Rubaiyat

Omar Khayyam (1048–1131) of Nishapur was famous in his own time as a mathematician and astronomer: he wrote a major treatise on algebra that solved cubic equations geometrically, and helped reform the Persian calendar into one of the most accurate ever made. The short four-line poems attributed to him were written, it seems, for himself and his friends.

Many of the quatrains credited to him may be by other poets, but their mix of doubt, wine and wonder at the shortness of life won the world through Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of 1859. In Arabic they are best known in Ahmed Rami's version, parts of which Umm Kulthum sang.