Authors: Amin Maalouf
At night, he would go off to the observatory built on a hillock near his house. He only had to cross a garden in order to
be in the midst of the instruments which he cherished and caressed, oiled and polished with his own hand. Often he was accompanied
by some astronomer who was passing through. The first three years of his stay had been devoted to the Isfahan observatory.
He had supervised its construction and the manufacture of the equipment. Most importantly he had instituted the new calendar,
ceremonially inaugurated on the first day of
Favardin
458, 21 March 1079. What Persian could forget that year, when due to Khayyam’s calculation the sacrosanct festival of Nowruz
had been displaced, and the new year which ought to have fallen in the middle of the sign of Pisces had been held off until
the first day of Aries, and that since that reform the Persian months have conformed to the signs of the zodiac with
Favardin
thus becoming the month of Aries and
Esfand
that of Pisces? In June 1081 the inhabitants of Isfahan and the whole Empire were living out the third year of the new era.
This officially carried the name of the Sultan, but in the street, and even in certain documents, it was enough to mention
‘such and such year in the
era of Omar Khayyam’. What other man has known such honour in his lifetime? While Khayyam, at the age of thirty-three, was
a renowned and respected personage, he was doubtless feared by those who did not know of his profound aversion to violence
and domination.
What was it that kept him close to Jahan in spite of everything? A detail, but a gigantic detail: neither of them wanted children.
Jahan had decided, once and for all, not to burden herself with offspring. Khayyam had made his the maxim of Abu al-Ala, a
Syrian poet he venerated: ‘My suffering is the fault of my progenitor, let no one else’s suffering be my fault.’
Let us not be mistaken about this attitude, Khayyam had none of the makings of a misanthropist. Was it not he who had written:
‘When unhappiness overwhelms you, when you end up wishing for an eternal night to fall on the world, think of the greenery
which springs up after the rain, think of the awakening of a child.’ If he refused to father children, it was because existence
seemed to him to be too heavy to bear. ‘Happy is he who has never come into the world,’ he never ceased proclaiming.
It was clear that the reasons both of them had for refusing to give life to a child were not one and the same. She acted out
of an excess of ambition, he out of an excess of detachment. However, for a man and a woman to be closely drawn together by
an attitude condemned by all the men and women of Persia, and to give free reign to rumours that one or the other was sterile
without even deigning to respond was what, at that time, forged an imperative complicity.
However, it was a complicity which had its limits. With Omar, Jahan generally came to learn the valuable opinion of a man
who coveted nought, but she rarely took the trouble of informing him of her activities. She knew that he disapproved of them.
What good would it do to feed endless quarrels? Of course, Khayyam was never far from the court. Even though he avoided becoming
embroiled in it, despised and fled from all the intrigues, particularly those which had always worked against the palace doctors
and astrologers, he nevertheless had some inescapable obligations, such as being present sometimes at the Friday banquet,
examining a sick Emir and above
all providing Malikshah with his
taqvim
, his monthly horoscope, the Sultan being, just like everyone else, constrained to consult it to know what he should do or
should not do every day. ‘On the 5th, a star is lying in wait for you, do not leave the palace. On the 7th, neither be bled
nor take any sort of potion. On the 10th, wind your turban the other way. On the 13th, do not approach any of your wives …’
The Sultan never thought to transgress these directives, and nor did Nizam, who received his
taqvim
from Omar’s hand before the end of the month, read it greedily and followed it to the letter. Gradually, other personages
acquired this privilege, the chamberlain, the Grand Qadi of Isfahan, the treasurers, certain Emirs of the army and some rich
merchants, which ended up meaning considerable work for Omar and took up the ten last nights of every month. People were so
partial to predictions! The luckiest consulted Omar. The others found themselves a less prestigious astrologer, unless they
went to a man of religion for every decision. Closing his eyes, and opening the Quran at random, he would place his finger
on a verse which he would read aloud to them so that they could find therein the answer to their worries. Some poor women,
in a great hurry to make a decision, would go out into a public square and would interpret the first phrase they heard as
a directive from Providence.
‘Terken Khatoun asked me today if her
taqvim
for the month of
Tir
is ready,’ Jahan said that evening.
Omar looked out into the distance:
‘I am going to prepare it for her during the night. The sky is clear and none of the stars are hidden. It is time for me to
go to the observatory.’
He readied himself to stand up, without hurry, when a servant came to announce:
‘There is a dervish at the door. He is asking for hospitality for the night.’
‘Let him come in,’ said Omar. ‘Give him the small room under the stairway and tell him to join us for the meal.’
Jahan covered her face ready for the entrance of the stranger, but the servant came back alone.
‘He prefers to stay and pray in his room. Here is the message he gave me.’
Omar read it and blushed. He arose like an automaton. Jahan was worried:
‘Who is this man?’
‘I shall return.’
He tore the message into a thousand pieces, strode towards the little room and shut the door behind him. There was a moment
of waiting and then of incredulity, an accolade followed by a reproach:
‘What have you come to Isfahan for? All Nizam al-Mulk’s agents are after you.’
‘I have come to convert you.’
Omar stared at him. He wanted to make sure that Hassan still had all his wits about him, but Hassan laughed, the same muffled
laugh that Khayyam had recognized in the caravansaray in Kashan.
‘You can be reassured that you are the last person I would think of converting, but I need shelter. What better protector
could there be than Omar Khayyam, companion to the Sultan, friend to the Grand Vizir?’
‘Their hatred for you is greater than their friendship for me. You are welcome under my roof, but do not think for a moment
that my relations with them could save you if your presence were suspected.’
‘Tomorrow I shall be far away.’
Omar appeared distrusting:
‘Have you come back for revenge?’
Hassan reacted as if his dignity had just been held up to ridicule.
‘I do not seek to avenge my miserable person, I desire to destroy Turkish power.’
Omar looked at his friend: he had exchanged his black turban for another, white but covered in sand, and his clothing was
of coarse and threadbare wool.
‘You appear so sure of yourself! I can only see before me an outlaw, a hunted man, hiding from house to house, whose whole
equipment consists of this bundle and this turban while yet thinking yourself the equal of an empire which extends over all
the orient from Damascus to Herat!’
‘You are speaking of what is. I speak of what will be. The New
Order will soon position itself against the Seljuk Empire. It will be intricately organized, powerful and fearsome and will
cause Sultan and vizirs to quake. Not so long ago, when you and I were born, Isfahan belonged to a Persian Shiite dynasty
which imposed its law on the Caliph of Baghdad. Today the Persians are no more than the servants of the Turks, and your friend
Nizam al-Mulk is the vilest servant of these intruders. How can you establish that what was true yesterday is unthinkable
for tomorrow?’
‘Times have changed, Hassan. The Turks are in power and the Persians have been vanquished. Some, like Nizam, seek a compromise
with the victors, and others, like me, take refuge in books.’
‘And yet others fight. They are only a handful today, but tomorrow they will be thousands, a great decisive and invincible
army. I am the apostle of the New Prediction. I will travel the country without respite. I will use persuasion as well as
force and, with the aid of the Almighty, I shall fight against corrupt power. I am telling you, Omar, since you saved my life
one day: the world will soon witness events whose import will be understood by few men, but you will understand. You will
know what is happening, what is shaking this earth and how the tumult will end.’
‘I do not wish to cast any doubt upon your convictions or your enthusiasm, but I remember having seen you fight at the court
of Malikshah with Nizam al-Mulk over the favours of the Turkish Sultan.’
‘You are mistaken to suggest that I am such an ignoble person.’
‘I am not suggesting anything. I am simply mentioning some unpalatable facts.’
‘They are due to your ignorance of my past. I cannot take offence at you for judging things by their appearance, but you will
see me differently when I have told you my real history. I come from a traditional Shiite family. I was always taught that
the Ismailis were simply heretics until I met a missionary, who, through a long discussion with me, shook my faith. When I
decided not to speak to him any more for fear of giving in to him, I fell so seriously ill that I thought it was my last hour.
I saw a sign, a sign from the Almighty, and I made an oath that if I survived I would convert to the faith
of the Ismailis. I recovered overnight. None of my family could believe my sudden recovery.’
‘Naturally I kept my word and took the oath and at the end of two years I was assigned a mission to get close to Nizam al-Mulk,
to infiltrate his
diwan
in order to protect our Ismaili brothers in difficulty. Thus I left Rayy for Isfahan and stopped
en route
at a caravansaray in Kashan. Finding myself alone in my small room, I was in the middle of wondering how I get close to the
Grand Vizir when the door opened and who should enter but Khayyam, the great Khayyam whom heaven sent to me there to facilitate
my mission.’
Omar was dumbstruck.
‘To think that Nizam al-Mulk asked me whether you were an Ismaili and I replied that I did not think so!’
‘You did not lie. You did not know. Now you do.’
He broke off.
‘You have not offered me anything to eat?’
Omar opened the door, called the servant, ordered her to bring some dishes and then continued his questioning:
‘And you have been wandering about for seven years dressed as a Sufi?’
‘I have wandered about much. When I left Isfahan I was pursued by agents of Nizam who were after my life. I shook them off
at Qom where some friends hid me and then I continued my journey to Rayy where I met an Ismaili who suggested that I go to
Egypt, to the missionary school where he had studied. I made a detour through Azerbaijan before going on to Damascus. I was
planning to travel to Cairo on the land route, but there was fighting between the Turks and the Maghrebis around Jerusalem
and I had to turn back and take the coastal route through Beirut, Sidon, Tyre and Acre where I found a place on a boat. Upon
my arrival in Alexandria I was received as a high-ranking Emir. A reception committee was waiting for me, headed by Abu Daud,
the paramount chief of the missionaries.’
The servant had come in and placed some bowls on the carpet. Hassan started a prayer which he broke off when she left the
room.
‘I spent two years in Cairo. There were several dozens of us at
the missionary school, but only a handful of us were destined to be active outside Fatimid territory.’
He avoided giving out too many details. It is known however, from various sources, that courses were held in two different
places: the principles of the faith were revealed by the
ulema
in the university of Al-Azhar, and missionary propaganda was taught within the Caliphal palace. It was the chief missionary
himself, a high ranking official of the Fatimid court, who revealed to the students the methods of persuasion, the art of
developing a line of argument and of addressing reason instead of aiming for the heart. It was also he who made them memorise
the secret code they had to use in their communications. At the end of every session, the students came to kneel before the
chief missionary who passed over their heads a document bearing the signature of the Imam. Then another, shorter, session
would be held for the women.
‘In Egypt I received all the instruction I needed.’
‘Did you not tell me, one day, that you already knew everything at the age of seventeen?’ Khayyam said mockingly.
‘By the age of seventeen I had accumulated information, then I learnt how to believe. In Cairo I learnt how to convert.’
‘What do you say to those whom you are trying to convert?’
‘I tell them that faith is nothing without a master to teach it. When we proclaim: “There is no God but God,” we immediately
add “And Mohammed is his Messenger.” Why? Because it would make no sense to state that there is only one God if we do not
quote the source, that is to say the name of the man who brought us this truth. But this man, this Messenger, this Prophet,
has been dead a long time and how can we know that he existed and that he spoke as was reported. I, who like you have read
Plato and Aristotle, need proof.’
‘What sort of proof? Can one find proof for those things?’
‘For you Sunnites there is effectively no proof. You think that Mohammed died without appointing an heir, that he just left
the Muslims to their own devices to be governed by the strongest and wiliest. That is absurd. We think that the Messenger
of God named a successor as a depository for his secrets: the Imam Ali, his son-in-law, his cousin and almost his brother.
In his turn, Ali designated
a successor. The line of legitimate Imams was thus perpetuated, and through them, the proof of the message of Mohammed and
of the existence of a single God was passed down.’