Authorship of the Ruba`iyat (commonly spelled Rubaiyat) is attributed to the Persian scientist and poet Omar Khayyam. Khayyam (c. 1048-1122) was born Ghiyas al- Din Abulfath Omar bin Ibrahim Khayyam in Nishapur (also spelled Naishapur, Naishabur, or Nayshabur), a city located in Khurasan, the northeastern province of Persia. His family had lived there for several generations, engaged perhaps in the trade of “tent-making,” as the surname Khayyam suggests. Khayyam attained his early education in Nishapur and Balkh, another Khurasan city, studying mathematics, geometry, and astronomy, subjects that would preoccupy him throughout life. Legend tells of a pact of lifelong friendship he formed in childhood with two renowned personages: Nizam al-Mulk, who later became a powerful vizier, and Hasan Sabbah, the leader of the Isma`ili Muslims, a variant of the Shi`ite branch of Islam and later of the...