This year is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Edward Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. On this occasion, I would like to share the English version of my essay first published in Persian twenty years ago. (1)
The question which always consumes the soul of the great Persian poet, Omar Khayyam (1048-1122), is death and the afterlife. In his Ruba’iyat, he cannot accept the usual religious responses of resurrection and reincarnation. To release his mind from the insurmountablility of death, he takes refuge in wine (and sometimes love), and tries to forget himself in “let’s be happy” or hedonism. As a result, in spite of his rejection of resurrection and ridicule of religious observances, Khayyam is not able to appreciate the immortal self-creativity of earthly life and cannot distance himself from the religious point of departure; that is, the dominance of death over life. In Khayyam’s hedonism, earthly wine replaces heavenly opium and drinking ceremonies substitute for religious rituals. Although social injustice and public ignorance saddens Khayyam and he often speaks out against the “bloodthirsty” clergy, he shows no way out other than seclusion and escapism. Therefore, it is not wrong to call Khayyam “the poet of bitter joy”, that is, a drinking, lonely poet to whom life tastes like death.
I. Death and the Afterlife
Khayyam, in addition to poetry, was interested in mathematics and astronomy. Scientific work helps him to think of philosophical problems beyond the usual religious dogmas. The following quatrain, while showing the impact of astronomy on his philosophical thought, reveals his main obsession with death:
From the mass of black clay to the heights of saturn
I solved abstract problems one by one
I untied the knots of problems with skill
All knots were untied except that of death (2)
Death is a force from which no human being can escape:
No one wins over the wheel of time
And the earth is not full of eating men and women
You are proud that you are not eaten yet
Why hurry, it’s not late, you’ll be eaten too
In spite of the fact that being and not being are inseparably connected, the problem of death is more appealing to Khayyam than the question of life’s genesis. Whether the world is created or timeless, death inevitably knocks at our doors:
I’m not immortal in this universe
So it’s a big mistake to be without wine and love
How much longer on “created” or “timeless”, oh wiseman
We will be gone, whether the world is created or timeless
People after death turn into dust, therefore, each handful of dust is reminiscent of a person in the past:
The Wheel will not pick up any clay from the earth
Until it is shattered, returning to clay again
If the cloud lifts the soil just as water
It will rain the blood of our loves until the resurrection
Man cannot escape death in reality, but he is able to overcome it in three imaginary ways: First, if man can drink from the fountain of life, he will be able to remain evergreen like the Islamic saint Kheder (“khezr” in Persian) or the Jewish prophet Elias; the double-horned Islamisized Greek King Alexander who returned unsuccessfully from the path to immortality; the Greek hero Achilles and the Persian warrier Esfandyar who took ablution in holy water, but unintentionally left vulnerable spots through which death entered their bodies. However, gods and semi-gods remain the only deathless beings and humanity cannot reach immortality. Second, based on the principle of reincarnation, Hindus believe that people after death, measured by their behavior in this world, will be reborn in a new form and thereby overcome death. Third, according to Islamic and Judeo-Christian traditions, the human soul after death must wait for the day of reckoning. At that time, all the dead will be raised; those who had done wrong will go to hell, and the righteous, to paradise:
What if there was a place for resting in peace
Or there was a destination for this far path
What if after one hundred thousand years, within the earth
Like greenery, there was hope of growing back again
Although Khayyam considers each of the three utopian forms of victory over death absurd, he is influenced by the Hindu concept of reincarnation. After death, parts of the dead body remain in other existing forms. Thus, there is a material unity between the living and the dead:
Every leaf of grass grown at a brook
Looks like the new fuzz on the upper lip of an angelic face
Behold, do not step on greenery with contempt
Because it has grown out of the tomb of a tulip-faced youth
Khayyam feels a deep emotional connection between himself and others as well as among past, present and future. This connection can create happiness as well as sorrow:
Last night I hit the porcelain jar
I was tipsy, and so I did wrong
The jar was telling me in a mystical language
I was like you, and you, too, will be like me
The material unity of the world is a result of the shared origin of its component parts:
When humors were composed by the Omniscient
I don’t know why He made them defective
If they came out well, why does He break them into pieces
If these forms were not made well, who should be blamed
In the following quatrain he mentions four material elements of nature:
We are in this ruined corner with wine and our loves
Not bothered by hope of paradise or fear of torment
We have pledged our souls, bodies, cups and clothes for wine
Free from wind, earth, fire and water
For people who live at the edge of vast deserts the element of “earth” seems to be more important than the other three elements. It is said in all holy books of monistic religion of the Middle East, including the Koran, that God created man from a special soil used for pottery, and then blew spirit into it. Pottery, glazing ceramics, forming glassware and mining turquoise have been ancient professions of craftsmen of Nishabur, where Khayyam was born and lived most of his life. This city is located by the famous Silk Road where camel-drivers carried the porcelain and turquoise of Nishabur west to the Mediterranean sea or east to China. Khayyam, who hears the hubbub of pottery in his city, reiterates the Koranic myth of Adam’s creation with one difference, that his system of creation consists of two departments: one the pottery workshop and the other, the tavern. In the workshop, human bodies are made and in the tavern, divine spirit is poured into the bodies. From the soil of each shattered clay jar, another clay jar is made, and this process goes on to eternity:
Last night I went to the workshop of a potter
I saw two thousands clay jars, talking and quiet
Suddenly one clay jar wailed loudly:
“Where are the potter and the seller or buyer of pottery?”
But the master of the workshop is no other than the potter of the universe, that is, “Time” or “dahr”:
It is a cup praised by wisdom
Kindly kissing its face one hundred times
The potter of “Time” makes such a delicate cup
Then throws it on the ground, time after time
Sometimes, the potter of Time is changed to a painter of the garden of the universe:
True, I have beautiful hair and visage
A face like a tulip and height like a fir tree
Yet it’s not clear why, in the garden of Time
The eternal painter has thus drawn me
Sometimes instead of the word “dahr” (time), words such as “charkh” (wheel), “gardoon” (spin) and “falak” (firmament or arch of the sky) are used which remind us of the potter’s wheel as well as heavenly spheres and stars:
Oh Wheel, how come you make a miserly person wealthy
And you give him a bathhouse, mill and a mansion
But a freeman is in debt for his daily bread
No doubt one must fart on such a firmament
In the first verse of sura (chapter) 76 of the Koran, called “dahr” or “Time”, we are asked: “Has there not been over man a long period of time (dahr), when he was nothing- not even mentioned?” From the word “dahr” comes the term “dahri”, the adherent to the cult of “Zurvan”. In pre-Islamic Iran, Zurvanism was a movement within Zoroastrianism which held that Zurvan was the ultimate source of the universe and his twin children were the good spirit, Ahura-Mazda, and the bad spirit, Ahriman. Later in Islamic culture, the term “dahri” was used as a label for atheists, agnostic and skeptic freethinkers like Khayyam. Dahr suggests the passage of time. It has predetermined the lot and the time of everything and everybody in the tablet of fortune:
Bewildered like a ball in the polo of fortune
Go left, go right and say nothing
Because one who dropped you in this feverish running
Only he knows, only he knows, only he
Nevertheless, it seems that in some of his quatrains Khayyam uses fatalism, in order to justify his religious non-observance. If everyone’s fate is predetermined, he neither benefits from religious worship in this world, nor can he hope for salvation on the day of judgment:
Because God ordained your daily bread
Neither will he diminish it nor increase it
One should feel free regarding what there is
And be carefree about what there is not
And also in this quatrain:
Oh Lord, you have molded my clay, what should I do?
You have strung my jasper and pearl, what should I do?
Whatever I do, either evil or good
You have written for me in advance, what should I do?
Contrary to the fatalism and irresponsibility for ones’ actions implied in the two above-mentioned pieces, we encounter a completely new thought in the following quatrain:
Every good or evil inherent in human nature
Every joy or sorrow within the predetermined fate
Should not be left to the Wheel, because viewed by wisdom
The Wheel is more miserable than you a thousand times
If, from the above-mentioned poem, one can understand the necessity of human freedom only through a counter-argument, in the following quatrain the conclusion is self-evident:
We are the end of all creation
In view of wisdom, spirit or vision
The circle of the world looks like a ring
And we are the only design on its stone
Therefore, man is the center of the universe. He is autonomous in his thoughts and actions, and God has no influence on him. Khayyam, both through his fatalism and voluntarism, attempts to reject the principle of resurrection. He does not accept the words of the Koran and the Prophet about the day of judgment, and wants to think with his own head.
II. Scientific Method
In order to reject resurrection, Khayyam uses four arguments based, respectively, on personal observation, investigation of other people’s observation, philosophical contemplation and psycho-sociological analysis. Firstly, according to classical terminology, Kayyam is a Naturalist philosopher, or as we contemporaneously might say, adheres to the scientific method. In his investigation, he begins with the observation of the world around him instead of reaching a conclusion at the outset and then finding supporting examples. Like Francis Bacon (1561-1626), after observing nature, he contemplates, analyzes and finally reaches a conclusion. In the following quatrain, he uses an argument by analogy and after observing the growth and death of a tulip, concludes that human resurrection has no basis in reality:
Drink wine, you will sleep a long time in the earth
Without companion, comrade, friend or mate
Behold, do not reveal this hidden secret:
That tulip which withered, will not blossom
Secondly, Khayyam does not limit himself to personal observation, but is ready to hear the ideas of others. Unfortunately, so far no dead person has returned from the grave who can bring us any proof to the validity of the afterlife:
From all those gone on this long path
Who has returned to reveal to us the secret?
Behold, at this dilemma of greed and need
Do not leave anything, because you won’t come back
Thirdly, after gathering observations and facts, it is time for analytical reasoning. If everything is written in the tablet of fortune in advance, then the necessity of religious observances in this world and the existence of resurrection hereafter are both nullified:
How much longer light from mosques and smoke from synagogues?
How much more “loss” in hell and “profit” in paradise?
Look at the tablet of fortune, where from primordial time
The master wrote whatever was ordained to happen
And fourthly, if through observation of nature, investigation of facts and philosophical contemplation we cannot find a basis for resurrection, what would be the need for its invention? People are not fond of vanity, nor is the blade of absurdity always sharp. As a result, belief in the day of reckoning originates from social and psychological needs. In a world filled with sorrows, where oppression and ignorance rule, the oppressed and hopeless must take refuge in utopia and find a way out in dreams. Hence, we find concepts such as paradise, inferno and even God:
The Wheel is a belt around our worn-out body
The river of Oxus is a mark of our refined tears
Hell is a spark from our unheeded sighs
And paradise is a moment of our peaceful time
The belief in a day of resurrection is a reflection of our joy and sorrow in this world, even as the concept of God is caused by the feeling of the passage of time on the world and our aging bodies. Khayyam, in some other quatrains shows a tendency towards complete atheism:
This sea of being has appeared from hiding
There is no one who can pierce the jewel of its knowledge
Everybody has said words in caprice
What is on the other side, no one can say
Despite of all facts and reasoning, if there were to be a day of resurrection with its paradise and hell, it would be better for us not to risk the cash for credit. Khayyam leaves the promised paradise to the faithful and inspires others to build a paradise in this world:
They say paradise will be fun for you with its beautiful women Instead, I’d say that the juice of grapes is good for you
Take this cash and wash your hand of that credit
The sound of a kettledrum is only fun from afar
If what the Koran says about the beautiful women and men in paradise is true, so enjoying wine and love in this world should not be considered an abomination:
They say that there will be a paradise with beautiful women
There you will have pure wine and honey
If we worshipped wine and love it would be right
Because the outcome of our world will be the same
The inferno cannot be a place for lovers and drunks:
They say that the drunkards will go to hell
This is incorrect and one should not have faith in it
If lovers and drunks will inhabit inferno
You will find paradise tomorrow like the palm of a hand
Will we be resurrected in spirit or in our present bodies? Even a dispute within the camp of resurrectionists gives Khayyam an opportunity to preach his gospel of joy:
They say whoever fears God
Will be raised as when he died
That’s why we always enjoy wine and love
So that in resurrection we will be so raised
Because we might be raised in our present bodily form, Khayyam gives the address of his grave in advance, so that the functionaries of the day of judgement will not make a mistake:
When I pass away, use wine for my ablution
Instead of holy words, fill my mouth with pure wine
If you want to find me on the day of resurrection
Seek me at the threshold of the tavern
III. Three Schools of Thought
Sunni clergy were not the only enemy of Khayyam in Khorasan, Iran. In addition to Sunni governments of Malekshah (R. 1072-92) and Sanjar (1085-1157) of the House of Seljuq, there were Isma’ili partisans, (or Sevener Shiites). This latter group made a distinction between the literal and the hidden meaning of words of the Koran. Instead of relying on words and deeds attributed to Muhammad, the prophet, as Sunnis did, Isma’ilis advocated a “rational” interpretation of religion. The beautiful legend of three schoolmates – Khawjeh Nizam-ul-Mulk (b. 1018, the powerful vizier of Seljuk’s kingdom), Hassan Sabah (b. 1034, the leader of the Isma’ili-Nizari partisans in Iran) and Omar Khayyam – who studied together under Imam Mowaffaq Nishapuri, thoroughly illustrates the battle of three ways of thought: reactionary orthodox Suniism, revolutionary “rationalist” Isma’ilism and agnostic hedonism of Khayyam in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Khayyam was suspicious of the other two trends because they misled people with the popular mirage of resurrection. He looked for his paradise in this world:
I will kill sorrow with a huge jug of wine
And enrich myself with two large goblets of it
First I will divorce “reason” and “religion” forever
Then I will marry the daughter of grapevines
In the following quatrain, he makes fun of Isma’ili concepts, such as knowledge, the literal (appearance) and hidden (inside) meanings of the Koranic verses:
I know the “surface” of being and not being
I know the “depth” of each up and down
Yet, I should be ashamed of my “knowledge”
If I know a place above drinking
The Isma’ili movement had created a new fever for change among the masses. But Khayyam knew that it was in vain and believed that, as a Persian proverb says, “It was milking a bull”:
Those who work hard for “reason”
Are milking a bull in vain
It would be better for them to wear a fool’s costume
Because today no one swaps cabbage for “reason”
They consider themselves a knowledgeable elite, however in reality they are a handful of ignorant donkeys:
With these ignorant few who foolishly
Consider themselves the intelligent ones of the world
Be a donkey, because they are so deep in donkeyness
Who call “blasphemous” whomever is not a donkey
Khayyam mocked the Isma’ili’s “reason”, not because he did not believe in rational reasoning. He was himself a mathematician and astronomer. In order to reject revelation and the prophet’s tradition, he relied on observation and reasoning. However, Reason (‘aql) in Isma’ili’s hands was only a banner by which they tried to cover their religious dogma. Therefore, the object of Khayyam’s criticism was their dogmatism and not reason in and of itself. The two factions of Sunnis and Isma’ilis, although different in their slogans, methods, leaders and mythologies, both preached religious dogmatism:
A group of people contemplate for the sake of “religion”
Another group presumes they have found “truth”
I am afraid that it will be announced one day:
Oh you misinformed, the path is neither that nor this
Mysticism also disqualified “reason” as a reliable method for knowledge, and replaced it with “intuition” or personal revelation. But Khayyam (contrary to what J. B. Nicolas, his first French translator believed) was not a sufi and his criticism of “reason”, was aimed at Isma’ili dogmatism and not rationalism. Nevertheless, one cannot consider Khayyam a “rationalist”, neither in terms of ancient Greek philosophy nor modern European thought. In the following piece, he denies that he is a Greekophile:
The enemy said wrongly that I am “philosophical”
God knows that in fact I’m not
Since I have come to this vale of sorrow
Do I not even know who who I am?
He does not despise knowledge and contemplation, but finds no certainty in their results:
My heart has never been deprived of knowledge
And there are few secrets which are not revealed to me
I contemplated seventy-two years, days and nights
It became known to me that nothing has been known
In the above quatrain, he does not show false modesty, rather he presents his philosophical skepticism. Khayyam does not hope that riddles of “eternity” or “the relation between being and not being” will ever be revealed to humanity:
The primordial secrets will not be known either to you or me
This gibberish will not be read either by you or me
We are talking to each other against the curtain
When the curtain is dropped, there remains neither you nor me
Those who think they have the truth in their hands, are in fact mythologizing:
Those who encircled knowledge and letters
And set a candle for apostles to reveal knowledge
At last they did not find a way out of this dark night
Only told stories and then went to sleep
Khayyam uses his philosophical doubt for the justification of his philosophy of joy:
Since “truth” and “certainty” are not at hand
One cannot sit hypothesizing for one’s whole life
It would be better for us not to set down cups of wine
Drink and become tipsy, neither drunk nor sober
IV. Hedonism
By rejecting the religious responses to the riddle of death, Khayyam finds the doors to human victory over mortality closed. What remains is a transitory life which should be treated as a loan and paid back. One should enjoy the moment; neither have a desire for the future, nor envy yesterday:
Today, you cannot reach tomorrow
And thinking of tomorrow is but a fantasy
Don’t waste this moment, if you are not a fool
Since the rest of your life will not last forever
In the following quatrain, to convey his hedonistic message Khayyam uses puns: In the first line there is a pun on “no-ruz” (a new day) and “Noruz” (the Persian New Year celebrated on the first day of Spring). In the second line he makes puns on “Day” (a month that, like January, marks the beginning of Winter) and “day” or “di” (meaning yesterday):
How good is “New Day”‘s dew on the face of a flower
How good is a charming visage on the expanse of a lawn
When “January” passes, whatever comes is not good
Be happy and forget “yesterday”, only today is good
Khayyam drinks wine not only to forget his mortality but also to make his social life bearable. In this world, there is no justice. A miserly person is wealthy and a freeman needy. So, to forget oppression and ignorance, he takes refuge in wine:
Oh time, you confess your injustice
And you hide behind the walls of oppression
You bless the trash and torment the good
You’re either a fool or a donkey
The god of Khayyam is not just:
If the universe runs on justice
Conditions of the world would all be sound
If the wheel spins justly
When would the men of knowledge be troubled?
Nevertheless he knows that he should not be ungrateful. So he says sarcastically:
The one who gave to red jujubes smiling lips
Gave also a bleeding liver to those in pain
If he didn’t give us joy, we shouldn’t be sad
We are happy because he’s given us so much sorrow
He wishes he could eliminate the unjust Wheel and replace sorrow with happiness:
If I had access to the Tablet of Fortune
I would write it just as I wish
I would eliminate sorrow from the world
And joyfully, raise my head high as the Wheel
In the eleventh century, the mystical discourse of “love” had not yet dominated Persian literature. Rumi (1207-73) and other mystical poets had to emerge before another hedonistic poet, Hafiz (1310-90) could appear whose main motif of poetry was “love”. Contrary to Hafiz, Khayyam rarely speaks of “love” and the main motif of his hedonism is drinking. One can only wash off the sorrow of the world through wine:
Through coming of Spring and going of Winter
The pages of our book are slowly passing
Have wine, don’t have sorrow, the philosopher said:
Sorrows of the world are like poison, and its antidote, wine
For happy drinking one must be alive. A dead person cannot feel pleasure. Life is an investment whose interest is joy. To acquire interest one should save the principal:
If there is only one breath left in your life
Do not let it pass unless joyfully
Behold, the capital of the kingdom in this world
Is life, it will be spent the way you spend it
Prohibition of wine by religion, especially during Ramadan (the holy month of fasting), only adds to the “diabolic” desire of Khayyam to drink during this month:
They say do not drink wine in Sha’ban, it is not lawful
Nor in Rajab, which is God’s special month
Sha’ban and Rajab are the months of God and his prophet
We will drink in Ramadan which belongs to us
If the blowing of God’s spirit into the human body resembles the pouring of wine into a cup, then it might as well follow that God becomes drunk and breaks Khayyam’s cup:
You broke my jug of wine, my Lord
You shut the door of the feast on me, my Lord
You spilled my red rosy wine on the ground
Forgive me! Are you drunk? My Lord
The rebellious Lucifer also has to follow God and drink. Then he can overcome his arrogance and prostrate himself to Adam:
Wine reduces the arrogance of the mind
And it unties the strong knots
If Lucifer had wine for a moment
He would bow to Adam two thousand times
Drinking has its own rituals and one should drink in moderation:
If you drink wine, have it with wisemen
Or drink it with a laughing, tulip-faced boy
Don’t drink too much, don’t brag or tell secrets
Drink a little, on occasions and surreptitiously
Sometimes his drunkenness becomes so mild that it takes on a tone of sobriety:
As long as I am sober, joy hides from me
When I become drunk, my reason diminishes
There is a mood between sobriety and drunkenness
I am its slave, all of life is that moment
Sometimes moderation in drinking ends in repentance:
Alas, my whole life passed in vain
I am both an unlawful eater and an unclean breather
Disobedience to the ordained, made me a sinner
Woe unto me, because of my unlawful deeds
Perhaps, the above-mentioned cheap and phony quatrain has been fabricated by the religious censors. Perhaps the poet himself has added it to his divan to escape persecution. But no one knows for sure. It is possible that Khayyam, like many other writers, had different phases in his intellectual life, vacillating between faith and doubt:
We have on one hand the Book, and on the other the cup
We are sometimes sinners and sometimes men of faith
We are under this raw turquoise-colored dome
Not absolutely blasphemous, not thoroughly Moslem
The sinful lovers are better than the hypocritical faithful:
One sip of wine is better than the kingdom of Kavus
And it is better than the throne of Qobad and the seat of Tus
Each sigh that a lover takes in the early morning
Is better than the prayers of the hypocrites
The clergy is not only hypocritical but also blood-thirsty,
Oh holder of holy decrees, are we more blood-thirsty than you?
In spite of all this drunkenness, we are more sober than you
We drink the blood of vines and you the blood of people
Be fair, which of us is more blood-thirsty?
Khayyam is brave and does not want to hide his belief:
Those who found asceticism on deceit
In fact, separate the soul and the body
From now on I will put the jug of wine on my head
Even if they slash my neck like a rooster
And finally he proclaims war against the religious leaders:
Do not spill the tears of a new bride of vine
Or shed blood except of the uncleansed worshipper’s heart
Shed the blood of two thousand rotten hypocrites
But do not pour your sip of wine on the ground
Suppression ravages Khayyam’s society:
One has to be sober in the world of the living
One has to keep quiet on affairs of the world
In order to save one’s eyes, tongue and ears
One has to be without eyes, tongue and ears
Social suppression not only makes him silent, but also pushes him to preach seclusion:
It would be better for you to seek fewer friends now
Friendship with people at present is best at a distance
The person you rely on in your life as a friend
When you open the eye of your wisdom, is your enemy
The feeling of social inability in Khayyam stems from his philosophical determinism and, in turn, helps it to grow. That human individual who, in a couple of Khayyam’s quatrains is voluntaristically called “the end of the whole creation”, in the following fatalistic poem is equated with a fly:
It was a drop of water, joined to the sea
It was a speck of dust, returned to the earth
What is the reason of your coming and going in this world?
A fly did appear and then vanished
One cannot find a message more biting nor a wine more bitter than this. He finds no difference between being and not being, or sorrow and joy. What he offers, is a death-like life, or a bitter joy:
Since to whatever is, there is not but wind at hand
Since to whatever is, there is but flaw and defeat
Imagine that whatever is in the world does not exist
Or whatever is not in the world, does exist
V. The Dominance of Death over Life
Despite his denial of resurrection and reincarnation, Khayyam is not able to leave the religious point of departure, that is, the dominance of death over life. Religion, as prophet Muhammad says, views “this world as a farm of the hereafter”, meaning the fruits of life will be harvested in the world after death. Of course, the degree of death-worship differs from one religion to another. For example, one should compare the cult of martyrdom in Islamic Shiism with the doctrine of “non-violence” in the universalist society of Quakers in the US. Nevertheless, in all religions, the other world is the basis for our thoughts and behaviors in this world. All religious obligations such as prayer, fasting, charity, pilgrimage and holy war, as well as all of the temples and social networks of religions are directed towards the other world, and only find meaning there. A religious man plans his life in terms of the afterlife and permanently carries his anxiety about the afterlife. Khayyam, like the faithful, also views this world as a farm of the hereafter with one difference: the faithful irrigate their farms with the blood of their martyrs, whereas Khayyam does so with the bitter wine of forgetfulness.
Anxiety about death consumes Khayyam’s soul so much that he spends his whole life trying to forget this nightmare. Of course, grief for those who have gone, and anxiety about one’s own death, are painful feelings. But if we accept that death is part of life, sorrow for it will disappear in the cracks of the joys of life. That day will come inevitably. But, as long as one is alive, why should one live with this nightmare? Love for other people, being in touch with nature, passion for knowledge and an endless energy for artistic, scientific and productive creativity, these are the desirable motivations for living, and not a sickly effort to forget death. In fact, the religious wine of eternity and the bitter wine of Khayyam both are means to the same goal: escaping life to forget death. Therefore, both are death-oriented.
A religious man and Khayyam are both permanently living in a nightmare, the former caused by the existence of the world after death, and the latter because of its absence. One spends his life doing the death-oriented religious practices and the other in drinking and destroying body and soul. Both see man as a tool in the hands of a metaphysical force beyond being and humanity. One kneels before this superbeing seeking its blessings, and the other turns his back and insults it, but both are captured in its labyrinth.
VI. Herbert Spencer vs Edward Fitzgerald
Any ideology which views man as an obedient pawn in the hands of a super being, may tend toward death-worship, even if this super-being could be called “epoch-making” and “life-provoking”. A contemporaneous example is the school of social evolutionism of the English philosopher, Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). After reading Charles Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species, he coins the term “survival of the fittest” and erroneously applys Darwin’s biological principle of “natural selection” to society. Spencer perceives life as a battleground, and man as the foot soldier of the forces of evolution. Through predetermined patterns, an invisible force dominates nature and society, and evolves slowly but regularly, from simple to complex and from lower to higher stages. In spite of the resistance of the counter-evolutionary forces, the army of evolution will triumphantly continue to march. The end of evolution is a final equilibrium in which perfect man dominates the earth.
The finalistic interpretation of evolution was widespread in the Victorian era (1837-1901) in England, where profits gained from British colonies as well as industrial improvement at home brought prosperity for the middle class. Under the influence of capitalism, the economic rate of growth was recognized as the only standard for measuring the level of evolution. In this view, nature and society both resemble a capitalist market, in which the higher the rate of profit and productivity of labor-power, the greater the possibility of victory over competitors. Based on this economic model, a society is considered higher on the ladder of evolution if it has a more developed economy, just as in nature an organism is regarded as more complex when it can create more productive energy. Thus, it is not accidental that an economic-oriented society such as Victorian England had an exaggerated sense of purpose, as did the early Moslems in Arabia, or the Isma’ilis in Khayyam’s time. In these societies, man felt subordinate to forces which are not under his control. In Khayyam’s Iran, the Koranic verses, and in Spencer’s England, scientific laws were used to recruit and mesmerize carriers of the mission, and legitimize their brutality against enemies. The mission must be accomplished, The messianic cult had to prevail, and the machine of progress and evolution ought to open the gates of “barbarism”.
When the millenarian mission is accomplished, signs of despair and disillusion gradually appear in the mission-stricken society, and it becomes clear that the mystical mission has been but a mirrage, and has achieved nothing but destruction of life. Khayyam lived in such an epoch, when both Sunnii and Isma’ili society were suffering from a hang-over, which appeared after their holy drinking. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the bourgeois society of England, too, was gradually showing the disappointing symptoms caused by its mission of industrial progress. At this time, the translation of Omar Khayyam’s quatrains by Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883) spread the name of this great Persian poet in the West. Fitzgerald knew little Persian but he had captured the hedonistic spirit of Khayyam’s poetry. The first edition of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, published in 1859, contained 75 quatrains but in later editions increased to 101. In the beginning, the public did not show interest in this little book which even did not have the name of the translator, but later, especially after the death of Fitzgerald, the “cult of Rubaiyat” took off and until 1920’s was popular in England, the United States and other Western countries. The last decades of the nineteenth century are the time of defying dogmas, disillusionment and falling of idols, as well as a period of defeat, despair and isolation. The bitter joy of Kayyam contains both of these characteristics. On one hand, he ridicules missions, messengers and mission-stricken people, and on the other hand, he extends his sarcasm to humanity as a whole, and sees nothing for man but defeat and destruction.
Today, … our Iranian society both at home and abroad faces a period of defeat and disillusionment, and as of now, one can taste the bitterness of Khayyamian joy in one’s mouth. Who will be the next Sadeq Hedayat? (3)
Footnotes
1. This essay was written in 1987 and first published in Akhgar, No. 7, Paris, 1989. Later it was included in my book In Search of Joy: A Critique of Death-Oriented and Male-Dominated Culture in Iran (dar jostojuy-e shadi: naqdi dar farhan-e margparasti va mardsalari dar Iran) Baran publisher, Sweden, 1990.
2. All of Khayyam’s quatrains in this essay have been translated from Persian to English by Majid Naficy from Sadeq Hedayat’s taraneh-ha-ye Khayyam Tehran, 1934.
3. Sadeq Hedayat (1902-51) the most prominent Iranian novelist who committed suicide in Paris. In recent years at least four Iranian writers and poets have killed themselves: Nooshin Amani (1994, Los Angeles(, Ghazaleh Alizadeh (1996, Iran), Eslam Kazemiyeh (1997, Paris) and Hassan Honarmandi (2003, Paris).
My gratitude to Shayda Naficy who edited the English version of this essay with me.
