found that 2,088 quatrains (equivalent to 87 percent) have a four-rhyme scheme (aaaa) and the remaining 13 percent follow a three-rhyme scheme (aaba). L. P. Elwell-Sutton (q.v.; 1912-1984) carried out a similar study for the poets of the 5th/11th century and concluded that 70 percent of the quatrains in this period follow a four-rhyme scheme and 30 percent follow the three-rhyme scheme (Elwell-Sutton, p. 640; Šamisā, pp. 21-22). But his statistics, derived from the poetical works of Farroḵi, ʿOnṣori, Abu’l-Faraj Runi, Moʿezzi, Azraqi, Masʿud Saʿd-e Salmān (qq.v.), and Qaṭrān, cast doubt on his overall conclusion, for, according to him, these poets have 905 quatrains in the four-rhyme scheme (90 percent), and 91 quatrains in the three-rhyme scheme. Elwell-Sutton had not gauged these statistics in relation to the verses attributed to Khayyam and seems to have been mainly interested in deciphering which of the rhyme schemes was the oldest, the four-rhymed or the three-rhymed.

Mohammad Iqbal (q.v.; 1877-1938) was the first scholar to fully appreciate the significance of this distinction in the rhyme scheme in the context of research on the authenticity of Khayyam’s poetry. In a paper presented at a conference in 1933, he investigated the statistics of the occurrence of four-rhymed quatrains in poetical anthologies and divāns of poets of the 5th/11th and 6th/12th centuries. Given the perennial existence of doubtful attributions in the anthologies, as well the dearth of trustworthy manuscripts, he had to exercise caution and present his conclusions tentatively. Nevertheless, by referring to three robāʿis of Khayyam in two sources with an early date, namely Merṣād al-ʿebād and Tāriḵ-e jahāngošāy, he emphasized the importance of the four-rhymed quatrains, to which he refers as “du-baitīs” in order to distinguish them from the three-rhymed robāʿis, and concludes that “the du-baitīs in a genuine collection of the quatrains of Khayyam must very much outnumber the rubāʿīs” (Iqbal, p. 914).

In a more recent contribution, published posthumously in 2012, Alexander Morton investigated the Khayyamian quatrains in a relatively obscure manual of disparate advice perhaps composed sometime between 503/1109 and 509/1115 during the reign of the Ghaznavid (q.v.) ruler Masʿud (III) b. Ebrāhim (q.v.; r. 492-508/1099-1115). The author is named as Abu’l-Qāsem Naṣr b. Aḥmad b. ʿAmr Šādāni Nišāburi. He was a contemporary of Khayyam as well as originating from the same city. The work is referred to as Ganj al-ganj in several of the manuscripts, most probably a later scribal addition. It is divided into twelve chapters on various topics replete with anecdotes and historical exempla and numerous citations of poetry (Imāni, p. 15), including many robāʿis. Basing his figures on an incomplete manuscript, Morton has calculated that of 86 robāʿis in Ganj al-ganj, “67, that is, nearly 85%” have a four-rhyme scheme (Morton, p. 60). His figures therefore closely resemble the findings of this contributor regarding the divāns of poets contemporaneous with Khayyam.

In this context, a statement by Naṣir-al-Din Ṭusi (q.v.; d. 672/1274) confirms the present contributor’s research: Ṭusi (p. 62) was of the opinion that the more ancient poets composed quatrains in the four-rhyme scheme (aaaa), and that later poets dropped the rhyme from the third half-line (aaba). His view is supported by the observation of Jamāl-al-Din Qarši (circa 702/1302) that poets in Khorasan and western Iran composed quatrains in the four-rhyme scheme (Qarši, p. 3). Given the above evidence, we can conclude that one of the essential guides for ascertaining the authenticity of the quatrains is their rhyme scheme. Confronted by different variants, the verses following the four-rhyme scheme are more likely to be the original ones. This is a more reliable and tested touchstone than the others on offer provided that the authenticity of the available texts is also carefully scrutinized.

A survey of some of the collections of quatrains attributed to Khayyam displays their disregard for the above historical and literary premises. Among the 559 quatrains in Rašidi’s Ṭarab-ḵāna, only 112 are based on a four-rhyme scheme, and in the case of Foruḡi’s edition, 51 out of 179 quatrains follow the four-rhyme scheme. One of the reasons for questioning the merits and value of such collections as the Ṭarab-ḵāna is the stylistic discordance of their offering with what we know of the literary style of Khayyam’s era from other and earlier sources.

Thematic classification of the quatrains. Classifying the quatrains attributed to Khayyam according to their subject matter is another line adopted by scholars to delineate the various thematic contents, key concepts, and images embedded in his robāʿis. As already mentioned, Ḵalil Šarvāni had devoted a specific chapter to the significant themes shared by Khayyam and those influenced by him (pp. 671-76). The fact that in Moʾnes al-aḥrār fi daqāʾeq al-ašʿār the already cited Badr Jājarmi had also allotted a chapter (II, pp. 1144-46) exclusively to Khayyam, indicates that these anthologists were conscious of the particular traits and style peculiar to Khayyam’s quatrains. The anthologist of the Safina-ye kohan-e robāʿiyāt (7th/13th century) compiled most of his selection of Khayyam under the rubric of “On reproaching [the fickle ways] of the firmament and others” (dar maḏemmat-e falak va ḡayr-e ān; pp. 113-21). Railing against the capriciousness of fate appears to be one of the focal topics of Khayyam’s quatrains.

In general, the collections devoted solely to Khayyam’s quatrains are not based on a thematic taxonomy, but Rašidi’s Ṭarab-ḵāna is an exception here. His compilation of the robāʿiyāt is divided into ten sections. The essential topics in his classification are: Divine transcendence (tanzih-e ḵodāvand); rational and philosophical questions (masāʾel-e ḥekami va falsafi); advice and counsel (naṣiḥat va andarz); seizing the moment and the evanescence of pleasing pastimes (eḡtenām-e forṣat va tangnā-ye ʿayš); bacchanalian themes (ḵamriyāt); and the transience of life (gardeš-e ayyām).

Among more recent writers, Ḥosayn Dāneš (1870-1943) was perhaps the pioneer in classifying Khayyam’s quatrains. In 1922, he published in Istanbul a collection of 396 robāʿis with their Turkish translations. His volume comes in two parts: authentic verses and doubtful verses. The first part contains 250 quatrains arranged according to their themes and matter (p. 101): agnosticism (lā-edria); mutability of the world (degarguni-e ʿālam); nihilism (nist-engāri); pessimism (badbini); relishing transient moments (carpe diem; dam ḡanimat šomāri); predestination and fate (jabr and qadar); ironic derision (estehzāʾ). Another set of thematic subdivisions was presented by Ṣādeq Hedāyat in his Tarānahā-ye Ḵayyām (1934): the mystery of creation (rāz-e āfarineš); the pain of existence (dard-e zendegi); the pre-destined decree (az azal nevešta); the transience of times (gardeš-e dowrān); the whirling atoms (ḏarrāt-e gardān); whatever will be will be (har če bādā bād); all for naught (hič ast); savor the moment (dam rā daryābid). The listed captions are not precise enough or sufficiently informative. For example, those quatrains collected under “whatever will be will be” are mostly in praise of wine and drinking and intoxication (Hedāyat, pp. 92-100).

The existence of a so-called Khayyamian School in the context of the robāʿi itself and its thematic contents poses several inherent problems of its own. Many poets, from the earliest times to the present, have written quatrains in this genre and with their passing, many of their verses have found their way into the collection of quatrains attributed to Khayyam. The thematic classification is not, therefore, of much use in ascertaining the authenticity of doubtful robāʿis. The only merit in such a classification is that we can define and demarcate the thematic contents of the so-called Khayyamian verses within the broader horizon of the Persian robāʿi, particularly as we have not, so far, arrived at a consensus regarding their range and scope. For example, there are some quatrains of Khayyam susceptible to a mystical interpretation. Some critics (Dašti, p. 286; Qanbari, pp. 114-15) have questioned the authenticity of such verses as: Dar jostan-e jām-e jam, jahān peymudam / “I scoured the world in search of Jamshid’s bowl” (Ahari, p. 198; Safina-ye kohan, p. 114 with further references; Dašti, tr. Elwell-Sutton, p. 198); or Delhā hama āb gašt-o-jānhā hama ḵun / “Hearts melted all into water and life itself into blood” (Ahari, p. 121; Safina-ye kohan, p. 85 with further references) because of their clear mystical overtones. This in spite of the fact that in general Khayyam seems to have had a favorable attitude toward Sufism and, as expressed in his short treatise, Dar ʿelm-e koliyāt-e wojud (On the existence of universals), had proposed the mystical path as the most suitable approach toward a better understanding of the divine (Reżāzāda Malek, p. 389). Ebn al-Qefṭi’s claim that later Sufis had incorporated the exoteric images and content of Khayyam’s verses into their esoteric discourse (Ebn al-Qefṭi, p. 244; Barg-nisi, p. 65) indicates the inherent potential in his verses for a mystical interpretation and exegesis.

Surveying the various lines of research in recent decades for deciphering the authenticity of Khayyam’s quatrains, one is led to the conclusion that an eclectic approach, drawing upon all the methods, could be the most promising and fruitful. We have no choice but to rely on the more trustworthy sources compiled up to the end of the 8th/14th century. In the later centuries, we face the perennial propensity of the anthologists for expanding the number of the quatrains and their disregard for earlier sources, thereby throwing doubt on their evidence. The older sources too, need to be carefully scrutinized and evaluated. A quatrain that appears in several early sources (the principle of congruence) can be deemed as more reliable (Dašti, p. 23, tr. pp. 37-38). Greater care is needed in the case of the so-called “wandering robāʿis,” attributed simultaneously to several poets. In such cases, the collected works of the poets (divāns) are usually a better guide to authenticity than citations in anthologies and miscellanies.

Close attention to the particular stylistic features of the poetry of the Saljuq period, and in particular the quatrains composed in this era, can prove helpful in establishing the authenticity of the quatrains. Given the nature of the quatrains attributed to Khayyam, and the lack of a trustworthy and closely related corpus of quatrains, we are forced to look at external factors and other criteria. One of these indicators is if the third half-line (meṣraʿ) also rhymes with the rest of the couplet, suggesting an early date for the verse. As for the content, the insertion of a philosophical observation, posing a moral or metaphysical dilemma, or the format of a disputation involving a negation and response are indications of the authenticity of a Khayyamian quatrain (Mirafżali, 1995, p. 11; Barg-nisi, p. 168).

Critics of Khayyam. From the outset, Khayyam’s quatrains have encountered protests in literary circles and amongst poets and writers. For example, Sanāʾi Ḡaznavi (q.v.; ca. 1087/1130), a contemporary of Khayyam—and they may even have sat at the same master’s feet—has two quatrains that appear as a riposte to a quatrain in which Khayyam questions how the notion of death can be accepted as just. In his rebuttal, Sanāʾi likens corporeal existence to the husk or skin of a fruit or a builder’s scaffolding, to be discarded or dismantled once the fruit has ripened or the dome erected, thereby defining and redeeming death as the final stage toward perfection for mankind (Mirafżali, 2015, p. 5).

Two writers from Rayy, both mentioned already, also cite Khayyam so that they can then negate his moral outlook. Faḵr-al-Din Rāzi accused him of shedding spurious doubts on death and resurrection in one of his quatrains (Faḵr-al-Din Rāzi, pp. 59-60). Najm-al-Din Rāzi (Dāya) dismisses him as a wanderer, hopelessly lost, and a believer in timeless eternity (dahri, q.v.) and quotes two of his quatrains to prove his point (Najm-al-Din Rāzi, pp. 30-31, 400; tr. p. 54, 387). During the same early period, Jamāl-al-Din Abu’l-Ḥasan Ebn al-Qefṭi chastises Khayyam’s poetry in his Taʾriḵ al-ḥokamāʾ (p. 244) and points to what he conceives as its inherent dangers, “The later Ṣúfís have found themselves in agreement with some part of the apparent sense of his verse, and have transferred it to their system, and discussed it in their assemblies and private gatherings, though its inward meanings are to the [Ecclesiastical] Law stinging serpents, and combinations rife with malice” (tr. Browne, 1906, p. 250; Barg-nisi, p. 65).

While ʿAbd-al-Qāder Ahari in his al-Aqṭāb al-qoṭbiya bestows effusive epithets on Khayyam (Ahari, pp. 121, 198), in another passage in quoting Khayyam’s quatrains, he follows the same line as Najm-al-Din Rāzi and includes Khayyam among the deniers of the day of resurrection and prophethood (Ahari, p. 175, 204). Among the collected sayings of Šams-al-Din Moḥammad Tabrizi (d. ca. 646/1248) there is also a passage where Khayyam is described, in contrast to men of faith, as lost in bewilderment, capable of naught save confused and dark thoughts (Šams-e Tabrizi, p. 301, tr. de Fouchécour, p. 374). Finally, in the section below, we will discuss the translation into Arabic of one of Khayyam’s quatrains by Qāżi Neẓām-al-Din Eṣfahāni (d. 680/1281). The translation is not offered as a token of approval but, on the contrary, as a proem to criticize his verse and is immediately followed by four quatrains as a rebuttal (Neẓām-al-Din, f. 176; Mirafżali, 2002, pp. 23-24).

Translations of the “Robāʿiyāt”. There are numerous translations of Khayyam into different languages, as can be surveyed in the major bibliographies of Khayyam including those of A. G. Potter (1929), Fāṭema and Zahrā Angurāni (2002), and Jos Coumans (2010) as well as in other entries in this Encyclopaedia (see KHAYYAM iv, vi, vii, viii, ix, x).

The earliest translation of Khayyam is the verse translation by the above-mentioned bilingual poet, Qāżi Neẓām-al-Din Eṣfahāni, in his collection of Arabic quatrains, Noḵbat al-šāreb waʿojālat al-rākeb. It contains 550 quatrains in Arabic and 50 in macaronic (molammaʿ) form, mixing Arabic with Persian in the same verses. As pointed out above, after translating a quatrain by Khayyam into an Arabic quatrain, Neẓām-al-Din proceeds to present four Arabic quatrains of his own as a critical response and rejoinder. In the modern period, Khayyam has frequently been translated into Arabic, one of the most famous translations being that of Ṣafi Najafi (351 robāʿis, 1926); see also below KHAYYAM x.

The earliest references to Khayyam in pre-modern European sources is perhaps in Joseph Scaliger’s (1540-1609) study of calendar systems, Opus de Emendatione Temporum (1583), where “Omar Elhaiamu” is listed along with “Elbiruni” and “Aben Sina” and other men of science (Scaliger, p. 304). Reference to Khayyam as a poet and Latin versions of his quatrain first appeared in England in Thomas Hyde’s (q.v.; 1636-1703) Historia religionis veterum Persarum (pp. 498-500).

Forged or altered manuscripts. The popularity of the Robāʿiyāt worldwide and the perennial quest for old and authentic manuscripts have led to a series of claims of discoveries of significant early manuscripts that have later turned out to be forgeries, although at first defended, at times half-heartedly, by eminent scholars (Csillik, p. 61). These have been discussed in other entries along with forgeries of other Persian manuscripts (see FORGERIES iv. OF ISLAMIC MANUSCRIPTS), as well as in the entry on English translations (see KHAYYAM iv. English Translations of the Rubaiyat) regarding the case of a mysterious and perhaps non-existent 12th-century manuscript of which only a prose translation exists by Omar Ali Shah and a free verse rendering of that by Robert Graves (Bowen, pp. 63-73).

Along with the forged manuscripts briefly referred to above, there are a few genuinely old but doctored manuscripts whose dates have been tampered with to advance their age and enhance their value. Among these is the manuscript dated 721/1321 that Rosen used for his Berlin edition of 1925. It has 300 quatrains and is transcribed in the nastaʿliq style (see CALLIGRAPHY). Arthur Christensen suggests (p. 47) a date around 900/1500 as its true date, a view repeated by A. G. Potter (p. 159, no. 526). Another manuscript (dated 790/1388), containing 333 quatrains, was presented in Esmāʿil Yakāni’s book on Khayyam and his Robāʿiyāt in 1963. The manuscript originally belonged to Ḥosayn Naḵjavāni’s private library in Tabriz but is now in the collection of the late Aṣḡar Mahdavi. After inspecting the manuscript, it became clear that the date had been tampered with (Mirafżali, 2003, p. 250; 2005-6, pp. 377-80; Ḏakāvati Qaragozlu, p. 155).