Rubaiyat

What are the world-famous rubai—quatrains by the great Persian-Tajik poet and scholar of the 11th–12th centuries Omar Khayyam? Exquisite, extremely concise and expressive lyrical poems praising the beauty of the real world—nightingales and roses, wine and beautiful women? That’s what Europeans usually think. However, in the East, without denying this opinion, for a long time people have seen in Khayyam’s masterpieces elevated, serious spiritual revelations: after all, all these images hide profound Sufi symbols of selfless intoxication with heavenly love on the paths of mystical ascent. Touch their wondrous secret…