10 h 2 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 10 h 2 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the wine cup holds a question about eternity?
The Sufistic Quatrains of Omar Khayyam gathers four-line poems attributed to the Persian mathematician, astronomer and poet. Each holds a single thought, inviting you to pause rather than hurry onward. Across poems on wine, passing time and doubt, the speaker asks what life offers when pleasure fades and death remains.
This collection reads the quatrains through the Sufi tradition, the mystical current of Islam that seeks union with the divine. In that reading, the cup, the cupbearer and the tavern become signs of spiritual longing. Roses fade, kings leave dust behind, and caravans move on: concrete images open questions about mortality, faith and the hope of something beyond.
What you’ll discover
- Four lines, one thought Discover short poems that give a single thought room to linger.
- Wine and spiritual longing Explore how a Sufi reading finds longing for the divine in the cup and tavern.
- Time you can see Meet fading roses and passing caravans that bring life's brevity close.
- Questions without easy comfort Follow a speaker who asks about our origins, our destination and the pain of living.
- Pleasure beside eternity Sit with poems that place earthly pleasure beside the hope of something beyond.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy brief poems for reading aloud, with gardens, wine, roses and ruined palaces, will love this collection. It also suits those drawn to Sufi imagery and to contrasting renderings of the same Persian quatrains.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Omar's four lines pack a whole mood
- Dawn calls you to the tavern door
- Great kings end as dust and grass
- Take the cash and enjoy the wilderness
- Study brings no answer, only a closed door
- Wine answers what reason cannot settle
- Fate moves you like a chess piece
- Question the Maker and listen to pots
- Spring returns, but you must say farewell
- Read it as mystic or as pleasure seeker
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The Sufistic Quatrains of Omar Khayyam
by Omar Khayyam
A voice in a tavern at dawn tells you to fill the cup before life's wine runs dry, and the roses agree.
Medium level10–20 hours to readEnglish
Excellent
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In short
Wake! A stone flies into the bowl of night, the stars run, and a voice from a tavern calls out that life's wine is running low.
The Sufistic Quatrains of Omar Khayyam at a glance
- Reading time
- About 5 h 50 min4 h 40 min fast, 7 h slow
- Length
- 83,500 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Omar's four lines pack a whole mood
The ruba'i is a quatrain, a poem of four lines in which the first, second and fourth lines rhyme. Omar Khayyam left hundreds of these little poems, and each one is complete in itself. That makes the collection easy to enter at any page.
Nicolas tells a story handed down by Persian historians. Three students at Nishapur clasp hands and promise that whoever rises highest will help the other two. Khayyam asks only for the income of his native village, so that he can write poetry and contemplate the Creator's works. Hassan-Sebbah asks for a court post, then schemes to push his benefactor out.
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- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 6 h 30 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Omar Khayyam. The Sufistic Quatrains of Omar Khayyam. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-sufistic-quatrains-of-omar-khayyam.
Omar Khayyam. (2026). The Sufistic quatrains of Omar Khayyam. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-sufistic-quatrains-of-omar-khayyam
Omar Khayyam. The Sufistic Quatrains of Omar Khayyam. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-sufistic-quatrains-of-omar-khayyam.
@book{omarkhayyam2026sufistic,
author = {Omar Khayyam},
title = {The Sufistic Quatrains of Omar Khayyam},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-sufistic-quatrains-of-omar-khayyam}
}
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What is The Sufistic Quatrains of Omar Khayyam about?
It gathers Omar Khayyam's four-line poems on wine, roses, fleeting time and fate, in FitzGerald's verse, Whinfield's rhymed version and Nicolas's prose, with Heron-Allen's notes examining FitzGerald's Persian sources and other inspirations.
What is a ruba'i or quatrain?
A ruba'i is a Persian poem of four lines, complete in itself. The first, second and fourth lines rhyme, which gives each poem a closing click. Ruba'iyat is the plural, and Omar's collection is made of them.
What does the Kuza-Nama section mean?
Kuza-Nama means the Book of Pots. In FitzGerald's poem, clay vessels in a potter's shop talk about their Maker, asking who is Potter and who is Pot, and why a maker would break what he has shaped.
The author
Omar Khayyam
1048–1131 · Persian mathematician and poet
Omar Khayyam (1048–1131) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet. He was born and died in Nishapur, in present-day Iran, and also worked in Samarkand and Isfahan. He wrote about algebra in the eleventh century and helped reform the Persian calendar. Quatrains attributed to him were later collected as the Rubaiyat.
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