A letter from Samarkand to God
“Samarkand, is Omar Khayyam’s Persia, poet of the wine, free-thinker, astronomer, but also that of Hassan as-Sabbah founder of the order of the assassins, the most formidable sect of the history…” Said the Franco-Lebanese author Amin Maalouf, it witnessed also the lifetime of Nizam-Al-Mulk, the powerful vizier of the Seljuk empire. Samarkand is a journey into a world where dreams of freedom have always challenged fanaticism at the same time. Today we will voyage in time to discover the eternal city of Samarkand with its shining figures in history in order to find a response to an old question.
“Which man has never transgressed your law, say?
A life without sin, what taste does it have, say?
If you punish the evil that I have done by evil,
What is the difference between you and me?”
Wise words from an audacious man that had the courage when no one had, he spoke to god, he defied his orders, he drank wine in the nights of Samarkand, a man that made great contributions to mathematics and astronomy, his poems are remembered until today, a man that wasn’t fairly well treated by history, Omar Khayyam.
In the same streets of Samarkand the luminous city of Middle East, lived two men, they had the same influence as Omar, they were men like him except that there was a difference in how each saw life, each one of them has his secrets.
In the nights of Samarkand, we will travel through history to get closer more to the biography of each one of them, we will discover how each one of them lived, how they thought, what secret lays behind them, and how they perceived life.
Omar Khayyam, The Poet of Wine
Omar Khayyam(عمر خيام), or Omar of Nishapur(نيسابور), the Poet of Wine as Arabs and Persians like to name him ,a man that chosen a different path in a time when such words were equaling death, a man that faced a rejection from society, like Socrates he was literally out of his time. An astronomer, a poet, mathematician, astrologer, and physician, a Persian version of Leonardo Da Vinci, he was literally out of his time, he was an outstanding intellectual.
Omar Khayyam was born in 1048 in the great trading city of Nishapur in Persia, today the city is in Iran. According to Historians Omar’s father earned a living making tents because Khayyami(خيامي) means tent-maker in Arabic, and that’s the origin behind his name Khayyam.
Omar Khayyam joined one of the regular caravans making a three-month journey from Nishapur to the great city of Samarkand(سمرقند), which is now in Uzbekistan. Samarkand was a center of scholarship, and Khayyam arrived there probably in 1068, aged 20. There he made a contact with his father’s friend Abu Tahir(ابو طاهر), chief judge of the city. He observed Omar’s works in mathematics and medicine and fell in love with it, he will then give him a job in his office, Omar will join the court of the king later.
Omar the mathematician
I bet you didn’t know he was behind the famous ‘x’ in mathematics. According to some historians he used to describe Unknown variables with the Arabic word ‘ شيء’ which means ‘thing’. the word would be later used by Andalus higher oulemas which will be translated to Spanish to become ‘Xay’ and then to x (some think that the origin behind ‘x’ is from the Abbasid empire in the 9th century, there isn’t clear evidence to that)
Khayyam made a major advance in Algebra, he founded the solution to the cubic equations(cubic equations are in the form of ax3 + bx2 + cx + d = 0 ), unlike quadratic equations ax2 + bx + c = 0 , they were not solved until Omar Khayyam at the age of 22 published one of his greatest works: Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra and Balancing and showed that a cubic equation can have more than a solution.
For many mathematicians, Omar Khayyam knew the formula for the expansion of binomial (a+b) ^n, a formula that will be developed years after by Newton, this argument is based on a book he written titled The difficulties of arithmetic (Moškelāt al-hesābمشكلة الحساب) that showed the ability of Omar to extract roots , Omar gave many contributions to algebra and geometry like his contribution to the theory of parallels ,an article isn’t fair enough to show what such a man gave to mathematics.
Omar a brave astronomer
Khayyam was also a brave astrologer and astronomer, he was invited by Sultan of the Seljuk empire Malik Shah and his vizier Nizam-Al-Mulk to build an observatory at Isfahan(a city in modern Iran, اصفهان) and reform the Persian calendar. Omar Khayyam was behind the Jalali Calendar a solar Hijri calendar that is used today by Iran and Afghanistan and few other countries, Omar was also appointed to predict the weather.
The Rubaiyat
“Get up, we have the eternity to sleep”
Omar Khayyam was most of all known by his Rubaiyat or quatrains, a type of sanza. He used to write his Rubaiyat in a memory book, Edmund Fitzgerald will regroup a selection of the poems (unfortunately we don’t have them all, and no book has been left by Omar regrouping the Rubaiyat ) and translate them from Persian to English later.
Omar Khayyam made poems when he was drunk , and that’s why he was called the poet of wine, his poems included many topics in life, like God's existence, heaven and hell, love, life, afterlife and especially wine, he was a super fan of wine and he used to go to tavern. here is a verse on wine made by Omar Khayyam :
“When Allah created me, he knew that I
would drink a lot of wine. So if I didn’t, the
omniscience of Allah would stand on its head.”
Here is another :
“O Lord , does this thirst please you ? and the wine flows before me”
To the population of Samarkand and the Seljuk empire saying such things was a complete heresy, and that didn’t defy only the saying of God, but God himself. Such words were equaling death in that time, to escape persecution and jail he used to say that he believed in god and that all that he said was under the wine’s effect. Lucky him, he was the most likable ‘atheist’ of that time, working in the court and being a high scientist in the Muslim world was enough to let him escape such penalties.
Omar Khayyam wasn’t just an ordinary poet, was he an Atheist? a Muslim? , a Sufi Muslim?a Zoroastrian? he himself doesn’t know. Historians are uncertain in that point, what we know is that he was incarnating the Humankind with its contradictions, with its love of sin, its seek to God's mercy, its joy of life, to drink wine, to love women, its desire to know the truth, he was simply himself.
“Am I a wine-bibber? What if I am?Zoroastrian or infidel? Suppose I am?Each sect miscalls me, but I heed them not,I am my own, and what I am, I am.”
“ A loaf of bread , a jug of wine and thou “ speaking to his darling ( how romantic he was )
Samarkand the city of contradictions
What makes the life of Omar Khayyam so special is that he was a contemporary of two men that are in contradiction to what he sees in life, two men that influenced the history of the middle east and Islam, their legacy remains until today in monuments, books and even Video games: Nizam-Al-Molk and Hassan as-Sabbah. Omar lived in an era of two men with high influence, with greed to power, in fact, the influence of the 3 overrode all the limits, we even called the period when the three lived:” the century of Omar Khayyam — Nizam Al Molk — Hassan as-Sabbah
Historians differ about the real story of the three ,some say that the three were friends and lived in Samarkand , met in a class and made an alliance : “ The one of us who will attain fame or fortune will have to share equally with the other two”, but the story isn’t based on good sources, it’s more a colorful story . While others say that they never met up. Regardless of the fact if they were friends or not, what matters is how each one of them saw life, how each one saw God, each one had a different angle of view, and that what makes us human and make Samarkand a special city.
Nizam-Al-Mulk
Abu Ali Al Hassan(ابو علي الحسن), or as people of Samarkand and the court named him Nizam-Al-Mulk(نظام الملك) which means “ The Order of The Realm” was a Vizir of the Seljuk empire under the command of Arp Arsalan. Naming him Nizam-Al-Mulk or Order of the Realm didn’t come from anything, in fact he had many titles such as Ḡiāṯ-al-Dawla (“pillar of government”غياث الدولة), Qawām-al-Din (“mainstay of religion” قوام الدين ), and Rażi Amir-al-Moʾmenin (“favored one of the Commander of the Faithful”غازي امير المؤمنين) . He was the strong Vizier of the Seljuk empire and became the de facto ruler of the empire for 20 years after the assassination of Arp Arslan in 1072(the inheriting prince Malik Shah was a kid ). He was so highly revered that the Emām-al-Ḥaramayn Jovayni (d. 1085), one of the most celebrated Sunni jurists of the 11th century, declared that Niẓam-Al-Mulk should replace the incompetent and unlettered Abbasid caliph and rule over the Islamic polity.
Nizam-Al-Mulk was also interested in Sciences, and that explains why he befriended Omar Khayyam, Nizam-Al-Mulk was also behind the first schools in Seljuk empire the “nezamiyehs”, in fact, they were called nezamiyehs after his name ,He even published a book(that is similar to the prince of Machiavelli, except that Nizam-Al-Mulk was a successful politician, Machiavelli wasn’t) , the book is named Siyasatnama (“Book of Government”).
Nizam-Al-Mulk was Sunnite and anti-Shiite, to him as to many Sunnite governors Shia was a complete heresy that should be eliminated from its roots to many Nizarites( a Shiite sect) he was considered a threat to their dream to create a Shiite state , he was assassinated in Ispahan in 1092 by a member of the Order of Assassins under the command of Hassan as-Sabbah.
When the news of his death reached people of Baghdad, they were saddened, The minister and the presidents sat down for condolences for three days, and poets sang with poems to his soul, the death of Nizam-Al-Mulk was so touching and emotional, Moqatel Ben Atia, a poet said a quatrain about him :
“The Vizier Nizam-Al-Mulk was a pearl
An orphan pearl God fashioned from honor,
Time didn’t appreciate its value , it becames rare
He(god) then recalled it(the pearl) from his jealousy to the seashell”
Hassan as-Sabbāh
Doesn’t these outfits look familiar to you? Is that assassin’s creed? Yes, the real story of the Ubisoft’s Video Game Assassin’s Creed has been appropriated from the Biography of the Order of the Assassins.
The Order of Assassins , derived from the word Asāsiyyūn (أساسيون, meaning “people who are faithful to the foundation [of the faith]” as Hassan as-Sabbah used to call them, contrary to what people call them Hashashin, they were not taking hashish (drugs), they were conservative and Hassan as-Sabbah laws were strict, their real name is Asāsiyyūn ) Was founded by Hassan as-Sabbah(حسن الصباح) ,a Nizari Ismaili( from a Shiite sect), Hassan as-Sabbah created one of the most fatal and powerful mercenaries’ organisation, and yes indeed it was the first Islamic terrorist group .
In 1090 AD, in the south Caspian province of Gilan Hassan as-Sabbah built the castle of Alamut (Persian: الموت, meaning “eagle’s nest”), the latter would be the new fortress of the order of assassins. Hassan as-Sabbah used to be called by his pillars as Sayyedna(Our master).To his pillars he incarnated the messenger of God, what makes Hassan as-Sabbah so special is that he convinced his pillars to die for him after each assassination attempt, and that was terrifying, assassinating someone and then after suicide by a knife ?such an act cannot be done today only by ISIS , his students were fully believing in Hassan and per contra, Hassan gave them a paradise on earth , no one couldn’t defy the Assassins even larger empires like Seljuk’s empire couldn’t go to Alamut .
The list of Assassinations made by Hassan’s Assassins is too long , the hall of fame include : Janah ad-Dawla( May 1103), emir of Homs, Khalaf ibn Mula’ib( February 3, 1106), emir of Apamea,the list includes also a Fatimid Caliph : Al-Amir bi-Ahkami’l-Lah( 1130) , two Abbasid Caliphs in Baghdad : Al-Mustarshid(1135) and Ar-Rashid (1138), and also Christian and Jew figures like : Raymond II, Count of Tripoli, Conrad of Montferrat( 1152), the de facto King of Jerusalem,and Philip of Montfort, Lord of Tyre(1270) ,What makes the order of Assassins famous is that they attempted to assassinate Saladin ,in fact Saladin started a war against the Assassins but ended his siege of the Ismaili fortress under uncertain circumstances , Saladin choose to end these cold wars between them and make an alliance with Rashid ad-Din Sinan Leader of the Syrian branch of Nizari Ismaili State(assassins)against the Crusaders
The fortress of Alamut will know its end in 1275, ( guess who eradicated them ? )When the Mongols invaded the Khwarizm, the assassins will be eradicated and Mongols besieged Alamut.
Heaven and Hell are inside us
“ I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And by and by my Soul returned to me,
And answered: ‘I Myself am Heaven and Hell”
Samarkand witnessed the lifetime of three of the most influential men in The Muslim world, Nizam-Al-Mulk was Sunnite, he hated Shiism, governed with an iron fist, loved power and lived the life of luxury and castles. Unlike him, Hassan as-Sabbah was a Nizari Ismaili Shiite man, he hated Sunnism and the way the caliphate was under Nizam-Al-Mulk and emperor Malik Shah, to him life was ephemeral transitory, Fear? he didn’t have to be terrified, he was feared with his pillars, they loved vengeance and death. And we have Omar Khayyam, contrary to both of the two, he didn’t have a cause to fight for , he wasn’t Sunnite ,nor Shiite nor an Atheist, studies were his priorities with Wine , he didn’t care much about these ideological or cultural wars , he may be the one of the three who understood the essence behind life ,he was just himself , a Human .
All of the three shape our personality , we are Atheists, Muslims , Christians , Jews , Hindus…..We are Heaven and Hell , we are the devil, we are the angel, we love and hate vices and virtues at the same time , we seek for good but we love evil at the same time, we love ourselves and ask for common interest at the same time, we are simply a creature full of contradictions, contradictions are us, and we are contradictions, but don’t be sad, that what makes us human, that what makes us like Omar Khayyam .
We are such a weak historical race, that we cannot live without our contradictions, and due to the need of Perfection we need a Providence, a perfect creation to govern us in a dirty and greedy world full of contradictions, we need Gods. We find in them a rare treasure: Hope, Happiness, and Justice. They might seem perfect but they resemble us, they punish evil by evil, they hate sin and chaos, they are ready to launch bloody wars in order that their culture remains or dominates. In fact, We sought all these years for perfection to find that we were governed by our own contradictions.
Dear God,
From an Ordinary man with the desire of Omar Khayyam , the vengeance of Hassan as-Sabbah and the love to power of Nizam-Al-Mulk to the Almighty Governor of the skies.
I, your poor servant may speak in the name of humanity today , i address to you a letter in the hope that my words will not betray me this time.
If i exceeded my limits today ,bless me god ! bless me
i’m a mistaken servant, all i sought for was an answer to my contradictions, after all i am a contradictory creature,tell me aren’t i ?Could it be that three men with the same leather lived in the same city of Samarkand with a completely different perception of life ?
O Lord,
We love you and hate you at the same time .
We launched and keep launching bloodiest wars in your name ,but we always seek for peace in your same name, is that a coincidence ?
We talk to you every night , hoping for a bright future , sometimes your answer is merciful , sometimes your answer is just tragic , and sometimes you don’t even answer , is your phone shut down ?
We don’t even know if we should thank you or blame you for giving us a life in such an oppressing world , a dark world .
Is that an illusion from Samarkand’s red nights or a veracity ?
Could it be the zephyr of Samarkand's Streets, or the effects of Samarkand’s Wine?
Could it be that we are the captive of our own mind ?
Are we even talking to you God or talking to our own mind ?
Never mind , we can never abandon you ,you are a part of us and we’re a part of you.
Our relation with you may seem contradictory to the extreme ,but like Omar Khayyam sometimes our senses override us , we love you after all .
And in a world full of contradictions we need perfection ,it’s like the Overman of Nietzsche we can never reach it,but we can hope it,there resides The perfect , there resides GOD .
“Between me and the self a sparring war
and You O Lord are very reserved,
I’m waiting for you pardon but….
i’m ashamed from my bad deeds” Omar KhayyamFrom me to myself thank you for reading these lines , they may seem paradoxical but , after all ,don’t they mean something to you ?
Sincerely ,
