Omar Khayyam

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Exciting news, folks: Informed Comment is in the midst of a major redesign and aims at becoming a magazine. The redesign is not cheap, and neither will be our plans to attract more writers for the site. And, we undertake this endeavor at a time when […]

Painting of the Day: Girl w/ Wine Cup, Isfahan, Iran, 1650

British Museum | Persian Watercolor in style of Muhammad Qasim | – – “Girl with a wine cup Style of Muhammad Qasim Safavid Iran, Isfahan, 1640-50 Ink and opaque watercolour on paper By 1650 drawings of young men or women holding wine cups in the countryside had become standard rather than hackneyed fare in Persian […]

Garden Party, 1640: Iranian Lady entertains European Gentleman

Metropolitian Museum of Art | Isfahan Tile | – – “At the center of this scene, a lady leans on a bolster pillow and languidly holds out a filled cup. Making somewhat immodest eye contact with the viewer, she displays burn marks, associated with mystics and lovers, on her lower arms. A male figure in […]

Image of the Day: “Jonah and the Whale” (Persian Miniature)

Metropolitan Museum of Art | (Persian Miniature Painting) | – – “Jonah and the Whale”, Folio from a Jami al-Tavarikh (Compendium of Chronicles [A medieval World History]) Inscription: In Persian, on the arms of Jonah: “The sun’s disk went into darkness, Jonah went into the mouth of the fish.” The story of Jonah and the […]

Books

Love and Wine (Poem of the Day: Abu Nuwas of Baghdad)

Abū Nuwas al-Hasan ibn Hanī al-Hakamī (756–814) | Love and Wine | – – Ho! a cup, and fill it up, and tell me it is wine, For never will I drink in shade if I can drink in shine. Curst and poor is every hour that sober I must go, But rich am I […]

Saadi on Impatient Love (Poem of the Day)

By Muslih al-Din “Saadi” Mushrif ibn Abdullah Shirazi | Trans. Reynold A. Nicholson | – – The heart that loves with patience — a stone ’tis, not a heart; Nay, love and patience dwell of old a thousand leagues apart. O brethren of the mystic path, leave blame and me alone! Repentance in the way […]

Omar Khayyam

Omar Khayyam (497): “You’re beast and demon, angel, human being”

You who distill within you the whole world, attend to this voice from the realm beyond: You’re beast, and demon, angel, human being; whatever you show forth, you are that thing. Translated by Juan Cole from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, [pdf] Whinfield 497

Omar Khayyam

Omar Khayyam (162) “Be happy, since once you’re upset it goes on forever”