One of the main characters in Amin Maalouf's Samarcand is philosopher, poet and mathematician Omar Khayyam of Persia. Born in 1048, he was to change the way people viewed the world. Not only did he calculate the number of days in a year accurately by six decimals, but his calculation has only one day error every 5000 years whereas the Gregorian Calendar has one every 3330 years. He also proved to people around him, among them prominent scholar and philosopher Imam Ghazali (see previous post about him), that the universe did not revolve around earth but that infact earth revolved on its own axis.A lunar crater and an asteroid have both been named Omar Khayyam after him.
Films have been made about his amazing life. Back in 1957 a Hollywood film starring Cornel Wilde was made, and in my old copy of an Agatha Christie book (Death in the Air) from 1946, a book of poems by Omar Khayyam called Rubaiyaat of Omar Khayyam (meaning quatrains, referring to the style of four lines of poetry) was on second place of New Avon Library's Best Selling Titles of that year in America.
More recently however, in 2005 Iranian filmmaker Kayvan Mashayekh filmed and came out with a movie titled The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam with actors like Vanessa Redgrave.
View the trailor here.
12 comments:
Cool! Thanks for the tips on the movies.
You're going to make me look very good in the eyes of my mother - she loves Omar Khayyam!
Iv heard its a great movie and have been wanting to see it but havent had the time to find and watch it.
holy!
i love omar khayyam!!
i must seee it before i leave the us.
thanks ss.
Sounds like fun, shall watch it... Hey,! I'm number 11000! Shall email you a screenshot.
NZM, I'm sure you look good already...but, perhaps even better now lol Hope she enjoys it :)
D Reb, I thin kI will order it from the website. People living in the US have free shipping though. Biz you hear that?
Biz, 3ala 3ein wo raas! Enjoy it and you will most likely see it before me so do let me know what you think of it.
Samawel!!! You are visitor number 11000, name your prize! I should have a prize, no? Looking forward to that screenshot :) And alf meet ahla wo sahla always!
Just wanted to add that there is an authentic Iranian restaurant in Blue Area, Islamabad, named Omar Khayyam. I went there a couple of days ago. Strictly for fans of Persian cuisine.
Welcome sajjad, thanks for the tip! Next time im there i'll be sure to try it.
hey, where can i get an mp3 (or equivalent) file of the song that's playing on your stickam? (the ghost the hatchlings)
Umar, send me an email!
You are so cool, SS> You always come up with the coolest topics for blog posts.
Well koonj, how cool of you to read them lol
Oh my, I looked at the trailer. It looks like a good movie to watch and visually beautifully made too.
I hope I can find it, I would love to see it.
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