Omar Khayyám, the Astronomer-Poet of Persia
Omar Khayyám was born at Naishápúr in Khorassán in the latter half of our Eleventh, and died within the first quarter of our Twelfth Century. The slender story of his life is curiously twined about that of two other very considerable figures in their time and country: one of whom tells the story of all three. This was Nizám ul Mulk, Vizyr to Alp Arslan the son, and Malik Shah the grandson, of Toghrul Beg the Tartar, who had wrested Persia from the feeble successor of Mahmúd the Great, and founded that Seljukian Dynasty which finally roused Europe into the Crusades. This Nizám ul Mulk, in his Wasiyat—or Testament—which he wrote and left as a memorial for future statesmen—relates the following, as quoted in the Calcutta Review, No. 59, from Mirkhond’s History of the Assassins.
“One of the greatest of the wise men of Khorassán was the Imám Mowaffak of Naishápúr, a man highly honored and reverenced—may God rejoice his soul: his illustrious years exceeded eighty-five, and it was the universal belief that every boy who read the Koran or studied the traditions in his presence, would assuredly attain to honor and happiness. For this cause did my father send me from Tús to Naishápúr with Abd-us-samad, the doctor of law, that I might employ myself in study and learning under the guidance of that illustrious teacher. Towards me he ever turned an eye of favor and kindness, and as his pupil I felt for him extreme affection and devotion, so that I passed four years in his service.
