180-557: Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Nīsābūrī (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131), commonly known as Omar Khayyam ( Persian : عمر خیّام ), was a Persian polymath , known for his contributions to mathematics , astronomy , philosophy , and poetry . He was born in Nishapur , the initial capital of the Seljuk Empire , and lived during the period of the Seljuk dynasty , around the time of
360-512: A UNESCO World Heritage Site . The name Isfahan is derived from Middle Persian Spahān , which is attested by various Middle Persian seals and inscriptions, including that of the Zoroastrian magi Kartir . The present-day name is the Arabicized form of Ispahan (unlike Middle Persian , but New Persian does not allow initial consonant clusters such as sp ). The region is denoted by
540-529: A cold desert climate ( Köppen BWk ). No geological obstacles exist within 90 kilometres (56 miles) north of the city, allowing cool winds to blow from this direction. Despite its altitude, Isfahan remains hot during the summer, with maxima typically around 35 °C (95 °F). However, with low humidity and moderate temperatures at night, the climate is quite pleasant. During the winter, days are cool while nights can be very cold. Snow falls an average of 6.7 days each winter. However, generally Isfahan's climate
720-547: A tram network in the city. The Isfahan Metro was opened on 15 October 2015. It currently consists of one north–south line with a length of 20.2 kilometres (12.6 mi), and two more lines are currently under construction, alongside three suburban rail lines. The city is served by a railway station , with the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways running trains to Bandarabbas and Mashhad . The first high-speed railway in Iran,
900-452: A Circle Khayyam applied algebra to geometry. In this work, he devoted himself mainly to investigating whether it is possible to divide a circular quadrant into two parts such that the line segments projected from the dividing point to the perpendicular diameters of the circle form a specific ratio. His solution, in turn, employed several curve constructions that led to equations containing cubic and quadratic terms. Khayyam seems to have been
1080-638: A Dari dialect. In the 19th century, under the Qajar dynasty , the dialect that is spoken in Tehran rose to prominence. There was still substantial Arabic vocabulary, but many of these words have been integrated into Persian phonology and grammar. In addition, under the Qajar rule, numerous Russian , French , and English terms entered the Persian language, especially vocabulary related to technology. The first official attentions to
1260-577: A belief in astrology and divination: "I did not observe that he ( scil. Omar Khayyam) had any great belief in astrological predictions, nor have I seen or heard of any of the great [scientists] who had such belief." While working for Sultan Sanjar as an astrologer he was asked to predict the weather – a job that he apparently did not do well. George Saliba explains that the term ‘ilm al-nujūm , used in various sources in which references to Khayyam's life and work could be found, has sometimes been incorrectly translated to mean astrology. He adds: "from at least
1440-418: A dictionary called Words of Scientific Association ( لغت انجمن علمی ), which was completed in the future and renamed Katouzian Dictionary ( فرهنگ کاتوزیان ). The first academy for the Persian language was founded on 20 May 1935, under the name Academy of Iran . It was established by the initiative of Reza Shah Pahlavi , and mainly by Hekmat e Shirazi and Mohammad Ali Foroughi , all prominent names in
1620-527: A fellow-mystic but a free-thinking scientist who awaited punishments hereafter. Seyyed Hossein Nasr argues that it is "reductive" to use a literal interpretation of his verses (many of which are of uncertain authenticity to begin with) to establish Omar Khayyam's philosophy. Instead, he adduces Khayyam's interpretive translation of Avicenna 's treatise Discourse on Unity ( al-Khutbat al-Tawhīd ), where he expresses orthodox views on Divine Unity in agreement with
1800-500: A language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Farsi , which is the Persian word for the Persian language, has also been used widely in English in recent decades, more often to refer to Iran's standard Persian. However, the name Persian is still more widely used. The Academy of Persian Language and Literature has maintained that the endonym Farsi is to be avoided in foreign languages, and that Persian
1980-485: A law he had discovered which did not depend on geometric figures. This book was most likely titled the Difficulties of Arithmetic ( Mushkilāt al-Ḥisāb ), and is not extant. Based on the context, some historians of mathematics such as D. J. Struik, believe that Omar must have known the formula for the expansion of the binomial ( a + b ) n {\displaystyle (a+b)^{n}} , where n
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#17328586903842160-410: A lesser degree. For these he could not accomplish the construction of his unknown segment with compass and straight edge. He proceeded to present geometric solutions to all types of cubic equations using the properties of conic sections. The prerequisite lemmas for Khayyam's geometrical proof include Euclid VI , Prop 13, and Apollonius II , Prop 12. The positive root of a cubic equation was determined as
2340-417: A literary language considerably different from the spoken Persian of the time. This became the basis of what is now known as "Contemporary Standard Persian". There are three standard varieties of modern Persian: All these three varieties are based on the classic Persian literature and its literary tradition. There are also several local dialects from Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan which slightly differ from
2520-813: A materialist, pessimist, agnostic. Khayyam looked at all religions questions with a skeptical eye", continues Hedayat, "and hated the fanaticism, narrow-mindedness, and the spirit of vengeance of the mullas, the so-called religious scholars." In the context of a piece entitled On the Knowledge of the Principles of Existence , Khayyam endorses the Sufi path. Csillik suggests the possibility that Omar Khayyam could see in Sufism an ally against orthodox religiosity. Other commentators do not accept that Khayyam's poetry has an anti-religious agenda and interpret his references to wine and drunkenness in
2700-492: A number of other Persian scholars who occasionally wrote quatrains, including Avicenna , Ghazali , and Tusi . They conclude that it is also possible that for Khayyam poetry was an amusement of his leisure hours: "these brief poems seem often to have been the work of scholars and scientists who composed them, perhaps, in moments of relaxation to edify or amuse the inner circle of their disciples". The poetry attributed to Omar Khayyam has contributed greatly to his popular fame in
2880-529: A period of several centuries, Ottoman Turkish (which was highly Persianised itself) had developed toward a fully accepted language of literature, and which was even able to lexically satisfy the demands of a scientific presentation. However, the number of Persian and Arabic loanwords contained in those works increased at times up to 88%. In the Ottoman Empire, Persian was used at the royal court, for diplomacy, poetry, historiographical works, literary works, and
3060-562: A pessimistic viewpoint which is entirely consonant with the outlook of the deeply thoughtful rationalist philosopher that Khayyam is known historically to have been." Edward FitzGerald emphasized the religious skepticism he found in Khayyam. In his preface to the Rubáiyát he claimed that he "was hated and dreaded by the Sufis", and denied any pretense at divine allegory: "his Wine is the veritable Juice of
3240-454: A poet by a number of biographers, according to John Andrew Boyle "it is still possible to argue that Khayyam's status as a poet of the first rank is a comparatively late development." Thomas Hyde was the first European to call attention to Khayyam and to translate one of his quatrains into Latin ( Historia religionis veterum Persarum eorumque magorum , 1700). Western interest in Persia grew with
3420-568: A recluse. Omar Khayyam died at the age of 83 in his hometown of Nishapur on 4 December 1131, and he is buried in what is now the Mausoleum of Omar Khayyam . One of his disciples Nizami Aruzi relates the story that sometime during 1112–3 Khayyam was in Balkh in the company of Isfizari (one of the scientists who had collaborated with him on the Jalali calendar) when he made a prophecy that "my tomb shall be in
3600-483: A separate soul; if we are lucky, our bodily particles would be used in the making of a jug of wine." Omar Khayyam's poetry has been cited in the context of New Atheism , such as in The Portable Atheist by Christopher Hitchens . Al-Qifti ( c. 1172–1248 ) appears to confirm this view of Khayyam's philosophy. In his work The History of Learned Men he reports that Khayyam's poems were only outwardly in
3780-580: A speaker of Persian. Persian is a member of the Western Iranian group of the Iranian languages , which make up a branch of the Indo-European languages in their Indo-Iranian subdivision . The Western Iranian languages themselves are divided into two subgroups: Southwestern Iranian languages, of which Persian is the most widely spoken, and Northwestern Iranian languages, of which Kurdish and Balochi are
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#17328586903843960-431: A spot where the north wind may scatter roses over it". Four years after his death, Aruzi located his tomb in a cemetery in a then large and well-known quarter of Nishapur on the road to Marv. As it had been foreseen by Khayyam, Aruzi found the tomb situated at the foot of a garden-wall over which pear trees and peach trees had thrust their heads and dropped their flowers so that his tombstone was hidden beneath them. Khayyam
4140-523: A student of Avicenna . According to Al-Bayhaqi, he was reading the metaphysics in Avicenna's the Book of Healing before he died. There are six philosophical papers believed to have been written by Khayyam. One of them, On existence ( Fi’l-wujūd ), was written originally in Persian and deals with the subject of existence and its relationship to universals. Another paper, titled The necessity of contradiction in
4320-573: A treatise on the binomial theorem and extracting the n root of natural numbers, which has been lost. Part of Khayyam's Commentary on the Difficulties Concerning the Postulates of Euclid's Elements deals with the parallel axiom . The treatise of Khayyam can be considered the first treatment of the axiom not based on petitio principii , but on a more intuitive postulate. Khayyam refutes the previous attempts by other mathematicians to prove
4500-426: A very pious man who professed orthodox views down to his last hour. On the basis of all the existing textual and biographical evidence, the question remains somewhat open, and as a result Khayyam has received sharply conflicting appreciations and criticisms. The various biographical extracts referring to Omar Khayyam describe him as unequalled in scientific knowledge and achievement during his time. Many called him by
4680-410: A view to allaying suspicions of skepticism and confuting the allegations of unorthodoxy (including possible sympathy or adherence to Zoroastrianism) levelled at him by a hostile clergy. He was then invited by the new Sultan Sanjar to Marv, possibly to work as a court astrologer . He was later allowed to return to Nishapur owing to his declining health. Upon his return, he seems to have lived the life of
4860-644: Is a continuation of Middle Persian , an official language of the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE), itself a continuation of Old Persian , which was used in the Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE). It originated in the region of Fars ( Persia ) in southwestern Iran. Its grammar is similar to that of many European languages. Throughout history, Persian was considered prestigious by various empires centered in West Asia , Central Asia , and South Asia . Old Persian
5040-610: Is a direct descendant of Middle and Old Persian. Gernot Windfuhr considers new Persian as an evolution of the Old Persian language and the Middle Persian language but also states that none of the known Middle Persian dialects is the direct predecessor of Modern Persian. Ludwig Paul states: "The language of the Shahnameh should be seen as one instance of continuous historical development from Middle to New Persian." The known history of
5220-489: Is a positive integer. The case of power 2 is explicitly stated in Euclid's elements and the case of at most power 3 had been established by Indian mathematicians. Khayyam was the mathematician who noticed the importance of a general binomial theorem. The argument supporting the claim that Khayyam had a general binomial theorem is based on his ability to extract roots. One of Khayyam's predecessors, al-Karaji , had already discovered
5400-765: Is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan , as well as within other regions with a Persianate history in the cultural sphere of Greater Iran . It is written officially within Iran and Afghanistan in the Persian alphabet , a derivative of the Arabic script , and within Tajikistan in the Tajik alphabet , a derivative of the Cyrillic script . Modern Persian
5580-633: Is an effort to unify algebra and geometry. This particular geometric solution of cubic equations was further investigated by M. Hachtroudi and extended to solving fourth-degree equations. Although similar methods had appeared sporadically since Menaechmus , and further developed by the 10th-century mathematician Abu al-Jud , Khayyam's work can be considered the first systematic study and the first exact method of solving cubic equations. The mathematician Woepcke (1851) who offered translations of Khayyam's algebra into French praised him for his "power of generalization and his rigorously systematic procedure." From
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5760-601: Is attested in Old Persian cuneiform on inscriptions from between the 6th and 4th century BC. Middle Persian is attested in Aramaic -derived scripts ( Pahlavi and Manichaean ) on inscriptions and in Zoroastrian and Manichaean scriptures from between the third to the tenth centuries (see Middle Persian literature ). New Persian literature was first recorded in the ninth century, after the Muslim conquest of Persia , since then adopting
5940-425: Is conventionally divided into three stages: Early New Persian remains largely intelligible to speakers of Contemporary Persian, as the morphology and, to a lesser extent, the lexicon of the language have remained relatively stable. New Persian texts written in the Arabic script first appear in the 9th-century. The language is a direct descendant of Middle Persian, the official, religious, and literary language of
6120-404: Is due to Omar Khayyam, and from the text, it seems clear that the latter was his inspirer." This treatise on Euclid contains another contribution dealing with the theory of proportions and with the compounding of ratios. Khayyam discusses the relationship between the concept of ratio and the concept of number and explicitly raises various theoretical difficulties. In particular, he contributes to
6300-583: Is extremely dry. Its annual precipitation of 125 millimetres (4.9 in) is only about half that of Tehran or Mashhad and only a quarter that of more exposed Kermanshah . The Zayande River starts in the Zagros Mountains, flowing from the west through the heart of the city, then dissipates in the Gavkhouni wetland . Planting olive trees in the city is economically viable because such trees can survive water shortages. The highest recorded temperature
6480-454: Is famous for its Persian – Muslim architecture , grand boulevards, covered bridges, palaces, tiled mosques, and minarets. Isfahan also has many historical buildings, monuments, paintings, and artifacts. The fame of Isfahan led to the Persian proverb Esfahān nesf-e-jahān ast (Isfahan is half (of) the world). Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan is one of the largest city squares in the world, and
6660-404: Is generally considered the first step in the eventual development of non-Euclidean geometry , was familiar with the work of Wallis. The American historian of mathematics David Eugene Smith mentions that Saccheri "used the same lemma as the one of Tusi, even lettering the figure in precisely the same way and using the lemma for the same purpose". He further says that "Tusi distinctly states that it
6840-571: Is just the same deceit as There. Men talk of heaven,—there is no heaven but here; Men talk of hell,—there is no hell but here; Men of hereafters talk, and future lives, O love, there is no other life—but here. An account of him, written in the thirteenth century, shows him as "versed in all the wisdom of the Greeks," and as wont to insist on the necessity of studying science on Greek lines. Of his prose works, two, which were stand authority, dealt respectively with precious stones and climatology. Beyond question
7020-557: Is located just outside the city. Isfahan is also attracting international investment. Isfahan hosted the International Physics Olympiad in 2007. In 2020, the Iran-Qatar Joint Economic Commission met in the city. In 2023 two hundred Azan playing loudspeakers were installed in the city by the government. The Municipality has created a tourism app Isfahanema. The city is located on the plain of
7200-401: Is more often the mismanagement of water. The subsidence rate is dire, and the aquifer level decreases by one meter annually. As of 2020, the city had the worst air quality among major Iranian cities. The Damask rose cultivar Rosa 'Ispahan' is named after the city. Cows endemic to Isfahan became extinct in 2020. Wagtails are often seen in farmlands and parks. The mole cricket
7380-612: Is no evidence that he was formally a Sufi . Aminrazavi states that "Sufi interpretation of Khayyam is possible only by reading into his Rubāʿīyyāt extensively and by stretching the content to fit the classical Sufi doctrine.". Furthermore, Boyle emphasizes that Khayyam was intensely disliked by a number of celebrated Sufi mystics who belonged to the same century. This includes Shams Tabrizi (spiritual guide of Rumi ), Najm al-Din Daya who described Omar Khayyam as "an unhappy philosopher, atheist, and materialist", and Attar who regarded him not as
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7560-455: Is not actually attested until 600 years later when it appears in the Sassanid era (224–651 AD) inscriptions, so any form of the language before this date cannot be described with any degree of certainty. Moreover, as a literary language, Middle Persian is not attested until much later, in the 6th or 7th century. From the 8th century onward, Middle Persian gradually began yielding to New Persian, with
7740-466: Is noted for its production of the Isfahan rug , a type of Persian rug typically made of merino wool and silk . There are nuclear experimental reactors as well as uranium conversion facilities (UCF) for producing nuclear fuel in the environs of the city. Isfahan has one of the largest steel-producing facilities in the region, as well as facilities for producing special alloys. The Mobarakeh Steel Company
7920-468: Is one of Afghanistan's two official languages, together with Pashto . The term Dari , meaning "of the court", originally referred to the variety of Persian used in the court of the Sasanian Empire in capital Ctesiphon , which was spread to the northeast of the empire and gradually replaced the former Iranian dialects of Parthia ( Parthian ). Tajik Persian ( форси́и тоҷикӣ́ , forsi-i tojikī ),
8100-570: Is one of the earliest attested Indo-European languages. According to certain historical assumptions about the early history and origin of ancient Persians in Southwestern Iran (where Achaemenids hailed from), Old Persian was originally spoken by a tribe called Parsuwash , who arrived in the Iranian Plateau early in the 1st millennium BCE and finally migrated down into the area of present-day Fārs province. Their language, Old Persian, became
8280-534: Is one of the largest and fairest of cities, but it is now in ruins for the greater part." In 1387, Isfahan surrendered to the warlord Timur . Initially treated with relative mercy, the city revolted against Timur's punitive taxes by killing the tax collectors and some of Timur's soldiers. In retribution, Timur ordered the massacre of the city residents, his soldiers killing a reported 70,000 citizens. An eye-witness counted more than 28 towers, each constructed of about 1,500 heads. Isfahan regained its importance during
8460-432: Is one of the major pests of plants, especially grass roots. Sheep and rams are symbols of Isfahan. By 2023, the city's Green space was dying because of water shortage; where trees need 150 liters, only 0.7 liter of gray recycled water was available. There is a program to plant Celtis australis , oak trees. Situated at 1,590 metres (5,217 ft) above sea level on the eastern side of the Zagros Mountains, Isfahan has
8640-460: Is referred to with religious honorifics such as Imām , The Patron of Faith ( Ghīyāth al-Dīn ), and The Evidence of Truth ( Hujjat al-Haqq ). He also notes that biographers who praise his religiosity generally avoid making reference to his poetry, while the ones who mention his poetry often do not praise his religious character. For instance, Al-Bayhaqi's account, which antedates by some years other biographical notices, speaks of Omar as
8820-580: Is the Bodleian MS. Ouseley 140, written in Shiraz in 1460, which contains 158 quatrains on 47 folia. The manuscript belonged to William Ouseley (1767–1842) and was purchased by the Bodleian Library in 1844. There are occasional quotes of verses attributed to Khayyam in texts attributed to authors of the 13th and 14th centuries, but these are of doubtful authenticity, so that skeptical scholars point out that
9000-747: Is the Si-o-Seh Pol or bridge of 33 arches. It was built during the reign of Shah Abbas the Great by Sheikh Baha'i and connected Isfahan with the Armenian suburb of New Julfa . It is by far the longest bridge in Isfahan at 295 m (967.85 ft). Another notable bridge is the Marnan Bridge . Snapp! and Tapsi are two of the carpooling apps in the city. The city has built 42 bicycle-sharing stations and 150 kilometres (93 mi) of paved bicycle paths. As part of Iran's religious laws, women are forbidden to use
9180-486: Is the appropriate designation of the language in English, as it has the longer tradition in western languages and better expresses the role of the language as a mark of cultural and national continuity. Iranian historian and linguist Ehsan Yarshater , founder of the Encyclopædia Iranica and Columbia University 's Center for Iranian Studies, mentions the same concern in an academic journal on Iranology , rejecting
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#17328586903849360-469: Is the biggest steel producer in the whole of the Middle East and Northern Africa, and it is the biggest DRI producer in the world. The Isfahan Steel Company was the first manufacturer of constructional steel products in Iran, and it remains the largest such company today. There is a major oil refinery and a large air-force base outside the city. HESA , Iran's most advanced aircraft manufacturing plant,
9540-401: Is the same as the one already reported by Razi. An additional quatrain is quoted by the historian Juvayni ( Tarikh-i Jahangushay , c. 1226–1283). In 1340 Jajarmi includes thirteen quatrains of Khayyam in his work containing an anthology of the works of famous Persian poets ( Mu’nis al-ahrār ), two of which have hitherto been known from the older sources. A comparatively late manuscript
9720-486: The Encyclopædia Iranica notes that the Iranian, Afghan, and Tajiki varieties comprise distinct branches of the Persian language, and within each branch a wide variety of local dialects exist. The following are some languages closely related to Persian, or in some cases are considered dialects: More distantly related branches of the Iranian language family include Kurdish and Balochi . The Glottolog database proposes
9900-502: The Kalila wa Dimna . The language spread geographically from the 11th century on and was the medium through which, among others, Central Asian Turks became familiar with Islam and urban culture. New Persian was widely used as a trans-regional lingua franca , a task aided due to its relatively simple morphology, and this situation persisted until at least the 19th century. In the late Middle Ages, new Islamic literary languages were created on
10080-565: The Zayandeh Rud (Fertile River) and the foothills of the Zagros mountain range. The nearest mountain is Mount Soffeh (Kuh-e Soffeh), just south of the city. As of 2023 several public housing projects have been undertaken. An artificial network of canals, whose components are called madi , were built during the Safavid dynasty for channeling water from Zayandeh Roud river into different parts of
10260-536: The Ark . In about 1070 he moved to Samarkand , where he started to compose his famous Treatise on Algebra under the patronage of Abu Tahir Abd al-Rahman ibn ʿAlaq, the governor and chief judge of the city. Khayyam was kindly received by the Karakhanid ruler Shams al-Mulk Nasr , who according to Bayhaqi, would "show him the greatest honour, so much so that he would seat [Khayyam] beside him on his throne ". In 1073–4 peace
10440-651: The British colonization , Persian was widely used as a second language in the Indian subcontinent . It took prominence as the language of culture and education in several Muslim courts on the subcontinent and became the sole "official language" under the Mughal emperors . The Bengal Sultanate witnessed an influx of Persian scholars, lawyers, teachers, and clerics. Thousands of Persian books and manuscripts were published in Bengal. The period of
10620-461: The First Crusade . As a mathematician, he is most notable for his work on the classification and solution of cubic equations , where he provided a geometric formulation based on the intersection of conics . He also contributed to a deeper understanding of Euclid 's parallel axiom . As an astronomer, he calculated the duration of the solar year with remarkable precision and accuracy, and designed
10800-464: The Indians one has methods for obtaining square and cube roots , methods based on knowledge of individual cases – namely the knowledge of the squares of the nine digits 1, 2, 3 (etc.) and their respective products, i.e. 2 × 3 etc. We have written a treatise on the proof of the validity of those methods and that they satisfy the conditions. In addition we have increased their types, namely in
10980-448: The Indo-European languages . Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran , Afghanistan , and Tajikistan in three mutually intelligible standard varieties , respectively Iranian Persian (officially known as Persian ), Dari Persian (officially known as Dari since 1964), and Tajiki Persian (officially known as Tajik since 1999). It
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#173285869038411160-594: The Jalali calendar , a solar calendar with a very precise 33-year intercalation cycle which provided the basis for the Persian calendar that is still in use after nearly a millennium. There is a tradition of attributing poetry to Omar Khayyam, written in the form of quatrains ( rubāʿiyāt رباعیات ). This poetry became widely known to the English-reading world in a translation by Edward FitzGerald ( Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam , 1859), which enjoyed great success in
11340-541: The Jalālī calendar , and was inaugurated on 15 March 1079. The observatory itself was disused after the death of Malik-Shah in 1092. The Jalālī calendar was a true solar calendar where the duration of each month is equal to the time of the passage of the Sun across the corresponding sign of the Zodiac . The calendar reform introduced a unique 33-year intercalation cycle. As indicated by
11520-547: The Orientalism movement in the 19th century. Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (1774–1856) translated some of Khayyam's poems into German in 1818, and Gore Ouseley (1770–1844) into English in 1846, but Khayyam remained relatively unknown in the West until after the publication of Edward FitzGerald 's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in 1859. FitzGerald's work at first was unsuccessful but was popularised by Whitley Stokes from 1861 onward, and
11700-544: The Orientalism of the fin de siècle . Omar Khayyam was born in Nishapur —a metropolis in Khorasan province, of Persian stock, in 1048. In medieval Persian texts he is usually simply called Omar Khayyam . Although open to doubt, it has often been assumed that his forebears followed the trade of tent-making, since Khayyam means 'tent-maker' in Arabic. The historian Bayhaqi , who was personally acquainted with Khayyam, provides
11880-508: The Rubaiyat as their source of inspiration. The earliest such composer was Liza Lehmann . Persian language Russia Persian ( / ˈ p ɜːr ʒ ən , - ʃ ən / PUR -zhən, -shən ), also known by its endonym Farsi ( فارسی , Fārsī [fɒːɾˈsiː] ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of
12060-460: The Safavid era (1501-1736) with the city's golden age under the rule of Abbas the Great who also moved his capital from Qazvin to Isfahan. During his reign, Turkish , Armenian , and Persian craftsmen were forcefully resettled in the city to ensure its prosperity. Later, the city also had enclaves for people of Georgian , Circassian , and Daghistani descent. The city once again declined after
12240-524: The Safavid period (1501–1736). The city's golden age began in 1598 when the Safavid ruler Abbas the Great (reigned 1588–1629) made it his capital and rebuilt it into one of the largest and most beautiful cities in the 17th-century world. In 1598, he moved his capital from Qazvin to the more central Isfahan. He introduced policies increasing Iranian involvement in the Silk Road trade. Turkish , Armenian , and Persian craftsmen were forcefully resettled in
12420-576: The Sasanian Empire (3rd–7th century Sassanid era); it was repaired during the Seljuk period. Further upstream is the Khaju Bridge , which Shah Abbas II built in 1650. It is 123 metres (404 feet) long, with 24 arches; and it also serves as a sluice gate. Another bridge is the Choobi (Joui) Bridge , which was originally an aqueduct to supply the palace gardens on the north bank of the river. Further upstream again
12600-431: The Seljuq dynasty , Toghril Beg , made Isfahan the capital of his domains in the mid-11th century; but it was under his grandson Malik-Shah I (r. 1073–92) that the city grew in size and splendour. After the fall of the Seljuqs ( c. 1200 ), Isfahan temporarily declined and was eclipsed by other Iranian cities, such as Tabriz and Qazvin . During his visit in 1327, Ibn Battuta noted that "The city of Isfahan
12780-417: The Siege of Isfahan by Afghan invaders in 1722. In the 20th century, Isfahan was resettled by many people from southern Iran: especially during the population migrations at the start of the century, and in the 1980s, following the Iran–Iraq War . Under Median rule, a commercial entrepôt began to show signs of more sedentary urbanism, steadily growing into a noteworthy regional centre that benefited from
12960-655: The Sultanate of Rum , Turkmen beyliks of Anatolia , Delhi Sultanate , the Shirvanshahs , Safavids , Afsharids , Zands , Qajars , Khanate of Bukhara , Khanate of Kokand , Emirate of Bukhara , Khanate of Khiva , Ottomans , and also many Mughal successors such as the Nizam of Hyderabad . Persian was the only non-European language known and used by Marco Polo at the Court of Kublai Khan and in his journeys through China. A branch of
13140-556: The Tehran-Qom-Isfahan line is currently being constructed and will connect Isfahan to Tehran and Qom. Isfahan is served by Isfahan International Airport , which in 2019 was the 7th busiest airport in Iran. In 2014, industry, mines, and commerce in Isfahan province accounted for 35% to 50% (almost $ 229 billion) of the Iranian Gross Domestic Product . In 2019, Isfahan province's governorate said that tourism
13320-688: The Turkic , Armenian , Georgian , & Indo-Aryan languages . It also exerted some influence on Arabic, while borrowing a lot of vocabulary from it in the Middle Ages. Some of the world's most famous pieces of literature from the Middle Ages, such as the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi , the works of Rumi , the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám , the Panj Ganj of Nizami Ganjavi , The Divān of Hafez , The Conference of
13500-402: The abscissa of a point of intersection of two conics, for instance, the intersection of two parabolas , or the intersection of a parabola and a circle, etc. However, he acknowledged that the arithmetic problem of these cubics was still unsolved, adding that "possibly someone else will come to know it after us". This task remained open until the sixteenth century, where an algebraic solution of
13680-483: The ezāfe construction, expressed through ī (modern e/ye ), to indicate some of the relations between words that have been lost with the simplification of the earlier grammatical system. Although the "middle period" of the Iranian languages formally begins with the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the transition from Old to Middle Persian had probably already begun before the 4th century BC. However, Middle Persian
13860-437: The inverse of the unknown. Khayyam produced an exhaustive list of all possible equations involving lines, squares, and cubes. He considered three binomial equations, nine trinomial equations, and seven tetranomial equations. For the first and second degree polynomials, he provided numerical solutions by geometric construction. He concluded that there are fourteen different types of cubics that cannot be reduced to an equation of
14040-585: The " Persianized " Turko-Mongol dynasties during the 12th to 15th centuries, and under restored Persian rule during the 16th to 19th centuries. Persian during this time served as lingua franca of Greater Persia and of much of the Indian subcontinent . It was also the official and cultural language of many Islamic dynasties, including the Samanids, Buyids , Tahirids , Ziyarids , the Mughal Empire , Timurids , Ghaznavids , Karakhanids , Seljuqs , Khwarazmians ,
14220-672: The Birds by Attar of Nishapur , and the miscellanea of Gulistan and Bustan by Saadi Shirazi , are written in Persian. Some of the prominent modern Persian poets were Nima Yooshij , Ahmad Shamlou , Simin Behbahani , Sohrab Sepehri , Rahi Mo'ayyeri , Mehdi Akhavan-Sales , and Forugh Farrokhzad . There are approximately 130 million Persian speakers worldwide, including Persians , Lurs , Tajiks , Hazaras , Iranian Azeris , Iranian Kurds , Balochs , Tats , Afghan Pashtuns , and Aimaqs . The term Persophone might also be used to refer to
14400-517: The Grape: his Tavern, where it was to be had: his Saki , the Flesh and Blood that poured it out for him." Sadegh Hedayat is one of the most notable proponents of Khayyam's philosophy as agnostic skepticism, and according to Jan Rypka (1934), he even considered Khayyam an atheist . Hedayat (1923) states that "while Khayyam believes in the transmutation and transformation of the human body, he does not believe in
14580-536: The Jewish immigrants settled in Isfahan instead of returning to their homeland. The 10th-century Persian historian Ibn al-Faqih wrote: When the Jews emigrated from Jerusalem, fleeing from Nebuchadnezzar, they carried with them a sample of the water and soil of Jerusalem. They did not settle until they reached the city of Isfahan, whose soil and water was deemed to resemble that of Jerusalem. Thereupon they settled there, cultivated
14760-558: The Middle Ages, and is because of the lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The standard Persian of Iran has been called, apart from Persian and Farsi , by names such as Iranian Persian and Western Persian , exclusively. Officially, the official language of Iran is designated simply as Persian ( فارسی , fārsi ). The standard Persian of Afghanistan has been officially named Dari ( دری , dari ) since 1958. Also referred to as Afghan Persian in English, it
14940-532: The Ottoman Empire all spoke Persian, such as Sultan Selim I , despite being Safavid Iran's archrival and a staunch opposer of Shia Islam . It was a major literary language in the empire. Some of the noted earlier Persian works during the Ottoman rule are Idris Bidlisi 's Hasht Bihisht , which began in 1502 and covered the reign of the first eight Ottoman rulers, and the Salim-Namah , a glorification of Selim I. After
15120-521: The Persian language can be divided into the following three distinct periods: As a written language , Old Persian is attested in royal Achaemenid inscriptions. The oldest known text written in Old Persian is from the Behistun Inscription , dating to the time of King Darius I (reigned 522–486 BC). Examples of Old Persian have been found in what is now Iran , Romania ( Gherla ), Armenia , Bahrain , Iraq , Turkey, and Egypt . Old Persian
15300-425: The Persian language, a language historically called Dari, emerged in present-day Afghanistan. The first significant Persian poet was Rudaki . He flourished in the 10th century, when the Samanids were at the height of their power. His reputation as a court poet and as an accomplished musician and singer has survived, although little of his poetry has been preserved. Among his lost works are versified fables collected in
15480-401: The Persian model: Ottoman Turkish , Chagatai Turkic , Dobhashi Bengali , and Urdu, which are regarded as "structural daughter languages" of Persian. "Classical Persian" loosely refers to the standardized language of medieval Persia used in literature and poetry . This is the language of the 10th to 12th centuries, which continued to be used as literary language and lingua franca under
15660-848: The Perso-Arabic script. Persian was the first language to break through the monopoly of Arabic on writing in the Muslim world , with Persian poetry becoming a tradition in many eastern courts. It was used officially as a language of bureaucracy even by non-native speakers, such as the Ottomans in Anatolia , the Mughals in South Asia, and the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. It influenced languages spoken in neighboring regions and beyond, including other Iranian languages,
15840-479: The Sasanian Empire (224–651). However, it is not descended from the literary form of Middle Persian (known as pārsīk , commonly called Pahlavi), which was spoken by the people of Fars and used in Zoroastrian religious writings. Instead, it is descended from the dialect spoken by the court of the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon and the northeastern Iranian region of Khorasan , known as Dari. The region, which comprised
16020-508: The Sasanian dynasty. The historical facts suggest that, in the late 4th and early 5th centuries, Queen Shushandukht , the Jewish consort of Yazdegerd I (reigned 399–420), settled a colony of Jewish immigrants in Yahudiyyeh (also spelled Yahudiya), a settlement 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) northwest of the Zoroastrian city of Gabae (its Achaemid and Parthian name; Gabai was its Sasanic name, which
16200-526: The Sassanids (who were Persians, i.e. from the southwest) from the preceding Arsacids (who were Parthians, i.e. from the northeast). While Ibn al-Muqaffa' (eighth century) still distinguished between Pahlavi (i.e. Parthian) and Persian (in Arabic text: al-Farisiyah) (i.e. Middle Persian), this distinction is not evident in Arab commentaries written after that date. "New Persian" (also referred to as Modern Persian)
16380-457: The Seljuks, the Sultanate of Rum , took Persian language, art, and letters to Anatolia. They adopted the Persian language as the official language of the empire. The Ottomans , who can roughly be seen as their eventual successors, inherited this tradition. Persian was the official court language of the empire, and for some time, the official language of the empire. The educated and noble class of
16560-476: The Sufi style, but were written with an anti-religious agenda. He also mentions that he was at one point indicted for impiety, but went on a pilgrimage to prove he was pious. The report has it that upon returning to his native city he concealed his deepest convictions and practised a strictly religious life, going morning and evening to the place of worship. Khayyam on the Koran (quote 84): The Koran! well, come put me to
16740-453: The Two ). For a compound of gold adulterated with silver, he describes a method to measure more exactly the weight per capacity of each element. It involves weighing the compound both in air and in water, since weights are easier to measure exactly than volumes. By repeating the same with both gold and silver one finds exactly how much heavier than water gold, silver and the compound were. This treatise
16920-408: The abbreviation GD (Southern Media ) on Sasanian coins. In Ptolemy's Geographia , it appears as Aspadana ( Ἀσπαδανα ), which translates to "place of gathering for the army". It is believed that Spahān is derived from spādānām "the armies", the Old Persian plural of spāda , from which is derived spāh ( 𐭮𐭯𐭠𐭧 ) 'army' and spahi ( سپاهی , 'soldier', literally 'of
17100-493: The area of Lake Urmia in the records of Shalmaneser III . The exact identity of the Parsuwash is not known for certain, but from a linguistic viewpoint the word matches Old Persian pārsa itself coming directly from the older word * pārćwa . Also, as Old Persian contains many words from another extinct Iranian language, Median , according to P. O. Skjærvø it is probable that Old Persian had already been spoken before
17280-632: The army') in Central Persian. Some of the other ancient names include Gey , Jey (old form Zi), Park, and Judea. Human habitation in the Isfahan region can be traced back to the Palaeolithic period. Archaeologists have recently found artifacts dating back to the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic , Neolithic , Bronze , and Iron ages. During the Median rule, Isfahan became a regional centre especially from
17460-579: The author. The prose works believed to be Khayyam's are written in the Peripatetic style and are explicitly theistic, dealing with subjects such as the existence of God and theodicy . As noted by Bowen these works indicate his involvement in the problems of metaphysics rather than in the subtleties of Sufism. As evidence of Khayyam's faith and/or conformity to Islamic customs, Aminrazavi mentions that in his treatises he offers salutations and prayers, praising God and Muhammad . In most biographical extracts, he
17640-520: The axiom with the Fourth Postulate, which states that all right angles are equal to one another. Khayyam was the first to consider the three distinct cases of acute, obtuse, and right angle for the summit angles of a Khayyam-Saccheri quadrilateral . After proving a number of theorems about them, he showed that Postulate V follows from the right angle hypothesis, and refuted the obtuse and acute cases as self-contradictory. His elaborate attempt to prove
17820-563: The benefits from the Zayandehrud River. It was a religiously and ethnically diverse city during the reign of Cyrus the Great and exhibited religious tolerance. The Arabs captured Isfahan in 642 CE and made it the capital of al-Jibal province. The city further grew prosperous under the Buyid dynasty , and further under the Seljuk dynasty . With the fall of the Seljuks in 1200 CE, the city temporarily declined but regained its importance during
18000-575: The capital of al-Jibal ("the Mountains") province, an area that covered much of ancient Media. Isfahan grew prosperous under the Persian Buyid (Buwayhid) dynasty, which rose to power and ruled much of Iran when the temporal authority of the Abbasid leaders waned in the 10th century. The city walls of Isfahan are thought to have been constructed during the tenth century. The Turkish conqueror and founder of
18180-487: The city of Isfahan. The words "Aspadana", "Ispadana", "Spahan", and "Sepahan", all from which the word Isfahan is derived, referred to the region in which the city was located. Isfahan and Gay were supposedly both circular in design, which was characteristic of Parthian and Sasanian cities. However, this reported Sasanian circular city of Isfahan has not yet been uncovered. When the Arabs captured Isfahan in 642 CE, they made it
18360-567: The city to ensure its prosperity. Their contributions to the economic vitality of the revitalized city supported the recovery of Safavid glory and prestige, after earlier losses to the Ottomans and Qizilbash tribes, ushering in a golden age for the city, when architecture and Persian culture flourished. As part of Abbas's forced resettlement of peoples from within his empire, as many as 300,000 Armenians (primarily from Jugha ) were resettled in Isfahan during Abbas' reign. ) In Isfahan, he ordered
18540-615: The city. Designed by Sheikh Bahaï, an engineer of Shah Abbas, this network has 77 madis in the northern course, and 71 in the southern course of the Zayandeh Rud. In 1993, this centuries-old network provided 91% of agricultural water, 4% of industrial needs, and 5% of city needs. 70 emergency wells were dug in 2018 to avoid water shortages. Towns and villages around Isfahan have been hit so hard by drought and water diversion that they have emptied out and people who lived there have moved. An anonymous journalist said that what's called drought
18720-472: The city. The city's prosperity lasted until it was sacked by Afghan invaders in 1722, during a marked decline in Safavid influence. Thereafter, Isfahan experienced a decline in importance, culminating in moving the capital to Mashhad and Shiraz during the Afsharid and Zand periods, respectively, until it was finally moved to Tehran , in 1775, by Agha Mohammad Khan , the founder of the Qajar dynasty. In
18900-457: The code fas for the dialects spoken across Iran and Afghanistan. This consists of the individual languages Dari ( prs ) and Iranian Persian ( pes ). It uses tgk for Tajik, separately. In general, the Iranian languages are known from three periods: namely Old, Middle, and New (Modern). These correspond to three historical eras of Iranian history ; Old era being sometime around the Achaemenid Empire (i.e., 400–300 BC), Middle era being
19080-512: The collapse of the Sassanid state, Parsik came to be applied exclusively to (either Middle or New) Persian that was written in the Arabic script . From about the 9th century onward, as Middle Persian was on the threshold of becoming New Persian, the older form of the language came to be erroneously called Pahlavi , which was actually but one of the writing systems used to render both Middle Persian as well as various other Middle Iranian languages. That writing system had previously been adopted by
19260-401: The conventional metaphorical sense common in Sufism. The French translator J. B. Nicolas held that Khayyam's constant exhortations to drink wine should not be taken literally, but should be regarded rather in the light of Sufi thought where rapturous intoxication by "wine" is to be understood as a metaphor for the enlightened state or divine rapture of baqaa . The view of Omar Khayyam as a Sufi
19440-503: The cubic equation was found in its generality by Cardano , Del Ferro , and Tartaglia in Renaissance Italy . Whoever thinks algebra is a trick in obtaining unknowns has thought it in vain. No attention should be paid to the fact that algebra and geometry are different in appearance. Algebras are geometric facts which are proved by propositions five and six of Book two of Elements . —Omar Khayyam In effect, Khayyam's work
19620-576: The difficulty of disentangling authentic from spurious quatrains: "while it is certain that Khayyam wrote many quatrains, it is hardly possible, save in a few exceptional cases, to assert positively that he wrote any of those ascribed to him". In addition to the Persian quatrains, there are twenty-five Arabic poems attributed to Khayyam which are attested by historians such as al-Isfahani, Shahrazuri ( Nuzhat al-Arwah , c. 1201–1211), Qifti ( Tārikh al-hukamā , 1255), and Hamdallah Mustawfi ( Tarikh-i guzida , 1339). Boyle emphasized that there are
19800-475: The direction of Khayyam to make large-scale astronomical observations and revise the astronomical tables. Recalibrating the calendar fixed the first day of the year at the exact moment of the passing of the Sun's center across vernal equinox . This marks the beginning of spring or Nowrūz , a day in which the Sun enters the first degree of Aries before noon. The resultant calendar was named in Malik-Shah's honor as
19980-470: The early years of the 19th century, efforts were made to preserve some of Isfahan's archeologically important buildings. The work was started by Mohammad Hossein Khan , during the reign of Fath Ali Shah . Download coordinates as: The city has had four master development programs. The first one was created in 1971 by German engineering firm that included checkered streets' design. In the 20th century, Isfahan
20160-428: The entire tradition may be pseudepigraphic . Hans Heinrich Schaeder in 1934 commented that the name of Omar Khayyam "is to be struck out from the history of Persian literature" due to the lack of any material that could confidently be attributed to him. De Blois presents a bibliography of the manuscript tradition, concluding pessimistically that the situation has not changed significantly since Schaeder's time. Five of
20340-496: The epithet King of the Wise ( Arabic : ملك الحکماء , romanized : Malik al-Ḥukamā ). Shahrazuri (d. 1300) esteems him highly as a mathematician, and claims that he may be regarded as "the successor of Avicenna in the various branches of philosophic learning". Al-Qifti (d. 1248), even though disagreeing with his views, concedes he was "unrivalled in his knowledge of natural philosophy and astronomy". Despite being hailed as
20520-506: The establishment of a new quarter for these resettled Armenians from Old Julfa, and thus the Armenian Quarter of Isfahan was named New Julfa (today one of the largest Armenian quarters in the world). Shah Abbas would also oversee a transformation of the urban pattern of Isfahan. The plans included the new, rectangular Shah Square and the linear Chahar Bagh Boulevard . Between these two focal points of Isfahan’s urban revitalization
20700-521: The exceptionally fertile soil on the banks of the Zayandehrud River, in a region called Aspandana or Ispandana. When Cyrus the Great unified Persian and Median lands into the Achaemenid Empire , the religiously and ethnically diverse city of Isfahan became an early example of the king's fabled religious tolerance. It was Cyrus who, having just taken Babylon , made an edict in 538 BCE declaring that Jews in Babylon could return to Jerusalem. Later, some of
20880-632: The extent of its influence on certain languages of the Indian subcontinent. Words borrowed from Persian are still quite commonly used in certain Indo-Aryan languages, especially Hindi - Urdu (also historically known as Hindustani ), Punjabi , Kashmiri , and Sindhi . There is also a small population of Zoroastrian Iranis in India, who migrated in the 19th century to escape religious execution in Qajar Iran and speak
21060-430: The first to conceive a general theory of cubic equations, and the first to geometrically solve every type of cubic equation, so far as positive roots are concerned. The Treatise on Algebra contains his work on cubic equations . It is divided into three parts: (i) equations which can be solved with compass and straight edge , (ii) equations which can be solved by means of conic sections , and (iii) equations which involve
21240-493: The following phylogenetic classification: Isfahan Isfahan or Esfahan / Espahan ( Persian : اصفهان ; [esfæˈhɒːn] ) is a major city in the Central District of Isfahan County , Isfahan province, Iran . It is the capital of the province, the county, and the district. It is located 440 kilometres (270 miles) south of Tehran . The city has a population of approximately 2,220,000, making it
21420-419: The form of the determination of the fourth, fifth, sixth roots up to any desired degree. No one preceded us in this and those proofs are purely arithmetic, founded on the arithmetic of The Elements . —Omar Khayyam, Treatise on Algebra In his algebraic treatise, Khayyam alludes to a book he had written on the extraction of the n {\displaystyle n} th root of natural numbers using
21600-562: The formation of many modern languages in West Asia, Europe, Central Asia , and South Asia . Following the Turko-Persian Ghaznavid conquest of South Asia , Persian was firstly introduced in the region by Turkic Central Asians. The basis in general for the introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties. For five centuries prior to
21780-421: The formation of the Achaemenid Empire and was spoken during most of the first half of the first millennium BCE. Xenophon , a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BCE, which is when Old Persian was still spoken and extensively used. He relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like
21960-651: The full details of his horoscope: "he was Gemini, the sun and Mercury being in the ascendant[...]". This was used by modern scholars to establish his date of birth as 18 May 1048. Khayyam's boyhood was spent in Nishapur, a leading metropolis under the Great Seljuq Empire , which had earlier been a major center of the Zoroastrian religion . His full name, as it appears in Arabic sources, was Abu’l Fath Omar ibn Ibrahim al-Khayyam . His gifts were recognized by his early tutors who sent him to study under Imam Muwaffaq Nishaburi,
22140-472: The greatest teacher of the Khorasan region who tutored the children of the highest nobility, and Khayyam developed a firm friendship with him through the years. Khayyam might have met and studied with Bahmanyar , a disciple of Avicenna . After studying science, philosophy, mathematics and astronomy at Nishapur, about the year 1068 he traveled to the province of Bukhara , where he frequented the renowned library of
22320-577: The interpretation of his philosophic attitude toward life as a combination of pessimism , nihilism , Epicureanism , fatalism , and agnosticism . This view is taken by Iranologists such as Arthur Christensen , Hans Heinrich Schaeder , John Andrew Boyle , Edward Denison Ross , Edward Henry Whinfield and George Sarton . Conversely, the Khayyamic quatrains have also been described as mystical Sufi poetry. In addition to his Persian quatrains, J. C. E. Bowen mentions that Khayyam's Arabic poems also "express
22500-456: The intersection of the ancient roads to Susa and Persepolis made it an ideal candidate to house a standing army, which would be ready to march against Constantinople at any moment. The words "Aspahan" and "Spahan" are derived from the Pahlavi or Middle Persian meaning 'the place of the army'. Although many theories have mentioned the origins of Isfahan, little is known of it before the rule of
22680-461: The language of the Persians. Related to Old Persian, but from a different branch of the Iranian language family, was Avestan , the language of the Zoroastrian liturgical texts. The complex grammatical conjugation and declension of Old Persian yielded to the structure of Middle Persian in which the dual number disappeared, leaving only singular and plural, as did gender. Middle Persian developed
22860-483: The length of the year at the end of the 19th century was 365.242196 days, while today it is 365.242190 days. After the death of Malik-Shah and his vizier (murdered, it is thought, by the Ismaili order of Assassins ), Khayyam fell from favor at court, and as a result, he soon set out on his pilgrimage to Mecca . A possible ulterior motive for his pilgrimage reported by Al-Qifti , was a public demonstration of his faith with
23040-748: The mathematical relationship among notes, minor, major and tetrachords . The earliest allusion to Omar Khayyam's poetry is from the historian Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani , a younger contemporary of Khayyam, who explicitly identifies him as both a poet and a scientist ( Kharidat al-qasr , 1174). One of the earliest specimens of Omar Khayyam's Rubiyat is from Fakhr al-Din Razi . In his work al-Tanbih ‘ala ba‘d asrar al-maw‘dat fi’l-Qur’an ( c. 1160 ), he quotes one of his poems (corresponding to quatrain LXII of FitzGerald's first edition). Daya in his writings ( Mirṣād al-‘Ibad , c. 1230) quotes two quatrains, one of which
23220-574: The middle of the tenth century, according to Farabi 's Enumeration of the Sciences , that this science, ‘ilm al-nujūm , was already split into two parts, one dealing with astrology and the other with theoretical mathematical astronomy." Khayyam has a short treatise devoted to Archimedes' principle (in full title, On the Deception of Knowing the Two Quantities of Gold and Silver in a Compound Made of
23400-432: The middle-period form only continuing in the texts of Zoroastrianism . Middle Persian is considered to be a later form of the same dialect as Old Persian. The native name of Middle Persian was Parsig or Parsik , after the name of the ethnic group of the southwest, that is, "of Pars ", Old Persian Parsa , New Persian Fars . This is the origin of the name Farsi as it is today used to signify New Persian. Following
23580-526: The modern period as a direct result of the extreme popularity of the translation of such verses into English by Edward FitzGerald (1859). FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam contains loose translations of quatrains from the Bodleian manuscript. It enjoyed such success in the fin de siècle period that a bibliography compiled in 1929 listed more than 300 separate editions, and many more have been published since. Khayyam considered himself intellectually to be
23760-456: The more recent ones are more literal than that of FitzGerald. FitzGerald's translation was a factor in rekindling interest in Khayyam as a poet even in his native Iran. Sadegh Hedayat in his Songs of Khayyam ( Taranehha-ye Khayyam , 1934) reintroduced Khayyam's poetic legacy to modern Iran. Under the Pahlavi dynasty , a new monument of white marble, designed by the architect Houshang Seyhoun ,
23940-525: The most widely spoken. The term Persian is an English derivation of Latin Persiānus , the adjectival form of Persia , itself deriving from Greek Persís ( Περσίς ), a Hellenized form of Old Persian Pārsa ( 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿 ), which means " Persia " (a region in southwestern Iran, corresponding to modern-day Fars ). According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the term Persian as
24120-411: The nationalist movement of the time. The academy was a key institution in the struggle to re-build Iran as a nation-state after the collapse of the Qajar dynasty. During the 1930s and 1940s, the academy led massive campaigns to replace the many Arabic , Russian , French , and Greek loanwords whose widespread use in Persian during the centuries preceding the foundation of the Pahlavi dynasty had created
24300-495: The necessity of protecting the Persian language against foreign words, and to the standardization of Persian orthography , were under the reign of Naser ed Din Shah of the Qajar dynasty in 1871. After Naser ed Din Shah, Mozaffar ed Din Shah ordered the establishment of the first Persian association in 1903. This association officially declared that it used Persian and Arabic as acceptable sources for coining words. The ultimate goal
24480-414: The next period most officially around the Sasanian Empire , and New era being the period afterward down to present day. According to available documents, the Persian language is "the only Iranian language" for which close philological relationships between all of its three stages are established and so that Old, Middle, and New Persian represent one and the same language of Persian; that is, New Persian
24660-535: The north, and Shiraz, 200 kilometres (120 mi) to the south. Highways also service satellite cities surrounding the metropolitan area. The Isfahan Eastern Bypass Freeway is under construction. In 2021, a new AVL system was deployed in the city. The bridges over the Zayanderud comprise some of the finest architecture in Isfahan. The oldest is the Shahrestan Bridge , whose foundations were built during
24840-662: The northern part of Greece). Vardar Yenicesi differed from other localities in the Balkans insofar as that it was a town where Persian was also widely spoken. However, the Persian of Vardar Yenicesi and throughout the rest of the Ottoman-held Balkans was different from formal Persian both in accent and vocabulary. The difference was apparent to such a degree that the Ottomans referred to it as "Rumelian Persian" ( Rumili Farsisi ). As learned people such as students, scholars and literati often frequented Vardar Yenicesi, it soon became
25020-529: The official language of the Achaemenid kings. Assyrian records, which in fact appear to provide the earliest evidence for ancient Iranian (Persian and Median) presence on the Iranian Plateau, give a good chronology but only an approximate geographical indication of what seem to be ancient Persians. In these records of the 9th century BCE, Parsuwash (along with Matai , presumably Medians) are first mentioned in
25200-633: The parallel postulate was significant for the further development of geometry, as it clearly shows the possibility of non-Euclidean geometries. The hypotheses of acute, obtuse, and right angles are now known to lead respectively to the non-Euclidean hyperbolic geometry of Gauss-Bolyai-Lobachevsky, to that of Riemannian geometry , and to Euclidean geometry . Tusi 's commentaries on Khayyam's treatment of parallels made their way to Europe. John Wallis , professor of geometry at Oxford , translated Tusi's commentary into Latin. Jesuit geometer Girolamo Saccheri , whose work ( euclides ab omni naevo vindicatus , 1733)
25380-537: The poet-astronomer was undevout; and his astronomy doubtless helped to make him so. One contemporary writes: "I did not observe that he had any great belief in astrological predictions; nor have I seen or heard of any of the great (scientists) who had such belief. He gave his adherence to no religious sect. Agnosticism, not faith, is the keynote of his works. Among the sects he saw everywhere strife and hatred in which he could have no part...." Persian novelist Sadegh Hedayat says Khayyám from "his youth to his death remained
25560-628: The present territories of northwestern Afghanistan as well as parts of Central Asia, played a leading role in the rise of New Persian. Khorasan, which was the homeland of the Parthians, was Persianized under the Sasanians. Dari Persian thus supplanted Parthian language , which by the end of the Sasanian era had fallen out of use. New Persian has incorporated many foreign words, including from eastern northern and northern Iranian languages such as Sogdian and especially Parthian. The transition to New Persian
25740-478: The proposition, mainly on grounds that each of them had postulated something that was by no means easier to admit than the Fifth Postulate itself. Drawing upon Aristotle 's views, he rejects the usage of movement in geometry and therefore dismisses the different attempt by Ibn al-Haytham . Unsatisfied with the failure of mathematicians to prove Euclid's statement from his other postulates, Khayyam tried to connect
25920-467: The provinces of the nation from Isfahan, and the city's urban development accelerated to accommodate the needs of a capital city. The next empire to rule, the Sassanids (224–651 CE), presided over massive changes in their realm, instituting sweeping agricultural reforms and reviving Iranian culture and the Zoroastrian religion. Both the city and region were then called by the name Aspahan or Spahan. The city
26100-469: The public bicycle-sharing network, as decreed by the representative of the Supreme Leader in Isfahan, Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabai Nejad , and General Attorney Ali Esfahani. The Isfahan and Suburbs Bus Company operates transit buses in the city. East-West BRT Bus Rapid Transit Line buses carry up to 120,000 passengers daily. The municipality has signed a memorandum with Khatam-al Anbiya to construct
26280-551: The quatrains later attributed to Omar Khayyam are found as early as 30 years after his death, quoted in Sindbad-Nameh . While this establishes that these specific verses were in circulation in Omar's time or shortly later, it does not imply that the verses must be his. De Blois concludes that at the least the process of attributing poetry to Omar Khayyam appears to have begun already in the 13th century. Edward Granville Browne (1906) notes
26460-578: The region during the following centuries. Persian continued to act as a courtly language for various empires in Punjab through the early 19th century serving finally as the official state language of the Sikh Empire , preceding British conquest and the decline of Persian in South Asia. Beginning in 1843, though, English and Hindustani gradually replaced Persian in importance on the subcontinent. Evidence of Persian's historical influence there can be seen in
26640-709: The region's wāli (governor), with his son serving as dāruḡa (prefect) of Isfahan. He was accompanied by a troop of soldiers, some of whom were Georgian Orthodox Christians. The royal court in Isfahan had a great number of Georgian ḡolāms (military servants), as well as Georgian women. Although they spoke both Persian and Turkic, their mother tongue was Georgian. Now the city had enclaves of those of Georgian , Circassian , and Daghistani descent. Engelbert Kaempfer, who dwelt in Safavid Iran in 1684–85, estimated their number at 20,000. During Abbas's reign, Isfahan became famous in Europe, and many European travellers, such as Jean Chardin , gave accounts of their visits to
26820-441: The reign of Sultan Ghiyathuddin Azam Shah is described as the "golden age of Persian literature in Bengal". Its stature was illustrated by the Sultan's own correspondence and collaboration with the Persian poet Hafez ; a poem which can be found in the Divan of Hafez today. A Bengali dialect emerged among the common Bengali Muslim folk, based on a Persian model and known as Dobhashi ; meaning mixed language . Dobhashi Bengali
27000-409: The revision of the Persian calendar. The undertaking probably began with the opening of the observatory in 1074 and ended in 1079, when Omar Khayyam and his colleagues concluded their measurements of the length of the year, reporting it as 365.24219858156 days. Given that the length of the year is changing in the sixth decimal place over a person's lifetime, this is outstandingly accurate. For comparison,
27180-554: The site of a flourishing Persianate linguistic and literary culture. The 16th-century Ottoman Aşık Çelebi (died 1572), who hailed from Prizren in modern-day Kosovo , was galvanized by the abundant Persian-speaking and Persian-writing communities of Vardar Yenicesi, and he referred to the city as a "hotbed of Persian". Many Ottoman Persianists who established a career in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul ) pursued early Persian training in Saraybosna, amongst them Ahmed Sudi . The Persian language influenced
27360-405: The soil, raised children and grandchildren, and today the name of this settlement is Yahudia. The Parthians (247 BCE – 224 CE), continued the tradition of tolerance after the fall of the Achaemenids , fostering a Hellenistic dimension within Iranian culture and the political organization introduced by Alexander the Great 's invading armies. Under the Parthians, Arsacid governors administered
27540-423: The south, the Shah Mosque would become the new primary place of worship for city residents. In the 16th and 17th centuries, thousands of deportees and migrants from the Caucasus settled in the city. Following an agreement between Abbas the Great and his Georgian subject Teimuraz I of Kakheti ("Tahmuras Khan"), whereby the latter became Muslim and accepted Safavid rule in exchange for being allowed to rule as
27720-452: The standard Persian of Tajikistan, has been officially designated as Tajik ( тоҷикӣ , tojikī ) since the time of the Soviet Union . It is the name given to the varieties of Persian spoken in Central Asia in general. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa for the Persian language, as its coding system is mostly based on the native-language designations. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses
27900-458: The standard Persian. The Hazaragi dialect (in Central Afghanistan and Pakistan), Herati (in Western Afghanistan), Darwazi (in Afghanistan and Tajikistan), Basseri (in Southern Iran), and the Tehrani accent (in Iran, the basis of standard Iranian Persian) are examples of these dialects. Persian-speaking peoples of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan can understand one another with a relatively high degree of mutual intelligibility . Nevertheless,
28080-423: The test, Lovely old book in hideous error drest, Believe me, I can quote the Koran too, The unbeliever knows his Koran best. And do you think that unto such as you, A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew, God gave the Secret, and denied it me? Well, well, what matters it! believe that too. Look not above, there is no answer there; Pray not, for no one listens to your prayer; Near is as near to God as any Far, And Here
28260-415: The theoretical study of the concept of irrational number . Displeased with Euclid's definition of equal ratios, he redefined the concept of a number by the use of a continued fraction as the means of expressing a ratio. Youschkevitch and Rosenfeld argue that "by placing irrational quantities and numbers on the same operational scale, [Khayyam] began a true revolution in the doctrine of number." Likewise, it
28440-447: The third-most populous city in Iran, after Tehran and Mashhad , and the second-largest metropolitan area. Isfahan is located at the intersection of the two principal routes that traverse Iran, north–south and east–west. Isfahan flourished between the 9th and 18th centuries. Under the Safavid Empire , Isfahan became the capital of Iran, for the second time in its history, under Abbas the Great . The city retains much of its history. It
28620-418: The triangular arrangement of the coefficients of binomial expansions that Europeans later came to know as Pascal's triangle ; Khayyam popularized this triangular array in Iran, so that it is now known as Omar Khayyam's triangle. In 1074–5, Omar Khayyam was commissioned by Sultan Malik-Shah to build an observatory at Isfahan and reform the Persian calendar . There was a panel of eight scholars working under
28800-422: The use of Farsi in foreign languages. Etymologically, the Persian term Farsi derives from its earlier form Pārsi ( Pārsik in Middle Persian ), which in turn comes from the same root as the English term Persian . In the same process, the Middle Persian toponym Pārs ("Persia") evolved into the modern name Fars. The phonemic shift from /p/ to /f/ is due to the influence of Arabic in
28980-520: The victims of an age when men of science are discredited, and only a few remain who are capable of engaging in scientific research. Our philosophers spend all their time in mixing true with false and are interested in nothing but outward show; such little learning as they have they extend on material ends. When they see a man sincere and unremitting in his search for the truth, one who will have nothing to do with falsehood and pretence, they mock and despise him. A literal reading of Khayyam's quatrains leads to
29160-418: The work came to be greatly admired by the Pre-Raphaelites . In 1872 FitzGerald had a third edition printed which increased interest in the work in America. By the 1880s, the book was extremely well known throughout the English-speaking world, to the extent of the formation of numerous "Omar Khayyam Clubs" and a "fin de siècle cult of the Rubaiyat". Khayyam's poems have been translated into many languages; many of
29340-440: The works of Khazini , Khayyam's group implemented an intercalation system based on quadrennial and quinquennial leap years . Therefore, the calendar consisted of 25 ordinary years that included 365 days, and 8 leap years that included 366 days. The calendar remained in use across Greater Iran from the 11th to the 20th centuries. In 1911 the Jalali calendar became the official national calendar of Qajar Iran . In 1925 this calendar
29520-564: The world, determinism and subsistence ( Darurat al-tadād fi’l-‘ālam wa’l-jabr wa’l-baqā’ ), is written in Arabic and deals with free will and determinism . The titles of his other works are On being and necessity ( Risālah fī’l-kawn wa’l-taklīf ), The Treatise on Transcendence in Existence ( al-Risālah al-ulā fi’l-wujūd ), On the knowledge of the universal principles of existence ( Risālah dar ‘ilm kulliyāt-i wujūd ), and Abridgement concerning natural phenomena ( Mukhtasar fi’l-Tabi‘iyyāt ). Khayyam himself once said: We are
29700-432: Was 43 °C (109 °F) on 11 July 2001 and the lowest recorded temperature was −19.4 °C (−3 °F) on 16 January 1996. Over the past decade, Isfahan's internal highway network has been undergoing a major expansion. Much care has been taken to prevent damage to valuable, historical buildings. Modern freeways connect the city to Iran's other major cities, including the capital Tehran, 400 kilometres (250 mi) to
29880-434: Was a large garden, what is today the Hasht Behesht Gardens. The new, geometric, planned portions of Isfahan would stand out against the old city’s complex street layouts, attracting foreign emissaries and wealthy residents along the Chahar Bagh. Shah Square would be adorned by 4 grand monuments on each side. Importantly to the north, a turquoise gate connected the new square to Isfahan’s Grand Bazaar and old square , while to
30060-416: Was already complete by the era of the three princely dynasties of Iranian origin, the Tahirid dynasty (820–872), Saffarid dynasty (860–903), and Samanid Empire (874–999). Abbas of Merv is mentioned as being the earliest minstrel to chant verse in the New Persian tongue and after him the poems of Hanzala Badghisi were among the most famous between the Persian-speakers of the time. The first poems of
30240-409: Was concluded with Sultan Malik-Shah I who had made incursions into Karakhanid dominions. Khayyam entered the service of Malik-Shah in 1074 when he was invited by the Grand Vizier Nizam al-Mulk to meet Malik-Shah in the city of Marv . Khayyam was subsequently commissioned to set up an observatory in Isfahan and lead a group of scientists in carrying out precise astronomical observations aimed at
30420-455: Was defended by Bjerregaard, Idries Shah , and Dougan who attributes the reputation of hedonism to the failings of FitzGerald's translation, arguing that Khayyam's poetry is to be understood as "deeply esoteric". On the other hand, Iranian experts such as Mohammad Ali Foroughi and Mojtaba Minovi rejected the hypothesis that Omar Khayyam was a Sufi. Foroughi stated that Khayyam's ideas may have been consistent with that of Sufis at times but there
30600-489: Was erected over his tomb. A statue by Abolhassan Sadighi was erected in Laleh Park , Tehran in the 1960s, and a bust by the same sculptor was placed near Khayyam's mausoleum in Nishapur. In 2009, the state of Iran donated a pavilion to the United Nations Office in Vienna , inaugurated at Vienna International Center . In 2016, three statues of Khayyam were unveiled: one at the University of Oklahoma , one in Nishapur and one in Florence, Italy. Over 150 composers have used
30780-430: Was extensively examined by Eilhard Wiedemann who believed that Khayyam's solution was more accurate and sophisticated than that of Khazini and Al-Nayrizi who also dealt with the subject elsewhere. Another short treatise is concerned with music theory in which he discusses the connection between music and arithmetic. Khayyam's contribution was in providing a systematic classification of musical scales, and discussing
30960-547: Was famous during his life as a mathematician . His surviving mathematical works include (i) Commentary on the Difficulties Concerning the Postulates of Euclid's Elements ( Risāla fī Sharḥ mā Ashkal min Muṣādarāt Kitāb Uqlīdis ), completed in December 1077, (ii) Treatise On the Division of a Quadrant of a Circle ( Risālah fī Qismah Rub‘ al-Dā’irah ), undated but completed prior to the Treatise on Algebra , and (iii) Treatise on Algebra ( Risālah fi al-Jabr wa'l-Muqābala ), most likely completed in 1079. He furthermore wrote
31140-417: Was governed by a group called the Espoohrans, who descended from seven noble Iranian families. Extant foundations of some Sassanid-era bridges in Isfahan suggest that the Sasanian kings were fond of ambitious urban-planning projects. While Isfahan's political importance declined during this period, many Sassanid princes would study statecraft in the city, and its military role increased. Its strategic location at
31320-411: Was noted by D. J. Struik that Omar was "on the road to that extension of the number concept which leads to the notion of the real number ." Rashed and Vahabzadeh (2000) have argued that because of his thoroughgoing geometrical approach to algebraic equations, Khayyam can be considered the precursor of Descartes in the invention of analytic geometry . In the Treatise on the Division of a Quadrant of
31500-484: Was patronised and given official status under the Sultans of Bengal , and was a popular literary form used by Bengalis during the pre-colonial period, irrespective of their religion. Following the defeat of the Hindu Shahi dynasty, classical Persian was established as a courtly language in the region during the late 10th century under Ghaznavid rule over the northwestern frontier of the subcontinent . Employed by Punjabis in literature, Persian achieved prominence in
31680-454: Was resettled by many people from southern Iran. Many of these migrants came during the population migrations at the start of the century and in the 1980s following the Iran–Iraq War . During the war, 23,000 from Isfahan were killed; and there were 43,000 veterans. In 1921 Telephone office were first created in Shams Abadi street. Today, Isfahan produces fine carpets, textiles, steel, handicrafts, and traditional foods, including sweets. Isfahan
31860-410: Was shortened to Gay (Arabic 'Jay') that was located on the northern bank of the Zayanderud River (the colony's establishment was also attributed to Nebuchadrezzar , though that's less likely). The gradual population decrease of Gay (Jay) and the simultaneous population increase of Yahudiyyeh and its suburbs, after the Arab conquest of Iran, resulted in the formation of the nucleus of what was to become
32040-463: Was simplified and the names of the months were modernized, resulting in the modern Iranian calendar . The Jalali calendar is more accurate than the Gregorian calendar of 1582, with an error of one day accumulating over 5,000 years, compared to one day every 3,330 years in the Gregorian calendar. Moritz Cantor considered it the most perfect calendar ever devised. One of his pupils Nizami Aruzi of Samarcand relates that Khayyam apparently did not have
32220-488: Was taught in state schools, and was also offered as an elective course or recommended for study in some madrasas . Persian learning was also widespread in the Ottoman-held Balkans ( Rumelia ), with a range of cities being famed for their long-standing traditions in the study of Persian and its classics, amongst them Saraybosna (modern Sarajevo , Bosnia and Herzegovina), Mostar (also in Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Vardar Yenicesi (or Yenice-i Vardar, now Giannitsa , in
32400-425: Was to prevent books from being printed with wrong use of words. According to the executive guarantee of this association, the government was responsible for wrongfully printed books. Words coined by this association, such as rāh-āhan ( راهآهن ) for "railway", were printed in Soltani Newspaper ; but the association was eventually closed due to inattention. A scientific association was founded in 1911, resulting in
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