Omar Khayyam

Omar Khayyam was born in Nishapur, in Khorasan, on 18 May 1048; his name, “the tent-maker”, is said to preserve his father's trade. Trained in the sciences and in philosophy, he wrote a treatise on algebra that solves cubic equations by the intersection of conic sections. In 1074 the Seljuk sultan Malik Shah summoned him to Isfahan to build an observatory and reform the calendar: the Jalali calendar, drawn up with other scholars and more accurate than the Gregorian, still underlies the Iranian calendar. He died in Nishapur on 4 December 1131.

In the catalogue 1

• PoetryThe Rubaiyat of Omar KhayyamرباعیاتOmar Khayyam · 1100Literature