The Great Umar Khayyam

The Rubáiyát by the Persian poet ‘Umar Khayyæm (1048-1131) is used in contemporary Iran as a resistance literature, symbolizing the secularist voice in cultural debates. While Islamic fundamentalists criticize Khayyæm as an atheist and materialist philosopher who questions God’s creation and the promise of reward or punishment in the hereafter, secularist intellectuals see in him an example of a scientist who scrutinizes the mysteries of the world. Others see a spiritual master, a Sufi, who guides people to the truth. This volume collects eighteen essays on the history of the reception of ‘Umar Khayyæm in various literary traditions, exploring how his philosophy of doubt, carpe diem, hedonism, and in vino veritas has inspired generations of poets, novelists, painters, musicians, calligraphers and film-makers

She’r marham-e hejran

Middle Eastern Studie

Omar Khayyam’s Transgressive Ethics and Their Socio-Political Implications in Contemporary Iran

Middle Eastern Studie

A Modern Persian Poet on Iran-Iraq War: Qayṣar Amīnpūr

Middle Eastern Studie

Poëzie en politiek in Iran: Ayatollah ook dichter

Middle Eastern Studie

'The Houses of the Tulips’: Persian Poetry on the Fallen in the Iran-Iraq War

Middle Eastern Studie

Een Perzische Floris ende Blancefloer? Over het elfde-eeuwse Perzische liefdesepos Warqa en Golshâh

Middle Eastern Studie

Corrections and Elaborations: A One-Night Stand in Narrations of Ferdowsi’s Rostam and Sohrāb”

Middle Eastern Studie

Guest Editor's Introduction

Middle Eastern Studie

Manūchihrī’s The Raven of Separation: Arabic Poetic Topoi and the Persian Courtly Tradition

Middle Eastern Studie