ʿUmar al-Khayyām (Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū’1-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Khayyām (al-Khayyāmmī) al-Naysābūrī (Nīshāpurī), 1048–1131) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet. His scientific treatises were written primarily in Arabic; his poems were mostly written in Persian. The name Khayyām means “the tentmaker” – probably it was the profession of his father or grandfather. He was born and died in Nīshāpūr. Khayyām was a student in Balkh (now in Afghanistan) and worked at first in Bukhārā and Samarqand (now in Uzbekistan). In 1074 he was invited by Saljūq Sultan Mālikshāh Jalāl al-Dīn to the capital Iṣfahān to participate in the reform of the solar Persian calendar and to organize an astronomical observatory. The calendar reform was completed in 1079; the new calendar era was named according to the names of the sultan Māliki or Jalālī. In 1092, after Mālikshāh’s death, Khayyām fell into disgrace, and his observatory was closed. This was because of suspicions that some of...
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Rosenfeld, B.A. (2016). Umar al-Khayyām. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7747-7_9775
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