Şair, Feylesûf ve Şüphe: Ömer Hayyâm Rubailerinde İbn-i Sînâcı Düşünceye Gönderme ve Eleştiriler [Poet, Philosopher, and Doubt: Avicennan Referencing in ‘Omar Khayyām’s Quatrains]

The Islamic world has mostly remembered Persian polymath ‘Omar Khayyām of Nīshāpūr (d. 526/1132 [?]) as a “Graeco-Arabic philosopher” (faylasūf) who also produced works in mathematics, theoretical astronomy, and astrology—not particularly in poetry. Yet Khayyām’s achievement of worldwide recognition as a poet goes back to nineteenth century London, where Edward FitzGerald’s translations of his poetry into modern English led him to be hailed as one of the greatest poets of all time. After briefly discussing the contributions Khayyām has made in the fields of philosophy and mathematics through new studies that have been made available, this article will analyze quatrains that Khayyām infused with Graeco-Arabic philosophical vocabulary. With an attempt to emphasize the Avicennan aspects of Khayyām’s worldview, this article will examine the earliest quatrains attributed to the poet with the aim of discovering new ways of commenting on his poetry. Certain philosophical terms with their bases in ontology, cosmology/cosmogony, epistemology, and physics, such as jawhar (substance), wujūd (existence), falak (the heavens), ma‘lūm (the object of knowledge), qadīm (the pre-eternity of the world), as well as the post-classical method of scholarly arbitration, taḥqīq (verification), are common features of the quatrains attributed to Khayyām. Disregarding the Sufi rogue (rind) image, as well as the mystical connotations displayed in Khayyām’s verses, this article focuses on the Graeco-Arabic philosophical references presented in these quatrains by contextualizing these references through doctrines in relevance at the time when Khayyām was writing.