About the Book
Omar Khayyam's Secret: Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination, by Mohammad H. Tamdgidi, is a 12-book series of which this book is the 12th, subtitled Khayyami Legacy: The Collected Works of Omar Khayyam (AD 1021-1123) Culminating in His Secretive 1000 Robaiyat Autobiography. Book 12 condenses the series and its findings in a single volume. This is the first time since Omar Khayyam's passing that all his extant works have been compiled in a single publication series and volume and studied integratively, accomplished for the millennium of his true birth date and the ninth centennial of his true date of passing. It includes two forewords, one by Winston E. Langley, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Relations and former Provost of UMass Boston, and another by Jafar Aghayani Chavoshi, Professor of History of Science and Mathematics at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran.
The original texts are included with their new English (and where needed, updated or new Persian) translations. The preface recaps how a method in quantum sociological imagination helped solve the riddles of Khayyam's life and works in the series. The introduction delineates this series' findings toward a scientifically reliable biography of Khayyam, including a critical commentary on how Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat colonially distorted Khayyam's Robaiyat and Islamic legacy. Three other chapters are also shared: one on how Khayyam's true dates of birth and passing were discovered and reconfirmed in this series, including further notes on Swami Govinda Tirtha's errors in studying Khayyam's birth horoscope for the purpose; another on integratively viewing astronomy and its relation to astrology amid all of Khayyam's works; and a third on the role he played in the design of Isfahan's North Dome.
Khayyam's studied writings are: his treatise on the science of the universals of existence; his annotated Persian translation of Avicenna's "Splendid Sermon" on God's unity and creation; his treatise on the created world and worship duty; his three-part treatises on existence (1-on the necessity of contradiction, determinism, and survival; 2-on attributes; and 3-on the light of intellect on 'existent' as the subject matter of universal science); his treatise on soul's survival, necessity of accidents, and nature of time; his treatise in music on tetrachords; his two treatises on balance; his treatise on circle quadrant for achieving a certain proportionality; his treatise in algebra and equations; his treatise on Euclid's postulation problems; his literary treatise "Nowrooznameh"; and his secretive autobiography, the Robaiyat, comprised of 1000 quatrains logically organized based on his own three-phased method of inquiry.
This series has found the answer to its question about the origins, nature, and purpose of the Robaiyat in Khayyam's life and works. Lifelong, he was secretively writing his Robaiyat as his "book of life," his autobiography, for posthumous release. His pen name "Khayyam" ("tentmaker") had been inspired by his dazzling birth chart. By re-sewing in this series his autobiographical tent of wisdom as a Tavern serving the spiritual Wine of his poetry, we have advanced from knowing little about his life to reading his most intimate autobiography. But the Robaiyat is not just a private autobiography; it is also a sociologically imaginative and poetic public telling of humanity's search for a universal healing.
Iran's appreciation of Omar Khayyam's legacy can be best judged not by the physics of his burial sites, traditionally humble or artistically modern, but by the role Iranians themselves have played since his time in safeguarding his works especially in the poetic bricks and mortars of the human architecture of his own secretly designed and designated everlasting tomb.
About the Author :
Mohammad H. Tamdgidi, Ph.D., is the founding director and editor of OKCIR: Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics) and its journal, Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge (ISSN: 1540-5699), which have served since 2002 to frame his independent research, pedagogical, and publishing initiatives. Besides his 12-book series Omar Khayyam's Secret: Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination (2021-2025, Okcir Press), he has previously authored Liberating Sociology: From Newtonian Toward Quantum Imaginations: Volume 1: Unriddling the Quantum Enigma (2020, Okcir Press), Gurdjieff and Hypnosis: A Hermeneutic Study (2009, Palgrave Macmillan), and Advancing Utopistics: The Three Component Parts and Errors of Marxism (2007, Routledge/Paradigm). Tamdgidi has published numerous peer reviewed articles and chapters and edited more than thirty journal issues. He is a former associate professor of sociology specializing in social theory at UMass Boston and has taught sociology at SUNY-Binghamton and SUNY-Oneonta. Winston E. Langley is Professor Emeritus of Political Science & International Relations, Senior Fellow at the McCormack Graduate School for Policy & Global Studies, and a former Provost (2008-2017) of the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Boston. Jafar Aghayani Chavoshi (Ph.D. and M.A. in Epistemology and History of Science and Mathematics, University of Paris, 1997) is Professor of Philosophy of Science at Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, specializing in Philosophy, Epistemology, and History of Mathematics and Science, and in Omar Khayyam Studies.
Review :
"... a masterpiece in Omar Khayyam studies ..." -- Jafar Aghayani Chavoshi (Ph.D., University of Paris, 1997), Professor of Philosophy of Science at Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, specializing in Philosophy, Epistemology, and History of Mathematics and Science, and in Omar Khayyam Studies; From his Foreword to the last book of the Omar Khayyam's Secret series
"Tamdgidi, having taken his readers through the first eleven books of his Omar Khayyam's Secret series, in book twelve -- consistent with good teaching -- offers an overview of what had already been covered by the series, as he does in each of its successive books. He does more. He discusses the scientific requirements for the study of Khayyam's biography; and then, he proceeds to depict the new findings of the series that make possible 'a textually and historically more reliable biography for Khayyam.' Both, with distinction, he has achieved. ... The series is a most admirable example of teaching at its best. Tamdgidi is but an expert guide in a journey of joint learning and teaching; nowhere, except in the concluding book, including his notes on the biography of Omar Khayyam, is it conclusory. He patiently anticipates and works with the reader to grapple with issues, so there are common discoveries. At times, he and his readers are detectives, with moments of sudden insights, realizations, and inspiration. Indeed, for this reader, who was exposed at an early age to Khayyam, through the work of Edward FitzGerald, encountering this series was like the astronauts who experienced seeing the Earth for the first time from outer space. It was nothing I could have imagined, from prior experience. ... Every college library should at least secure a copy of the last synoptic volume of the series; and every research library should have the entire series as one of its prized acquisitions and holdings. ... The claim or assertion respecting the likely longevity of the series and its importance to libraries (and, by implication, scholars) is not made lightly, and it is in no way an exaggeration. A study of its methodology, its findings, the significance of those findings for the universe of learning, of the skills, dedication, and sacrifices the author brought to bear on the work, and of the approach observed to help readers grapple with and understand what is being disclosed, attests a rich body of corroborating testimony to the assertion." -- Winston E. Langley, Professor Emeritus of Political Science & International Relations, Senior Fellow at the McCormack Graduate School for Policy & Global Studies, and a former Provost (2008-2017) of the University of Massachusetts Boston; From his Foreword to the last book of the Omar Khayyam's Secret series
