Customer Reviews (1)

other edition
Rendered into English Verse. Illustrated by Jeff Hill. The Peter Pauper Press, Mount Vernon, New York. No date. No page numbers. Forest green cover with red and gold label. All pages text framed in red and gold. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

History of the Assians
Harold Lamb's OMAR KHAYYAM was originally published in 1934, but this fascinating biography of the author of the RUBAIYAT and a text on algebra is as vital today as when it was written.
Contain in the story of Khayyam is the history of the Assassins and their development during the 12th century, which we are still fighting today. An important read for anyone who wants to understand the history behind our involvement in the middle east and modern day terrorists.
Nash Black, author of Indie finalists WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and HAINTS.

Excellent and entertaining
This is a great book to read and certainly gives the reader an insight into the islamic world of that era. Omar el Khayyam, was one of the most renowned philosophers, mathematicians, poets of the 11th century Persia. He is a great credit to islam and his tolerance, seeking of knowledge and scientific mind would have been much appreciated today, in our world of religious fanaticism.
If you enjoyed this book, you will love "Samarkand", by Amin Maalouf, one of the best contemporary Lebanese writers, A joy to read.

Book Review
Professor Lamb gave an excellent historical overview about the life of a great poet/philosopher and also a brillant scientist, in my opinion, way ahead of his time, Omar Khayyam. If one is interested in the history and accomplishments of the former Persian Empire, this should be mandatory reading.

Omar Khayyam is the Islamic Galileo Galilei?
All we remember about Omar Khayyam are his Persian
quatrane poetry which Lamb says he wrote as idle whim.
The books of Omar Khayyam were burned for saying that
the Earth wasn't the center of the universe.
He had already calculated a new more modern calendar.
I think that this failure of Islam in it's confrontation
with science and the progress of knowledge
shows a cultural pattern that hasn't been broken
since. That an astronomer and scientist who was respected by his King
was also a poet shows that he was a very great man. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A real American story
After reading this story, I realize what our great country used to be and what it has become today.This story tells of an immigrant who came to America penniless and saw hope and opportunity even during the depression.His view of our country is one where hard works make dreams come true during a time when the United States was a great place to live.
Reading this story is bittersweet.It is an awesome success story but it made me realize how our country has turned away from what it once was.The American price has fizzled.
This book should be a must read for high school students!They need to know that this was truly the land of milk and honey and could be again.
How sad that this is not the same America that George Mardikian once loved and wrote of.I highly recommend this book, especially to Michelle Obama. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Persian poetry; Poetry / General; Poetry / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Doesn't have line breaks
Okay, so I don't really review Kindle editions for their literary qualities. I review them as a warning about formatting and readability to people considering getting them.

This version does not have line breaks. Now, I have no idea whether Fitzgerald's original version has line breaks, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say it does. How can a rubaiya possibly be considered a quatrain if there are no line breaks in it. So, don't buy this version. Buy the other one that does have line breaks (The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam). ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
Publisher: Philadelphia, H.T. CoatesPublication date: 1898Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Product Description
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free.This is an OCR edition with typos.Excerpt from book:IX.Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say ; Yes, but where leaves the Rose of YesterdayJ. And this first Summer month that brings the Rose Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away. Well, let it take them! What have we to do With Kaikobad the Great, or Kaikhosru ? Let Zal and Rustum thunder as they will,7 Or Hatim call to Supper — heed not you. With me along the strip of Herbage strown That just divides the desert from the sown, Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot — And Peace to Mahmud on his golden Throne !VA Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread — and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness — . Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow !XIII.Some for the Glories of This World ; and some Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come ; /" Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go, I Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum !8Look to the blowing Rose about us — " Lo, Laughing," she says, " into the world I blow,At once the silken tassel of my Purse Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw." 9chapter{Section 4XV.And those who husbanded the Golden grain, And those who flung it to the winds like Rain,Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd As, buried once, Men want dug up again.'': The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon Turns Ashes — or it prospers ; and anon,Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face, Lighting a little hour or two — was gone.XVII.Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day, How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp Abode his destin'd Hour, and went his way. XVIII.They say the Lion and the Lizard keepThe Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drankdeepi10 And Bahram, that great Hunter — the WildAss Stamps o'er his Head, ... ... Read more

Product Description
6x9 edition. 114 quatrains are presented via a merge of the first four editions of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, translated by Edward FitzGerald, and illustrated and arranged by Austin P. Torney. New sections added on the Titanic's "Great Omar", the colorizations of Edmund Sullivan's b/w illustrations, a new calendar, and more.The 80+ illustrations, all in color, are a mixture of ancient and modern styles, ranging from Austin's own nature compositions to his enhancement ofengravings and drawings obtained from very old books.Austin has also written and published his own 'Rubaiyat of Austin P. Torney'.This publication celebrates the nearly two hundred years since Edward FitzGerald was born. ... Read more

Product Description
Vintage paperback original. Adaptation of the movie starring Cornel Wilde and Debra Paget. ... Read more

Product Description
Omar Khayyam's famous poem, The Rubaiyat, is loved byWesterners as a hymn of praise to sensual delights. In the East it isknown as a deep allegory of the soul's romance with God. As for whathis quatrains actually mean, most of them have remained a mystery inthe East as much as in the West. Now after eight centuries, ParamhansaYogananda, one of the great mystics of our times, a master of yoga andthe author of the classic Autobiography of a Yogi, explains themystery behind Omar's famous poem. This book contains the essence ofgreat revelation. hardcover edition of this title ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Why not just read them yourself without another person's interpretation?
Many of Khayyam's quatrains make it seem unlikely that he is anything more than indifferent with respect to religious belief, heaven, hell, etc. In any case, there have been a wide variety of interpretations. (e.g. Christopher Hitchens includes Khayyam's quatrains as essential reading for atheists)

Why not just read them yourself and make up your own mind? Several of the best translations are all free, in the public domain, and available online through Project Gutenberg or WikiSource. Look for Fitzgerald, McCarthy, Whinfield, or even Richard Le Gallienne's paraphrase, which attempts to maintain the witiness of Khayyam.

Anything is preferable to having someone else tell you "for sure" what is meant - even if their analysis is correct, isn't it better to figure it out for yourself?

Was Omar Khayyam a yogi?
This is a book of rather peculiar interpretations of Omar Khayyam's "Rubaiyat" in the famous translation by Edward FitzGerald. Mr. Yogananda takes the 75 quatrains of the first translation of 1859 and adds to each a paraphrase, an "extended meaning" and what he calls "keys to meaning."

The purpose of this book, however, is to illustrate Mr. Yogananda's beliefs with the poetry of Omar Khayyam, not to explain or comment the quatrains.

Quatrain number 52 is one of the most materialistic, even fatalistic, of Omar Khayyam's poems:

And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help - for It
Rolls Impotently on as Thou or I.

(in the standard 101 quatrain-edition of Edward FitzGerald this poem is number 72 and reads more correctly: "And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky, / Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die, / Lift not your hands to It for help - for It / As impotently moves as you or I.")

Mr. Yogananda paraphrases it as "Sun, Moon, stars, and planets pass athwart the sky as though in a slow celestial dance. Their movements correspond to the decrees of the Cosmic Law. Their changing configurations are choreographed, like the events in our lives. The stars and planets themselves can no more choose how they will affect us than we can select our own karmic destinies. Look not to the stars, then, for help if you would change your lot. Look to God. He it was who made you and all the stars. He it was who first determined the workings of karmic law."

God and "karmic law" figure prominently in Mr. Yogananda's interpretations of the other quatrains, too. However, the connection between the poems and Mr. Yogananda's interpretation is in all cases very flimsy and arbitrary. In Omar Khayyam's quatrain about the indifference of nature towards human suffering it is definitely far-fetched to claim that he wanted the reader to look to God and remind him of the "karmic law" when he wrote this poem. Rather, it seems the opposite was the case.

Omar Khayyam asks many questions about life and life's meaning in his quatrains. Mr. Yogananda claims to have all the answers. I prefer to stay with the questions and find my own answers. One of which is: no, Omar Khayyam was no yogi.

Story Behind the Scenes
Who has not heard or read these lines of beauty?

"Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough, A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse -- and Thou," or "The Moving Finger writes; and having writ, Moves on."?

These lines are from the first translation of The Rubaiyat by the English translator and man of letters, Edward FitzGerald (1809 - 1883). While it retains the spirit and philosophy expressed in the original quatrains, FitzGerald's translation was so free in its rendition as to be virtually an original work.
Omar Khayyam, poet, astronomer and mathematician was born in Persia in the latter part of the 11th century. His surname, Khayyam, means "tent-maker" although that undoubtedly referred to his father's trade more than to his own because actually, he was independently wealthy. He was a friend of Nizami, the Vizier of Baghdad who founded the great college of Baghdad, where Omar Khayyam was taught. Omar Khayyam lived in seclusion until Malik Shah appointed him Astronomer Royal, who, along with eight other scholars, revised the Muslim calendar. It seems certain that Khayyam was a Sufi mystic and kept his spiritual life hidden from superficial worldly minds.

"Omar," Paramhansa Yogananda has said, "by a very large number of Western readers, has come to be regarded as a rather erotic pagan poet, a drunkard interested only in wine and earthly pleasure. This is typical of the confusion that exists on the entire subject of Sufism. The wine is the joy of the spirit, and the love is the rapturous devotion to God?"

The Rubaiyat as well as the Tales of the Arabian Nights are not love stories about drunkards, genies, and magic caves filled with treasures, but mystical stories based on the religion of Sufism. Their encoded symbolism, when revealed, is deeply mystical and meaningful.

One example is the magic lamp of Aladdin. First, the meaning of the name: AL is Arabic for God, "ALLAH."DDIN is a transcription of the word DJINN (or we would say in the West, "Genie.") But in Arabic it means SPIRIT. Thus, ALADDIN means "The Spirit of God." Well, what is the magic lamp, then? The magic lamp is something we all possess in the depths (cave) of the subconscious, the MIND. What would it mean then that the "Spirit of God" rubs the "Mind"? This refers to the practice of meditation. By focussing on an idea, a single thought, our minds are capable of bringing about any reality we dream of. We are the co-creators of our own universe, our own lives. As Pogo, the comic strip character, said: "We have met the enemy, and it is we-uns." We are responsible for our own self-undoing, just as we are responsible for creating our own lives.

Secrecy and the practice of hiding deep truths behind a veil of exotic symbolism was the way the Sufis protected themselves against persecution for their unorthodox views. It is similar to the deep mysticism of the Jewish Kabala. The Sufis called their secret language QBL. The alchemists of the West used another example of hidden mysticism. Do you think they were really trying to transmute lead into gold, or were they trying to transmute the gross material of our bodies and souls into the golden glory of the spirit? If you think so, read John Randolph Price?s book published by Hay House, The Alchemist?s Handbook. Nostradamus and Leonardo daVinci also hid their writings in obscure diaries and secret codes.

Paramhansa Yogananda accomplished much of the mystic discovery about Omar Khayyam in his book, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Explained. Paramhansa Yogananda was one of the great spiritual beacons of the 20th century. His Autobiography of a Yogi, first published in 1946, has been a best-selling autobiography for the past fifty years. Yogananda was born in India in 1893 and sent to this country in 1920 where he founded the Self-Realization Fellowship in Los Angeles, California, a non-sectarian and universal organization. His close friend and editor of the book on the Rubaiyat, J. Donald Walters, also known as Kriyananda, wrote: "Yogananda's charity, compassion, unshakable calmness, loving friendship to all, delightful sense of humor and deep insight into human nature were such as to leave me constantly amazed."

If you love poetry like I do, you will love this one too!!
The first time I encountered this book was in the 10th Grade and I have been mesmerized by it ever since.The author gives extraordinary metphors and allows the reader to interpret the poetry how it best fits them.Hespeaks of most of the joys there is on this wonderful world and takes youto places you have never been before.I would recommend this wonderfulbook to anyone who loves poetry.

Wow!
If you want the best of mysticism and poetry, read this beautiful and deep book. I've fallen in love again with reading poetry, and I've been given a new understanding of eastern wisdom.

Even though the commentaries arefull of esoteric wisdom, Yogananda writes in a poetic style that is easy onthe eyes, mind, and soul.

I quote from Yogananda here: "Come, fillthe Cup of Consciousness with the divine wine of bliss! Cast away yourmaterial desires (deceitful, because forever disillusioning), and flinginto the crackling fire of fresh spiritual enthusiasm your robe ofpenitence for having ever indulged in them." ... Read more