Omar Khayyam - a life

by Harold Lamb

  There was a moment's startled silence, and Ishak asked curiously, "But, master, what of thee?"

  What remained, Omar wondered, of all that had been his? His books forbidden in the schools, his records burned, his calendar forgotten and he himself exiled from the academies of Islam?

  "Beyond the outermost spheres," he answered thoughtfully, "there is hidden a cup that all must drink. Sigh not when it is thy turn to take it in hand, but quaff it joyously. That is all I know."

  Ishak nudged the potter, and touched his head significantly.

  "Tell that same mufti," Omar resumed, "that I shall set out with the caravan going to Aleppo. Now, begone to Nisapur—all of you."

  When they were at the horses, still arguing in whispers, Ayesha began to weep under her veil. Ishak helped seat her in the saddle, exclaiming, "Woman, what is upon thee now?"

  "I do not know. But are—are the chests really to be mine?"

  "Certainly. The master hath said it."

  Slowly Ayesha dried her tears. On the way to the mufti's house she could not help glancing into one of the entrances of the great bazaar where veiled women thronged about the silks.

  In the gate of the caravanserai two days' journey upon the Khorasan road Omar squatted, stirring the fire that had kept him warm during the night. Over his shoulders hung a torn camelhair coat. His bare feet he stretched out to the embers.

  In the night sky, the Dragon was descending to the western hills. Two hours more and his watch would be ended, because it would be dawn. A wind gust stirred the leaves, the dead leaves, whirling like souls in torment. Omar gathered them from the ground into his hands and dropped them on the fire which blazed up for a moment. His chest itched, and he scratched it comfortably. The hour was drawing near.

  But something disturbed him. The hoofbeat of a horse on the hard clay of the road ceased, and a solitary rider approached the fire. "O watchman," the stranger asked, "is this the caravan Aleppo-bound?"

  "Ay," said Omar.

  The man dismounted, stretched his saddle-bound legs, and yawned. "Oh, Allah, it is a long gallop from Nisapur. Is there a Khwaja Omar Khayyam traveling with this caravan?"

  Putting some thorn bush on the fire, Omar considered. Hearing the voices the serai keeper came out from his nook in the gate and squatted down by the rider. "Nay," observed the keeper, "there is only one merchant here, and he is neither Khwaja nor Khayyam."

  "I am he," said Omar after a moment.

  The two men looked at him, and laughed.

  "Oh, Allah," said the rider. "Am I to give a Kalif's letter to a watchman with uncut beard? It is the Kalif of Cairo who writes to Omar Khayyam, bidding him come to cast his horoscope. And I shall escort him with honor to the court of Cairo."

  "Inshallah," said the serai keeper. "Is it true?"

  From his girdle the courier drew a folded letter, tied and sealed with a great seal. "Look!" he said.

  "Is it not also true," Omar asked, "that Lord Hassan of Alamut is at the court of Cairo now, in the confidence of your lord the Kalif?"

  "Who art thou, to know that? Eh, he is there, as thou sayest. But what——"

  "Bring me a pen, with ink," Omar ordered the staring keeper.

  Taking the letter, he turned it in his fingers. It was heavy and no doubt it was long. It would be simple enough to cut the cord and find out what it said. Omar closed his eyes, weighing it in his fingers.

  Why had these two men come to his fire to disturb him at this hour? Now, in his mind's eye he saw Nizam again, asking him to measure time anew, and Malikshah seeking a prophecy, and Akroenos enriching himself by him. Everything was quite clear to him now. Hassan had sought to make use of his brain, the kadis of the academy had exiled him, and the Sultan's courtiers had mocked him. . . . All that time he had been drifting, as purposeless as a leaf driven by the wind.

  Once he had been so sure of himself, so certain of the power he held. He had stretched out his hand toward the curtain of the Invisible, and, lo, the Invisible was as remote as before.

  "The pen," said the voice of the serai keeper. And Omar felt the quill within his fingers. "If he writes," the keeper whispered to the messenger, "he can be no watchman."

  He must make haste to get these two away, before the time of the warning drum. Yes, he must write an answer to the Kalif of Cairo from Omar the Tentmaker who had sewn himself so many tents of learning. Bending close to the fire Omar wrote four lines upon the back of the letter.

  Khayyam, who stitched at study for so long,

  His thread of life is severed. Right or wrong,

  Fate's shears have clipped him, and he's up for sale,

  Cried by the Broker, "Going, for a song."

  When he handed it to the courier, the man exclaimed, "But thou hast not read the letter!"

  "I know what is in it."

  Staring, the man stepped back from the fire. Thus they had told him Omar would be—a worker of magic, a reader of human fate. Drawing his horse after him, he went with the keeper into the gate.

  Cautiously Omar glanced over his shoulder. The Dragon was at the edge of the hills, and the dawn chill was in the air. Now at last he was alone, without friend, companion or consort.

  What had Yasmi said about that hour? It is cruel to be alone in love when the stars are sinking. Was Yasmi a shadow on the veil of the Invisible? And Rahim—Rahim's blood that had sunk into the clay would not flow again. He must not think of that. They would never be back again. They would not come riding, like that courier, along the great Khorasan road again.

  He took his head in his hands, rocking upon his knees beside the road. "Oh, be merciful," he cried.

  For the hour of their coming was at hand. The shadows were gathering in the darkness, whirling along the road. They were thronging about him now, their faint voices crying, like the voice of the cold wind.

  Stretching out his hands, he could not touch them, or-keep them from hurrying away from him. He could not see them. On the heels of the darkness they were speeding away, looking back at him. Their thin voices were urging him to follow, toward shoreless space.

  And he must make haste. He looked up, and the stars had faded. It was time. Staggering to his feet, he ran to the drum by the sleepers. When he struck it with his fist the serai walls echoed its reverberation.

  From man to man he hurried, rousing them from their quilts. Bells clanged as the kneeling camels stirred. A man coughed and spat, and a bucket splashed into the well. . . .

  "But," said the serai keeper, counting the coins in his hand, "I saw him write the verse upon the Kalif's letter."

  The master of the caravan knotted up his wallet and stowed it into his girdle. "Ay, he is afflicted by Allah. Yet he never oversleeps the sun. Listen, now." And, swinging into his saddle, he called out, "O watchman, whither goes the caravan?"

  Omar, tugging at the nose cord of the leading camel, looked over his shoulder. It was full day—the sun shone through the rising dust in the serai.

  "Where the night hath gone," he answered eagerly. "But we must make haste."

  "And where is that?" asked the caravan master, smiling.

  Wearily Omar passed his hand across his eyes. "Nowhere," he said. And, pulling his ragged cloak over his head and taking up his staff, he drew the leading camel with him through the gate.

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  The last anecdote.

  A certain Nizam of Samarkand has the last word to say about Omar. This writer of Samarkand had met Omar, and had heard some tales about him. He says:*

  "In the year 506** Khwaja Imam Umar Khayyam and Khwaja Isfizari had alighted in the city of Balkh, in the Street of the Slave-sellers, in the house of Amir Abu Sa'd, and I had joined that assembly. In the midst of our convivial gathering I heard the Argument of Truth (Hujjatu' l-Haqq) 'Umar say, 'My grave will be in a spot where the trees will shed their blossoms on me twice in each year.'

  "This thing seemed to me impossible, although I knew that one such as he would not speak idle words.

&nbs
p; "When I arrived at Nishapur in the year 530—it being then some years since that great man had veiled his countenance in the dust—I went to visit his grave on the eve of a Friday (owing to the fact that he had the claim of a master on me), taking with me a guide to point out to me his tomb. The guide brought me out to the Hira cemetery; I turned to the left, and his tomb lay at the foot of a garden wall, over which pear-trees and peach-trees thrust their heads. On his grave had fallen so many flower-leaves that his dust was hidden beneath the flowers.

  "Then I remembered the saying which I had heard from him in the city of Balkh, and I fell to weeping. Because, on the face of the earth, I nowhere saw one like unto him. May God have mercy upon him!

  "Yet although I witnessed this prognostication on the part of that Proof of the Truth, 'Umar, I did not observe that he had any great belief in astrological predictions; nor have I seen or heard of any of the great (scientists) who had such belief."

  Several things in this anecdote are interesting: the evidence of devotion on the part of a few of Omar's followers: the fact that while his grave was known, it was not revered by the public: and Omar's own whimsical prediction as to his resting place.

  A delightful instance of this lighter mood—or, if you will, his irony—appears in a much later anecdote. It seems that Omar came upon workmen repairing with bricks the academy of Nisapur. A donkey laden with bricks refused to enter the building in spite of all prodding. Omar laughed and, going up to the donkey, spoke to it.

  "O lost and now returned, 'yet more astray'

  Thy name from men's remembrance passed away,

  Thy nails have now combined to form thy hoofs,

  Thy tail's a beard turned round the other way!"***

  Without more ado, the donkey entered the building, and the workmen asked Omar how he had made it do so. He replied that in a former life the donkey had been a lecturer in the academy, and therefore was unwilling to enter it again, until recognized!

  In Nizam's Chahar Maqala there is an enlightening bit about soothsayers and their royal masters. This particular anecdote deals with Sultan Mahmud and one Abu Rayhan, a scientist and astrologer who was unfortunate enough to make a twofold prediction, doubly displeasing to his royal master. The prediction came true. Mahmud imprisoned Abu Rayhan, but eventually recovered his good humor and released the talented culprit.

  "Kings are like little children," Saltan Mahmud explained frankly, "in order to receive gifts from them, it is necessary to speak according to their wishes. It would have been better for Abu Rayhan that day if one of his two prognostications had been wrong. But give him a horse caparisoned with gold, a robe of honor, a satin turban, a thousand dinars, a slave, and a handmaiden."

  Then he scolded the offender, saying, "If thou desirest to profit from me, speak according to my desire, not according to the dictates of thy science."

  The chronicler adds that after that day Abu Rayhan altered his practice, and agreed with the king, right or wrong.

  From this Chahar Maqala—Four Discourses—of Nizam of Samarkand I have taken many incidents of this book, such as the riddle of the four doors, propounded to an astrologer.

  The main events in this book, the major incidents, the scene itself, and perhaps half of the actual dialogue, are drawn from the reality of that day. They are retrieved from contemporary writings, or traditions, and are not invented.

  __________________________________________

  * The following is quoted from Edward G. Browne's translation of Nizam-i-Samarqandi's Chahar Maqala published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1899. The author is indebted to Professor Browne's fine history of Persian literature for many points given in this book.

  ** 1112-1113 A.D. The Moslem year 530 would be 1135-1136. So Omar died, apparently, some time after 1113 and "some years" before 1135. Since he was given his observatory in Nisapur in 1073-74, he must have lived about seventy years. He must have been at least twenty years old when he assumed charge of the observatory. This observatory may have been at Merv, the city that was Malikshah's capital.

  *** Edward G. Browne's translation.

  Reality in the book.

  Most of the characters are shown as they appear in the evidence of that time. Hassan ibn Sabah is easy to draw; his peculiar genius left its stamp on the writings and thoughts of his generation; although his own commentary on events was lost when the Mongols burned Alamut more than a century after his death—destroying at the same time that extraordinary library of the Assassins*—many writers have quoted from his book, and I have been at pains to collect these references hidden in the Persian and Arabic chronicles. The details given about the "magic" of the Assassins are all actual, although they are attributed to another remarkable leader Rashid ad Din, grand master of the Syrian branch of the order. Even the trick of reading sealed letters by judicious use of messenger pigeons is true, with the really ingenious and rather bloody trick of making the head of a dead man speak from a blood-filled tray.**

  (By the way, these anecdotes of the magic of the masters of the Assassins appear in these sources as actual miracles written down by zealous disciples. I am responsible for the explanations, but I am pretty sure of them.)

  Nizam is presented as he appears in the historical sources, as is Malikshah, although occasionally as in the latter's remark upon the evils of spies, the actual words were spoken by his father Alp Arslan. Ghazali's life is known sufficiendy to indicate his character. Jafarak, Mai'mun, Isfizari, Mu'izzi are historical characters, portrayed as the evidence reveals them. But except for Mu'izzi, little is known about them.

  So this book is a pattern of old mosaics, set in their proper places. It is not a portrait, because we have no sitter for a portrait, and the book had no plan at its beginning.

  It is a story, told in the oriental manner. It is a Maqamat— a collection of episodes told as a story. Little was written in Asia at that time, and much was repeated from man to man. So we have more spoken tradition, like the hadith of the Arabs, than written records. So, likewise, when we study Omar's time, we are confronted with the recitals of eyewitnesses rather than historical records. History as an art was almost unknown in medieval Persia before the coming of the matter-of-fact Mongols with their Chinese secretaries. And certainly the European novel was undreamed-of.

  This book is called a life, because the author did not know what else to call it. It is a work of pure imagination, based upon reality, in the oriental manner.*** Its author believed that, as Genghis Khan could be portrayed more faithfully by turning back the clock to the twelfth century in the Gobi Desert than by modern character analysis or a historical dissertation, so something of Omar might be revealed by a re-creation of the incidents and setting of his time, told in the manner of that time and place. And for this attempt I can best apologize in the words of Cunninghame Graham, in the latter's Preface to Wayfaring Men:

  "So I apologize for lack of analysis, neglect to delve into the supposititious motives which influence but ill-attested acts, and mostly for myself for having come before the public with the history of a failure to accomplish what I tried; and having brought together a sack of cobwebs, a pack of gossamers, a bale of thistle-down, dragon-flies' wings, of Oriental gossip as to bygone facts, of old-world recollections."

  __________________________________________

  * Details of the overthrow of the Assassins by the Horde of Hulagu Khan, and the general history of that time, are given in my The Crusades—The Flame of Islam.

  ** Journal Asiatique for 1877, Guyard's Un Grand Maître des Assassins.

  ***This adherence to the oriental manner, as it varies with the time and subject matter of Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, the Flame of Islam and even the author's occasional Cossack tales, may account for the readiness with which his efforts have been translated back into the various Asiatic languages and their—to him—surprising popularity in those languages. It is needful to remember that while the modern Asiatic reader inherits the imagination of the past, he ins
ists upon reality.

  Our knowledge of Omar.

  History yields us almost nothing that is certain about Omar. We believe he was the court astrologer of Malikshah's reign; we are convinced that he wrote most of the quatrains popularly ascribed to him; we know his work upon algebra, his commentary on Euclid, his research into the deep intricacies of mathematics and astronomy, and his creation of a new calendar. He had the House of the Stars in Khorasan. Malikshah, it seems, esteemed him, while Ghazali quarreled with him. His grave is at Nisapur; he was past his boyhood in 1073, and he died "some years" before 1135.

  So much for established fact. We have traditions, beginning with Nizam of Samarkand's recital, and ending in vague latter-day remarks of the sixteenth century. These inform us that he was:

  An unhappy philosopher.

  A defender of Greek learning, and a follower of Avicenna's (Abu Ali Sina's) teaching.

  The arch freethinker of his time, indolent and yet a great worker upon occasion, brusque in manner, endowed with a caustic wit, a quick temper, and a keen memory—once he rewrote a volume word for word after reading it seven times.

  The greatest thinker of his time.

  Other traditions have it that he avoided argument if possible, but gave tongue without restraint when aroused, that other scientists respected him—at his approach people would give back, saying "Here comes the Master"—while the religious groups in general disliked and perhaps feared him. Apparently he was spied upon by the rival sects. And at times his life was threatened.

  It is said that he never married, and there seems to be no record of children.

  These traditions yield a fragmentary but clear impression of a man's character. We can add to them the negative conclusions that he did not meddle with the politics of his time; that while he accompanied Malikshah at times, upon that Sultan's travels, he did not appear to be a courtier such as Mu'izzi. In fact he appeared to be the exact opposite of Mu'izzi.