The statue of Khayyam by the renowned Iranian sculptor Hossein Fakhimi will be installed in the United States.
The idea of the sculpture and its unveiling in the US was approved by officials. Accordingly, Fakhimi signed a contract on the project, ISNA reported.
“I spent several months studying Khayyam and consulted several scholars. I knew he was a known poet, a great astronomer, philosopher and mathematician who contributed to many fields of science and I tried to portray all these characteristics in his statue,” Fakhimi said.
In 2002, five primary models were built on a small scale. After selecting the main model, the sculpture work began and took 2 months to complete. The whole process, from the beginning of the studies to the completion of the statue lasted 3 years.
The ‘Zij’ (generic name applied to Islamic astronomical books and tabulate parameters for astronomical calculations of the positions of the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets), as the symbol for astronomy, has been placed under the statue’s right hand. Khayyam’s mathematical equations and premises, mistakenly attributed to Blaise Pascal (French mathematician), are written on a tablet besides the statue. Also an astrolabe, or a very ancient astronomical computer for solving problems relating to time and the position of the Sun and stars, is placed nearby to show his deep knowledge of math. On the pedestal, his poems are written in Persian, English and Italian to illustrate his wisdom.
The two-meter tall statue (340cm including the height of the pedestal), made from an 18-ton monolith, was sent from Tehran to New York in September 2014 to be installed in Manhattan. “Several American states have asked for the statue; however the final decision has not been made, and officials are still working on the agreement,” Fakhimi said.
Two Copies
Fakhimi said he has made two other copies of the statue, one of which has been installed in Khayyam’s hometown in Nishabur, and the other will be sent to Florence, Italy. “Other countries like Russia, Romania, and Armenia have also asked for Khayyam statue to be set up in their cities,” Fakhimi said, noting that the issue is being negotiated at the moment.
Omar Khayyam (1048–1131), was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet. He wrote treatises on mechanics, geography, mineralogy, music, and Islamic theology. He also is the author of one of the most important treatises on algebra written before modern times, the ‘Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra’ (1070), which includes a geometric method for solving cubic equations by intersecting a hyperbola with a circle. His significance as a philosopher and teacher, and his few remaining philosophical works, have not received the same attention as his scientific and poetic writings.
Outside Iran and other Persian-speaking countries, Khayyam had a profound impact on literature through the translation of his works and popularization by other scholars. The greatest such impact was in English-speaking countries; the English scholar Thomas Hyde (1636–1703) was the first non-Persian to study him. Omar Khayyam died in 1131 and is buried in the Khayyam Garden in Nishabur, Khorasan Razavi Province, in Iran.
