How a 1,000-Year-Old Poem Undermines the Iranian Regime
Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat celebrates earthly pleasures that, like the author, remain banned under Iran's revolutionary government.
The Iranian revolutionary regime may claim the exclusive right to rule Iran and interpret Islam. However, Islam in the Persian Empire deviates even from the fundamentalist interpretation of Islam that remains the law of the land in modern-day Iran.
Non-Iranians probably don’t know that even ancient Islamic poets wouldn’t recognize the Islam enforced in Iran today. Persian poet Omar Khayyam was a prolific poet whose poem, the Rubaiyat, remains illegal to recite in Iran under the regime.
Even if he were alive today instead of the 1100s, Khayyam would be hung for blasphemy under Iran’s regime. He, like other Islamic poets in Persia, wrote about the fleeting nature of life and praised wine in verse. He prioritized earthly pleasures at the expense of the ideological purity demanded of modern theocrats.
Amid the protests against Iran’s repressive regime, it’s worth remembering what early Islamic rulers were willing to allow and even celebrate.
Life’s Impermanence in Verse
Khayyam’s poetry celebrates life on earth and is equally eloquent about how temporary its pleasures are. He wrote:
"The Worldly Hope men set their
Hearts upon
Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon,
Like snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face
Lighting a little Hour or two—is gone.”
Khayyam understood how fleeting human life was. We last no longer than snow on the desert, no matter how grand or humble our earthly ambitions.
Modern theocrats argue that this world is a temporary holding pen used to prepare for the next life. Khayyam had a different view. This world’s earthly joys should be appreciated while we’re here, even if holy men disapprove.
Enjoy Life, Even if the Clerics Disagree
Khayyam writes of the indulgence of wine and song, two earthly pleasures that are banned in modern Iran. Khayyam refers to these two things as “Idols” that have cost him his reputation among certain “Men”:
“Indeed the Idols I have loved so long
Have done my Credit in Men’s Eye much
wrong!
Have drown’d my Honour in a shallow
Cup,
And sold my Reputation for a Song.”
He is happy to admit that he has indulged in drink and song at the expense of his reputation. In the 1100s, in the wake of Nizam al-Mulk’s efforts to institutionalize the most conservative Islamic judicial schools, Khayyam would have been scrutinized by his society’s clerical class for his earthly revelries.
Khayyam is an inconvenient voice for modern Islamic theocrats. His defense of earthly pleasures is a direct challenge to the morality imposed by authoritarians today. It’s why Khayyam is one of many classic Persian literary figures who are forbidden by law to be read or celebrated publicly. It’s the equivalent of Shakespeare being outlawed in England or the United States.
Khayyam typifies one genre of Islamic poetry that irks the Iranian regime: wine poetry.
The Joys of Wine in Islamic Persia
Ancient Persia has a long history of enjoying wine. Wine poetry is its own genre that celebrates the taste and social effects of great wine. Even after the Islamic armies conquered Persia, the region’s long-standing appreciation of wine in both practice and verse remained. Khayyam dedicated several passages to wine, including this one:
“The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects
confute:
The subtle Alchemist that in a Trice
Life’s leaden Metal into Gold transmute.”
Poking fun at the 72 “jarring Sects” would be particularly inflammatory today. According to the Hadith, Islam will split into 73 sects. Seventy-two will be hellbound, while one will ascend to Heaven.
“The Grape’s” logic could indeed leave these warring sects of Islam unable to argue the fine points of theology. The image of drunk theologians bound for Hell would be unwelcome by Iran’s current leaders—although it could inspire a fantastic protest sign.
In Khayyam’s telling, wine is also an “Alchemist” that transmutes “Life’s leaden Metal into Gold.” Wine turns everything heavy and dull into a valuable substance sought by people from all walks of life. It’s not characterized as the sinful poison that conservative clerics believe it is.
Khayyam’s writing may be 1,000 years old, but he remains proof that clerics in power do not have a monopoly on how their religion is practiced. There are alternatives to the vision of Islam that Iran’s rulers impose on the country’s people. Anyone articulate enough to describe an alternative vision of Islam to that of Iran’s Supreme Leader is a threat, regardless of how much time has passed.
That threat makes Khayyam a read almost as enjoyable as an exquisite bottle of wine.