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by Mohammad H. Tamdgidi (Author)
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 8th volume, subtitled Khayyami Robaiyat: Part 1 of 3: Quatrains 1-338: Songs of Doubt Addressing the Question "Does Happiness Exist?" Explained with New English Verse Translations and Organized Logically Following Omar Khayyam's Own Three-Phased Method of Inquiry. Each book, independently readable, can be best understood as a part of the whole series.
In Book 8, Tamdgidi offers the first of a 3-part set of 1000 quatrains he has chosen to include in this series from a wider set that have been over the centuries attributed to Khayyam. Part 1 includes quatrains 1-338 for each of which the Persian original along with Tamdgidi's new English verse translation and a transliteration for the same are shared. Each quatrain is indexed according to the frequency of its inclusion in manuscripts, the earliest known date of its appearance in them, the extent to which it has "wandered" into other poets' works, and its rhyming scheme. Brief comments about the meaning of each quatrain in relation to other quatrains and works attributed to Khayyam are then offered along with any notes regarding its new translation as shared.
Tamdgidi shows that the quatrains 1-338, in the beginning 30 of which Khayyam offers an opening to his book of poetry as a secretive work of art, address the question "Does Happiness Exist?" The latter question is the first of a set of three methodically phased questions Khayyam has identified in his philosophical works as being required for investigating any subject. The order in which the quatrains are presented shows that the quatrains included in Part 1 follow a logically inductive reasoning process through which Khayyam delves from the surface portraits of unhappiness to their deeper chain of causes in order to answer his question. The thematic topics of the quatrains of Part 1 as shared in Book 8 are: I. Secret Book of Life; II. Alas!; III-Times; IV-Spheres; V. Chance and Fate; VI. Puzzle; VII. O God!; VIII. Tavern Voice; and IX. O Wine-Tender!
After the opening quatrains where Khayyam explains why he was composing a secretive book of poetry and what it aims to do, his inquiry starts with doubtful existential self-reflections on his life, leading him to first blame his times, then the spheres, then matters of chance and fate, soon realizing that he really does not have an explanation for the enigmas of existence, concluding that the answer only lies with God. So, he appeals to God directly for an answer. It is then that he hears the voice of the Saqi or Wine-Tender from his inner "tavern," to whom he replies in a series of quatrains closing Part 1. It is in the course of the inquiry in Part 1 that the idea of using Wine as a poetic trope is discovered by him, a matter that is separate from his interest in drinking wine, which he never denies but is secondary to the spiritual Wine discovered and advanced in his book of poetry that in fact represents his poetry, the Robaiyat, itself and its promise in answering his questions.
The logical order of Khayyam's inquiry shows how seemingly contradictory views that have been attributed to him can in fact be explained as logical moments in the successively deeper inquiries he makes inductively when addressing the question whether happiness exists in the created world. We should, therefore, judge each quatrain as a logical moment in Part 1's inquiry as a whole, in anticipation of the two remaining parts of his book of poetry to be shared in Books 9 and 10 of the series, respectively addressing the two follow-up questions: "What Is Happiness?" and "Why Does (or Can) Happiness Exist?"
