Hundred Great Muslims

Hundred Great Muslims
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Alongside the ecstatic spiritualism of the Sufis lies the colder pessimistic
scepticism of Umar Khayyam, who, to a great extent, followed the line toed by
Avicenna. He has impressively portrayed the transient character of human life.
Think, in this battered carvan-sarai
Whose portals are alternate night and day
How Sultan after Sultan with his pomp
Abode his destined hour, and went his way.
The wise man is he who passes the few moments of his uncertain transitory life
in pursuit of pleasure, free from all worldly cares and anxieties. Here his ideas
follow the lines of Epicurian philosophy, namely: "Eat, drink and be merry"
and come very close to the Hedonistic theory of "Pleasure as the End of Life".
Ah, my beloved, fill the cup that clears
Today of past regret and future fears
Tomorrow! why, tomorrow I may be
Myself with yesterday's seven thousand years.
In his poetry he is typically Persian. In it he shows himself as the chief and the
foremost of that group of free thinkers, who ridiculed the limitations of the
dogma and taught the futility or piety and orthodoxy. He would prefer to enjoy
the pleasures of this world than to aspire for the enjoyment of the next.
Some for the glories of this world, and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come,
Ah, take the cash and let the credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant drum!
It is not to be wondered that the philosophy of Umar was very much repugnant
to the conservative class of people. The question of "Jaza" and "Saza'' has been
agitating the minds of our thinkers who could hardly procure a satisfactory
solution of this controversial issue. Umar has taken advantage of this point of
Muslim .eligious philosophy.
Oh, thou who didst with pitfalls and with gin
Beset the route I was to wander in
Thou wilt not with predestined evil round
Enmesh, and thou impute my fall to sin.
It is needless to search for a carefully reasoned system of philosophy in
the works of a poet-so was the case with Umar, whose verses record certain
moods. The dominant note of his verses is to cast off the cares and anxieties of
the worldly life by sipping a cup of wine. A few drops of liquor would free one
from all sorts of miseries and would transport him to the realm of ecstasy and
bliss.