Talk:Omar Khayyam

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Astrology/Astronomy[edit]

User:Telementor: What is known about his contribution as an astronomer is that he reformed the calendar in 1079. His work involved empirical astronomy and mathematics concerning the motion of heavenly bodies. It was not connected with astrology or anything that gave it a fictitious value. He is referred to as an astronomer in almost all credible reference sources (Cambridge History of Iran, Encyclopaedia Iranica etc).

dab: The lead already says he was an astronomer, and he was. He is today known for his contributions to astronomy. At the time, there was no distinction between astronomy and astrology, but his fame at the time was due to his horoscopic astrology: This is what astronomical knowledge was used for at the time. Source: Ali Dasht, In Search of Omar Khayyam (2012), 45ff. goes into this in great detail. It is not known if the historical Omar was a poet. It is very well known that his great and primary fame during his lifetime was as an astrologer.
I agree that astronomy and astrology were at first treated together. But based on that we must call all pre-modern astronomers "astronomer-astrologers" and I fully expect the same level of scrutiny for all astronomer-astrologers of the Islamic era who are currently just called "astronomers". I think we need to establish if the individual believed in the validity of astrology. Except for that brief passage, we don't know to what extent Khayyam was involved with astrology and divination, if at all. What is definitely known of his activities when he entered the service of Malik-Shah I are the observatory and the calendar which are in the purely intellectual sphere. Interestingly, his calendar was more accurate than the Gregorian even though it predated it by ~500 years. I emphasize that all major sources label him as an astronomer. Also, you have omitted "poet" from the opening line. Telementor (talk) 13:15, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
Yes, we can remove the "astronomer-astrologer" from the lead. I accept it is an awkward phrasing, and I was just looking for a way to link both Astronomy in the medieval Islamic world and Astrology in medieval Islam as early on as possible. But we can easily do this more explicitly. Both are eminently respectable topics, and I am generally unhappy that "astrology" and "astronomy" tend to be treated as separate topics in our medieval-era articles.
However, it apperas that Omar was exceptionally famous for his horoscopy. By contrast, he does not appear to have contributed anything of note to the progress of astronomy proper. (of course the observatory was built with the intended application of achieving more accurate horoscopes). So I would argue that in this case, the subject is rather more notable as an astrologer than as an astronomer. Again, I do not object to just calling him "astronomer" in the lead as this, in the medieval context, already implies astrology.
The "poet" was removed on purpose. As the article body explains in detail, we know Omar was a mathematician and astronomer/-loger. There are serious doubts as to the authenticity of the tradition of his writing poetry. It would be very misleading to call him "poet" on the same footing as "mathematician/astronomer". --dab (𒁳) 13:03, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
There is a general consensus that Khayyam (the scholar) is the author of the Rubaiyat (e.g. Iranica). It is a small minority of scholars that propagate the view that the poet and the scientist were different personalities. According to Wine of Wisodom: "there is an overwhelming number of [medeival] biographers who have identified Khayyam the astronomer-mathematician as the one who was the author of at least some of the Rubaiyat". Indeed, Qifti which has already been quoted in the article is one of those biographers. For this reason, I disagree with the following line being in the lede: There is a tradition of attributing poetry to Omar Khayyam. While it is true that many quatrains have been falsely attributed, I think the sentence gives the impression that there is a huge controversy over Khayyam having been a poet.
I haven't seen an original source that describes his activities as an astrologer in any considerable detail (and correct me if I am wrong). Khayyam's importance in astronomy is not as a theorist. In fact, no progress was made in that area until Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton. But he did make a calendar that outperformed Pope Gregory's despite being 500 years earlier. So I am inclined to think that his outlook was scientific. Telementor (talk) 15:08, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
I do not think that this is correct. The relevant experts, i.e. specialists on Persian poetry, do not have such a "consensus". The "consensus" you speak of is merely part of popular culture, created by the success of Edward FitzGerald's poetry. I am not going to start a big fuss over this, but I find it a little bit disappoinging if you are going to push this in spite of clear evidence to the contrary. The "tradition of attributing poetry" was intended to refer precisely to the early tradition of Qifti et al. This was indeed a big deal, or "controversy", in the early to mid 20th century, with people going to the trouble of creating elaborate forgeries just to establish that the tradition was genuine. Now, it appears, most experts are just resigned to agnosticism. --dab (𒁳) 12:08, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
Sorry. My point was that there is a consensus that Khayyam (the scholar) also wrote some poetry. There are sources older than Qifti, for example Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani who was born while Khayyam was still alive. In Kharidat al-qasr (1181) he explicitly identifies Khayyam as both a poet and an astronomer/mathematician and cites one of his Arabic poems. Hamdallah Mustawfi (Tarikh-i guzida, 1339) gives a similar account. Fakhr al-Din Razi (born ~18 years after Khayyam's death) does the same and quotes one of his Persian quatrains (the one that corresponds to FitzGerald's quatrain LXII). Other contemporary figures (Shahrazuri, Shams, Daya, and Attar) were already mentioned in the article so we need not pontificate further on this issue.
Nizami Aruzi (author of Chahār Maqāla and Khayyam's pupil) explicitly says he did not have a belief in astrology. There is also the story that Khayyam was reluctantly forced to predict the whether for Sultan Sanjar who wished to go hunting. He was criticized for not doing the job well. Finally, George Saliba (which has been cited) mentions that even before Khayyam's lifetime, 'ilm al nujūm was already subdivided into astronomy and astrology. In the context of Khayyam's biographies, translating this to mean 'astrology' is "biasing the text if not constituting a wholly misleading translation." Telementor (talk) 14:14, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Religious views[edit]

dab: I agree that the Sufi interpretation is a minority position. Yes. But you cannot just state "he was disliked by the Sufis" -- this is the very question under dispute. The minority opinion would be that the tradition to this effect is spurious. You need to state on whose authority we are told that he was disliked by this or that Sufi. I think it is Al-Qifti. If it is, please state explicitly it is based on Al-Qifti, if possible with a reference to a specific secondary reference discussing the relevant passage in Al-Qifti. Citing "Wine of Wisdom" without page number is completely useless.
This is not from Al-Qifti. These are from Shams Tabrizi and Attar's own works. For Shams, it is from The Conversations (Maqalat) of Shams of Tabriz (the relevant passage is in Wine of Wisdom, page 58). And for Attar this is from the Book of the Divine (Ilahi-nama). These are all found in The Cambridge History of Iran (Volume 4, page 663). Telementor (talk) 13:15, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
Excellent, please cite this, and I will be very happy to endorse "was disliked by a number of famous Sufi mystics". As I said, I realize and accept that the position that Omar was himself a Sufi is a minority opinion. --dab (𒁳) 12:55, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
In my previous comment, I gave you the references. These are all celebrated mystics so it is best to mention them by name in the article. Telementor (talk) 23:13, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Mehdi Aminrazavi, Edward Henry Whinfield, and others should not be considered a "minority" opinion as their stances are grounded in an academic and holistic understanding of Khayyam's works. Also, I have re-included Aminrazavi's arguement, which is crucial in getting all sides. Gozelapricot (talk) 08:38, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

It should be noted as well that more modern scholarship indicates that Khayyam was not irreligious. Sadegh and Fitzgerald are extremely outdated. More modern scholarship, such as Aminrazavi, Hossein-Nasr, Whinfield, etc. conclude that Khayyam was a Sufi. Gozelapricot (talk) 05:44, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

You are misconstruing Aminrazavi's stance. Mehdi Aminrazavi himself explicitly states that the Sufi interpretation is the position of a small minority of scholars (here). Yes, he mentions the fact that his philosophical treatise was explicitly theistic, and that all his publications more or less had the same format as the work of other scholars of the Islamic era (i.e. when it comes to praising God and prophets). But he does not think that Khayyam belonged to either the orthodox or the Sufi party. In fact, he does not commit himself to either extreme interpretation (devout Moslem or atheist). Aminrazavi's conclusion seems to be that Khayyam was 'an independent thinker resisting the rise of dogmatism' (page 159), and that his poetry was 'an intellectual response to the rise of religious dogmatism'. He states the same view in various talks. If indeed Khayyam was despised by prominent contemporary Sufis (a fact which you blanked without explanation), to me the Sufi hypothesis is destitute of any solid foundation. Telementor (talk) 03:45, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
Telementor, A major problem with your version is that you specifically use Aminrazavi's work to support Christopher Hitchen's stance of Khayyam being a believer in "New Atheism" [1], which is clearly what Aminrazavi speaks against. Aminrazavi makes it clear that Omar Khayyam was a Muslim by stating "The above is sufficient to establish beyond any reasonable doubt that Omar Khayyam lived and breathed within the Islamic religious universe and that his faith and commitment to religious thought was unquestionable. So how Khayyam, who began and ended his works by paying homage to God and the Prophet Muhammad, could have become a prophet of agnostics and hedonists is a seemingly insoluble oxymoron. And yet, against the overwhelming evidence of Khayyam's faith, like so many other great figures in the history of Islam, he is accused of having been a heretic. A Khayyamian quatrain remarks: "These two or three fools who think they know; ignorant are they and oh, how it shows; striving to be a donkey, for they are less than an ass; every cow that is not a donkey, is deemd a heretic foe."" (page 57). Aminrazavi makes it clear that Khayyam was not a heritic, agnostic, or hedonist, which have been the main claims of proponents of the the irreligious theory, which is debunked by most modern scholars. Aminrazavi also states that the claims of him being irreligious, namely an agnostic hedonist (page 55), are modern "Reconstructions" and therefore not accurate. Therefore to use Aminrazavi's position to promote Hitchen's ideas is a misrepresentation of Aminrazavi's positions. Second, your claim ("Sufi interpretation is the position of a small minority of scholars") is also a misrepresentation of Aminrazavi's work. I have checked the source and he is refer to the expressions of "wine, intoxication and love making" to be mystical allegories is a minority position. No where does he talk about religious identity there. As I have said above, the majority of modern scholars accept that Khayyam was a Muslim, most being of the persuasion he was a Sufi. Aminrazavi argues that Khayyam opposed the various practices of various religious people during his time, but as stated above, Aminrazavi makes the case that Khayyam was not a heretic, even though his critics claimed he was. Aminrazavi utilized a variety of sources to prove that Khayyam was a Muslim, which you have deleted. Gozelapricot (talk) 07:07, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
Also, your reference to Al-Qitfi's statement, seems to constitute WP:OR as I do not see it accompanied by any reputable secondary source. If it is, it is in clearly not allowed here. Gozelapricot (talk) 07:12, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
Gozelapricot: Thanks for the message. Aminrazavi's work is not used to support Hitchen's stance in any way. It is used solely as a counter to the Sufi interpretation of the quatrains (and according to the link: mystical interpretation of the Rubaiyat is a minority position). The choice of Aminrazavi here is somewhat arbitrary, there are many other reputable Iranologists who rejected the proposition that the quatrains are Sufi (for instance, Arthur Christensen, Richard Nelson Frye, Henry Beveridge, and George Sarton).
As for religious identity, throughout the book, Aminrazavi makes it clear that none of the Khayyam biographers report that he ever belonged to a Sufi creed. Even if he endorsed certain concepts of Sufism, he never self-identified as a "Sufi" in his entire lifetime.
I reverted your changes because you removed some crucial and well-referenced material. Also, the article had already mentioned that Khayyam's treatises started and concluded by paying homage to God and the Prophet. Reproducing all those specific expressions adds nothing new. Likewise, we are not quoting all the individual quatrains that express anti-religious sentiments. The aim is to provide a concise overview of the evidence in favour of each interpretation. If we were to bloat the article with redundant quotations to push different viewpoints, then there would be no bandwidth left for his actual biography or mathematical contributions.
Discussion of Khayyam's religious views does not simply boil down to Islam vs. Skepticism. It also includes Orthodox Islam vs. Sufism. In addition, it might (not very reasonably) be argued that Khayyam believed in reincarnation. In some anecdotic narratives about him, most notably in Tatavī's Universal History (Tārikh-i alfī, 1378), it is apparent that Omar believed in the transmigration of the soul (though scholars have argued that, if the account is accurate, Khayyam's comments can be dismissed as merely sarcastic). Furthermore, there are also other minority positions such as Persian nationalist/crypto-Zoroastrian, Ismailism, etc. Scholars like E. D. Ross, E.H. Whinfield, and to some extent Aminrazavi try to reconcile contradicting evidence by portraying him more as an 'independent thinker'.
For secondary opinions on Qifti, consult the source already cited in the section. Namely, Cambridge History of Iran by Richard Frye (page 663) where he quotes Qifti on the question of Omar's feelings about mysticism. Even in Wine of Wisdom, Aminrazavi discusses Qifti's account several times - for instance when he reports that Khayyam was indicted for impiety but went to pilgrimage to avoid punishment, or the fact that he stayed aloof from the Sufis. Telementor (talk) 13:16, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Name[edit]

User:Telementor: His full name would simply have been Abu'l Fath Omar ibn Ibrahim Khayyām (ابوالفتح عمر بن ابراهیم خیام). This is as it appears in Arabic sources. In Persian, it is usually just Omar Khayyam (Omar the Tent-maker), which is also the most widely used name in English according to the GBooks ngraph.

  • Ghiyāth al-Dīn 'The Patron of Faith' was not a part of his name; it's just an honorary title (like Hakim 'wise man' which he is often called).
  • In his native Persian his last name is simply Khayyam, not al-Khayyami. Also, Persian language does not use the Arabic definite article Al-.
  • Abu'l Fath and ibn Ibrahim are simply patronymic adjectives.

So, I suggest we use the conventional name Omar Khayyam (عمر خیام) in the lede and perhaps restore the section that explained the meaning of the full chain of names.

The page is already called "Omar Khayyam", so I don't know what you want. Yes, this is clearly the most common form of the name. The extended Arabic name is cited after Selin (2013), p. 479. I realize Ghiyāth al-Dīn is "just a title". Well, yes. And "Al-Naysābūrī" is just a geographic nisba. It's still part of the full name as it appears in the source cited. I completely agreed that the parts of the name can be explained, this is best done in a footnote. The most interesting one is "Abu'l Fath". Please cite evidence that this is "just a patronymic" (or an 'uyonymic', i.e. naming him after his "son") -- in Arabic tradition, the "Abu" names can refer to literal sons, but in many cases they refer to hypothetical sons, and in the case of "Abu l'Fath", meaning "father of victory", it may very well be a given name or epithet. I think the problem with the Persian form of the name is that there are no contemporary sources in Persian. All texts attributed to Omar, and all texts discussing his biography, are written in Arabic. Obviously he was Persian, and obviously there are modern Persian texts about him, but if you want to cite the Persian form of his name, you would have to qualify its source. At least give us the century in which the Persian form of his name is attested. Otherwise we will have to say that the "Contemporary Persian" form of his name is عمر خیام which is true, but which is also pretty weak, I am sure there are at least late medieval or early modern Persian texts about him. --dab (𒁳) 07:47, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Apparently his essay A treatise on the demonstrations of the problems of algebra was also published under the name Abu'l Fath Omar ibn Ibrahim Khayyām. This is the actual name chain. His honorary/nisba titles such as Hujjat al-Haqq 'The Evidence of Truth', Ghiyāth al-Dīn 'The Patron of Faith', Hakim 'wise man', and Nishapuri should not be in the opening. Wine of Wisdom is a much more accurate reference on this matter than the current one (and this is corroborated by many other references). Telementor (talk) 11:58, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
The edition you link to has Al-Khayyami, not Khayyam. This is neither here nor there as this is just the form of the name chosen for the modern Arabic edition, I was asking about the forms of his name in manuscript tradition. I do not have access to "Wine of Wisdom", if you can cite a specific passage with page number I will be happy to let it stand. As far as I am concerned, Ghiyāth al-Dīn doesn't need to be in the "full name", you are right. Still not sure about "Abu l-Fath", please cite evidence on this. --dab (𒁳) 13:07, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
In Chapter 1 (page 18) in Wine of Wisdom it says: "His full name was Abu'l Fath Omar ibn Ibrāhīm Khayyām, born in the district of Shadyakh of the old city of Nishapur in the province of Khurasan". It appears to me that Ghiyāth al-Dīn and Nishapuri were not an essential part of the name.Telementor (talk) 13:57, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
I increasingly get the impression that "Wine of Wisdom" is not a good source. I am sure it is ok as a "popular" account for a general audience, but this article is developed far beyond relying on such sources -- "popular" accounts are trumped by scholarly literature every time. Yes, I agree that Ghiyāth al-Dīn and Nishapuri are "not essential parts of the name". But then, anything other than "Omar Khayyam" is "not essential", the entire point of giving a "full name" is going beyond the essential. --dab (𒁳) 12:10, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
No, I think the patronymic/uyonymic part is necessary to the Arabic full name. The term Al-Naysaburi does not appear in any of the primary sources, I think it is a recent addition. The honorary title Ghiyath al-Din is not any more necessary than Hujjat al-Haqq and Imam (which he was called just as frequently in primary sources).
If you have to use the Arabic name, it should be as it appears on primary sources or on his mathematical treatise (since these documents are decisively his own). Here is the form given by al-Bayhaqi in perhaps the earliest account of Khayyam: 'Omar ibn Ibrahim Al-Khayyam. These confirm the form given in Wine of Wisdom. Also, Al-Qifti uses al-Khayyam (without the suffix -i).
He is simply called Omar Khayyam (عمر خیّام) in one of the oldest Persian sources (Munis al-ahrār, 1340), here is the opening of the original text from Edward Denison Ross's work which includes a translation. Browne likewise translates the work of Rashid-al-Din from Persian. Once again, the Persian text simply uses Omar Khayyam. So I will instead add his native name to the opening, and discuss the "full name" in the article itself, as it is done with Avicenna. Telementor (talk) 05:54, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. The discussion hinged on WP:COMMONNAME, but neither side presented anything more than a few cherrypicked examples, which are not evidence of common usage.
If anyone wants to consider repeating this proposal in the future, please take the time to collect and present evidence in support of the proposal. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:31, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Omar Khayyám → Omar Khayyam – WP:COMMONNAME. In English, his name is, by far, spelled without the accent mark. Երևանցի talk 22:58, 23 January 2014 (UTC) See Google Ngram: [2]

  • Oppose - because this isn't a spelling issue and because WP:COMMONNAME is not relevant to MOS considerations related to fonts, which are decided by project editors aiming for consistency and encyclopedic quality in articles. In this case the á is there for a reason, to indicate stress and long vowel on [xæjˈjɒːm] (which is why you will also see Khayaam with two aa). Omar Khayyam with no indication of pronunciation already redirects here, so the only point of this RM would be to hide the long vowel from readers. To what end, to assist in mispronunciation?
Also oppose since quality sources do use the long vowel cover of Oxford Worlds Classics on Amazon.com. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:29, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
"this isn't a spelling issue" Is it just your arbitrary decision? What is it based on? "Quality sources" is a subjective opinion. I can list hundreds of reliable published sources without the accent mark: Encyclopædia Britannica, Cornell University, Encyclopædia Iranica In fact, your entire argument is WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT, because ngram clearly shows that in English published source his name is, by far, not spelled with the accent mark. --Երևանցի talk 17:45, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. The nomination is soundly based on policy. The objection above, on opinion. Andrewa (talk) 07:02, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 19 October 2015[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved as requested -- "A hair divides what is false and true"-Omar Khayyám Mike Cline (talk) 11:18, 5 November 2015 (UTC)


Omar Khayyám → Omar Khayyam – WP:COMMONNAME, as per Google Ngram. In Google Books, "Omar Khayyám" gets only about 25,200 results, while "Omar Khayyam" gets about 998,000 results. The proposed title "Omar Khayyam" is about 400 times more common in reliable sources. Khestwol (talk) 09:42, 19 October 2015 (UTC) Khestwol (talk) 09:42, 19 October 2015 (UTC) --Relisted. EdJohnston (talk) 17:55, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

  • Support as nom. The relevant manuals of style WP:MOSAR#Persian and WP:MOS-PE#Vowels do not accept using the letter "á" when transliterating titles. Instead, the standard transliteration given for the long vowel alif is "a", which supports the move to "Omar Khayyam". Besides, most English-language books use the spelling "Omar Khayyam". Khestwol (talk) 09:49, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
  • A correct transcription would be "Khayyām". Anthony Appleyard (talk) 08:29, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
    • The proposed title is not incorrect; "Omar Khayyam" is the standard and most common transcription. Khestwol (talk) 02:40, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
FitzGerald, 1878
  • Comment the methodology in the move proposal is flawed. We don't do searches like that for fonts. Omar Khayyām would probably be more suitable to a serious encyclopedia. In ictu oculi (talk) 12:34, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
    • Other articles on medieval scientists don't use diacritics in their titles either. For example, Jabir ibn Hayyan (not Jābir ibn Hayyān), Al-Biruni (not Al-Bīrūnī), Al-Idrisi, Ibn al-Nafis, etc. So a more suitable title in our case is "Omar Khayyam" without diacritics just as his name is commonly found in English books. Khestwol (talk) 02:39, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Support The Wikipedia policy on article titles actually address this exact issue - see WP:UE. The article title should follow English-language usage. When the anglicized title is the one predominately used by reliable English language sources, then that is the one that should be used. The move is also supported by WP:NAMINGCRITERIA, specifically Reconinzability and Naturalness. Naolae (talk) 00:48, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Support per "Naturalness" in WP:COMMONNAME, besides that Khayyám with an accent aigu is simply incorrect - HyperGaruda (talk) 19:29, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
    • What's next? A request to move Emily Brontë to Emily Bronte? This is anti-intellectualism without any discernible reason. —Ruud 22:38, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
      • No, because Emily Brontë is not a transliteration, but natively written that way. - HyperGaruda (talk) 11:34, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
        • And neither is Omar Khayyám considered a transliteration anymore. It is now a name that one can find in common English dictionaries, like René Descartes or Gerhard Schröder (see below). The transliteration in ALA-LC would be ʿUmar Khayyām. —Ruud 16:26, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
Morris, 1870s
list this entry with an acute accent, so this very likely is the common name. I'm not sure of the origin of this transliteration, but it could have been Edward FitzGerald's Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. At least Morris' 1870s illuminated manuscript (thumbnail on the right) already used this transliteration, as does the 2010 Oxford World's Classics edition of FitzGerald [3]. —Ruud 21:50, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
  • How convenient to not mention Britannica this time. - HyperGaruda (talk) 11:34, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
    • It lists both "Khayyám" and "Khayyam" twice in the main text. If one included the bibliography then the balance shifts more clearly towards the version with the acute accent (6 × Khayyám, 4 × Khayyam and 1 × Khayyām.)
    Subject-specific encyclopedia's like the The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Science, and Technology in Islam list this entry under "Khayyām, ʿUmar" (probably for consistency with the other entries), but Omar Khayyám is more common. —Ruud 16:26, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
    • You might want to note that every time "Khayyám" is mentioned there, it is done so as part of the invariable book title Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. "Khayyam" is the preferred version in running text. - HyperGaruda (talk) 18:18, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment: What matters here is what is more common in English-language reliable sources (WP:COMMONNAME). As per Google Books "Omar Khayyam" is more common than "Omar Khayyám" by a very big margin (400:1). I do not think Wikipedia can use such a rarely found spelling in an article title, when a move to the common spelling "Omar Khayyam" can be easily made. Khestwol (talk) 17:12, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
  • See Wikipedia:Google searches and numbers#Why are Google results not valid? for why this 400:1 claim is bullshit. When you enter a search query you don't want to make a distinction between "a" and "á", so Google makes no effort to tell them apart (rather, it will try to treat them a being the same.) There is no substitute for actually looking at the reliable sources, no matter how lazy, incompetent or clueless you are. —Ruud 17:27, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Yet the Google Books search results are different by a ratio of 400:1? If Google Books search did not tell "a" and "á" apart, then surely both would have given the same number of results, hence the difference in the number of results implies it is telling them apart. Khestwol (talk) 17:36, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Google ngrams is based on OCR'ed scans of books. During the OCR process diacritics are nearly always lost (see Google Ngram Viewer#Criticism). The Google Books search will only give five, respectively seven pages of results and not all of the results listed would pass as reliable sources. How Google manages to come up with these "about x results" is anyone's guess, but in either case these numbers are completely meaningless. Google searches are bullshit. —Ruud 17:49, 28 October 2015 (UTC)


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The spelling with acute is an antiquated attempt to indicate the long vowel. We do not transliterate Perso-Arabic names in this fashion anywhere on Wikipedia. Its survival is probably a remnant of the brief "cult of Khayyam" in Orientalism 1880-1910. It turns out that a large chunk of Khayyam's notability, even in Iran, is the direct result of FitzGerald, so this definitely has some notability, but we should still distinguish the biography of the medieval scholar from the modern fad. --dab (𒁳) 07:58, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Pupils[edit]

User:Telementor: I have removed the line that says: "For decades, he also taught the philosophy of Avicenna in Nishapur". Khayyam was known to dislike teaching. There are a few figures alleged to have studied with him (Al-Khazini, Nizami Aruzi of Samarcand, and Ayn al-Quzat Hamadani). But it is purely conjectural if they had been pupils of his.

dab: You were right to remove the "for decades" bit, as it was not properly referenced. But then you go on to state "Khayyam was known to dislike teaching" -- please, again, tell us on whose authority we are told this. Then suddenly you become critical and question the reliability of the tradition naming his students. Well, ok, but you cannot be selective in being sceptical of medieval tradition just when it fits whatever you wish to emphasize. Question this tradition as "conjectural", but apply the same standard to the tradition that he was "disliked by Sufis".

External links modified (January 2018)[edit]

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Removal of excessive images[edit]

I am removing the images of manuscripts that were recently added to the article for the following reasons:

  • I believe they are excessive. Such a large number of images added to an article without adequate encyclopedic context overshadow the text. As per WP:NOTGALLERY, a gallery can be introduced when there is not enough space for images to be presented adjacent to the text. However, this is not appropriate when omitting the collection of images is not detrimental to the reader's understanding of the article.
  • There is no contextual reason to justify their use. The article is about the ideas in the treatise, not a stand-alone article about any given physical manuscript of the treatise. In addition, some of the manuscripts whose images were added are not the same manuscripts that are discussed in the cited material. For instance, Dirk Jan Struik refers to a Leiden manuscript, whereas the uploaded image is supposedly from the British Library.
  • I am unable to verify the copyright status of all the images. For some of the images, there is no copyright information available on the source website. For one of them, the website itself is not accessible. Even if the images are ineligible for copyright protection, the uploader still has incorrectly licensed them under a Creative Commons license, which assumes that they were themselves responsible for producing the work.
  • The article needs to be consistent with other biographical articles on Wikipedia which generally use no more than one picture of a manuscript (often the chef d'œuvre of the scholar). Telementor (talk) 09:42, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Removal of sourced content[edit]

I want to know why User:Telementor removed the info I added 

Omar Khayyam was first to give a general method for solving cubic equations. Although he didn't consider negative roots, his methods are sufficient to find geometrically all real (positive or negative) roots of cubic equations.[1]

This information is supported by a reliable source and appears nowhere in the page. Please give me a proper reason for removing this. Just because I am not registered I cannot edit Wikipedia articles? 2405:204:10A5:E83B:AD0E:7FDB:8C37:5F55 (talk) 08:09, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Hi,
I removed that text not because of its veracity, but because it contained details already covered in the article body (in the section dealing with Khayyam's mathematical oeuvre). Furthermore, the very sentence preceding your addition already gave a very brief overview of Khayyam's work on cubic equations. The guideline is that the lead section has to be as concise as possible. As a side note, your addition appeared to have a pointless POV, which needs to be considered per WP:UNDUE. If you've read Reviel Netz's book on the subject, the history of the solution of cubic equations is a complicated one and to some extent open to personal interpretation (and bias, of course). If you still believe some of the information you've added is not covered in the article body, it is best to be WP:CAUTIOUS and establish a consensus here on the article's talk page first. Telementor (talk) 13:45, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Removal of Google honouring his 971 birthday[edit]

Whilst this is true, is this really knowledge fit for an encyclopedia? I believe not.

I agree. It doesn't seem to add much encyclopedic value to the article as a whole. Some notable people do have this fact added to their article (e.g. C.F. Gauss, T. Edison, etc.), but most don't. --Telementor (talk) 13:54, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Google also honored his 964th birthday in 2012.

Какие силы движут дух.[edit]

Зачем ? 85.140.16.112 (talk) 03:24, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

  1. ^ http://pi.math.cornell.edu/~dwh/books/eg99/Ch15/Ch15.html. Missing or empty |title= (help)
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