Theology of Play in Omar Khayyam: Unacknowledged Parallels Between Hinduism, Persian Sufism, and Khayyam’s Quatrains

Abstract

This paper examines the motif of divine play in Omar Khayyam’s quatrains within the broader context of Persian Sufi poetry. Given the strong association of “divine play” with Hinduism, a comparative approach is employed; to keep the focus on the main subject, this comparison is kept minimal. The comparison reveals three major themes common to both Sufism and Hinduism: God as the Player, God as the Playful Designer, and God as the Playful Dancer. To illustrate these themes, previously untranslated verses have been translated into English for the first time in this paper, highlighting a neglected aspect of Persian mysticism that scholars have often overlooked.

1. Introduction

The notion of creation as divine play (lila) is primarily associated with Hinduism. A god like Vishnu or Shiva

desires nothing and needs nothing. Yet he continues to act. Because this is so his actions are not to be understood as instrumental; they are not the result of cause and effect. There is nothing desired nor anything to be achieved. Divine actions as such proceed from a fullness, an overflowing abundance. And so they are properly called play.1

The word “lila”, in the theological sense associated with Hinduism, started being used around the third or fourth century C.E., though descriptions of the “frolicsome nature of the gods and the ease and freedom of their acts” can be traced back to the Vedic age.2 A clear definition of the term can be given as follows:

Līlā is a Sanskrit noun meaning ‘‘sport’’ or ‘‘play.’’ It has been the central term in the Hindu elaboration of the idea that God in his creating and governing of the world is moved not by need or necessity but by a free and joyous creativity that is integral to his own nature. He acts in a state of rapt absorption comparable to that of an artist possessed by his creative vision or to that of a child caught up in the delight of a game played for its own sake. […] In the Hindu thought-world in which this term arose, the description of God’s acts as sport was intended to negate any notion that they are motivated, like the acts of human beings, by acquisitive desire (kāma) or are necessitated by the retributive impetus of the actor’s previous deeds (karman) or by the requirements of duty. Since God forever possesses all, he has no wants and no desires. His ever-desireless acts entail no retribution. He is not the instrument of duty but duty’s creator. The spontaneity and autonomy of his actions are absolute.3

This paper argues that a similar idea is prevalent in Persian Sufi literature. While the paper explores the notion of “divine play” in Persian mystical poetry generally, its primary focus is on the poetry of Omar Khayyam, who is more closely associated with the idea of “divine play” than any other poet.

Scholars typically contrast Khayyam with other Persian poets. While Khayyam is often portrayed as an Epicurean, other giants of Persian poetry, such as Attár, Rumi, Šabestari, and Háfez, are regarded as mystical poets par excellence.4 However, through its discussion of “divine play”, this paper demonstrates that there are misconceptions regarding both Khayyam’s poetry and Sufism. As the paper will show, Khayyam does not stand apart from the spiritual tradition of Persian mystical poetry but is a representative of it. Furthermore, contrary to popular belief, Sufi poetry often incorporates many ideas and themes thought to be unique to Khayyam.

No other Persian poet has arguably been subjected to as much interpretive reductionism as Khayyam. He has been assigned a wide range of often conflicting labels, including mystic, naturalist, agnostic, pessimist, materialist, Epicurean, rational scientist, and nihilist. This paper aims to challenge scholars by highlighting the often-overlooked parallels between Khayyam’s robá’iyát and Persian Sufi poetry. Scholars have frequently ignored these parallels in their efforts to fit Khayyam and his work into a specific interpretive framework. This has led to a dual oversight: (a) Sufi themes in Khayyam’s poetry remain unacknowledged, and (b) although themes thought to be unique to Khayyam often appear in the works of Sufi poets, scholars rarely discuss these “Khayyamian” themes. Given the undeniable parallels between Khayyam and other Persian poets, this paper asserts that Khayyam’s poetry rightly belongs within the spiritual and mystical tradition of Persian literature. Moreover, by drawing parallels between Sufism and Hinduism, this paper highlights the shared themes in Khayyam’s robá’iyát, other Persian (Sufi) poetry, and Hinduism, further underscoring the spiritual nature of Khayyam’s work.

The motif of the “Creator as Player” is evident in Khayyam’s robá’iyát. As one commentator on Khayyam writes,

For a moment the earnest seeker may cast off the veil of delusion and obtain a glimpse of Him, and discover that He is both spectacle and spectator—both creator and the thing created, the Undifferenced Self. He is in fact the Player and the Looker-on, and for his own pastime He contrives the game of Eternity, Himself rehearses it, and Himself beholds the sport.5

From this observation, many parallels can be drawn between Khayyam and non-dualist traditions such as Advaita Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism. The analogy of God as a player is a crucial parallel between Khayyam’s poetry and Indian spirituality. In a rare observation of its kind, the affinity between Khayyam’s philosophy and the Vedantas was noted by Robert Arnot:

Khayyam’s philosophical and religious opinions were in certain essential points based upon the teaching of the Vedantas. He must have been familiar with the general scope of their philosophy, although attaching himself, as we have seen, to the ranks of the Sufi Mystic.6

It is highly improbable that Khayyam knew any translations of Vedantic texts, and there is no evidence that he knew Sanskrit. It was not until the seventeenth century that Dara Shikoh made the first translation of the Upanishads from Sanskrit into Persian under the title The Great Mystery (Serre Akbar). Nevertheless, it is not improbable at all that Khayyam was familiar with Indian philosophy: “Books on Hinduism and Buddhism were available in Arabic and Persian before and during Khayyam’s generation, such as al-Biruni’s unique and comprehensive eleventh treatise on Indian religions.”7 In fact, as a scientist, Khayyam was well acquainted with Biruni’s scientific works. Given Khayyam’s philosophical nature, it is reasonable to assume he would have explored Biruni’s religious works as well. Whether or not there is direct borrowing from Indian spirituality8 in Khayyam’s poetry, this paper aims to highlight certain parallels between the two.9

2. The Divine Player

Khayyam’s vision of God, if read superficially, depicts an unstable figure who whimsically destroys like a drunkard.10 A superficial reader of Khayyam might assume that, in his frustration, Khayyam is questioning the existence of the Creator by portraying Him as a drunk. Even if God’s existence is not denied, a superficial reading reveals nothing more than a frustrated Khayyam raging against the Creator in an act of metaphysical rebellion. Indeed, according to one prominent scholar, “frustration” is the best word to describe the poet.11 To understand why, consider the following quatrains:

Although I have fine hair, a handsome face,

Cheeks fresh as a tulip, and the stature of a cypress,

No one knows why, on this earth as in a pleasure house,

The eternal Painter has drawn me so well!12

Here is a cup! Reason admires it,

And tenderly poses a hundred kissed on its brow.

The eternal Potter makes such a fine cup,

Then throws it to the ground and shatters it.13

Juxtaposing these two poems reveals the existential depth of Khayyam’s inquiry. The poet, though writing in general terms, is grappling with very concrete, individual questions and concerns. Khayyam’s voice in his poetry represents the human predicament, and his poems are not merely fanciful metaphorical musings detached from reality; he is the cup that gets shattered despite being praised—just like everyone else. We are wondrous creations brought into existence only to be destroyed—for no apparent reason. As I will suggest, the act of creation is nothing but a play, and it is precisely because we are created in the context of the Divine Play that Khayyam’s descriptions hold true.

Khayyam’s philosophical quatrains are existential investigations, and, for the orthodoxy of mainstream religion, what they reveal comes dangerously close to Indian philosophy. To illustrate this, the following is a description of divine action as play, taken from Śaṅkarâkârya’s commentary on verse 2.1.33 of the Vedânta-sûtras. The verse itself reads, “But (Brahman’s creative activity) is mere sport, such as we see in ordinary life.” Śaṅkarâkârya elaborates:

We see in every-day life that certain doings of princes or other men of high position who have no unfulfilled desires left have no reference to any extraneous purpose, but proceed from mere sportfulness, as, for instance, their recreations in places of amusement. We further see that the process of inhalation and exhalation is going on without reference to any extraneous purpose, merely following the law of its own nature. Analogously, the activity of the Lord also may be supposed to be mere sport, proceeding from his own nature, without reference to any purpose. For on the ground neither of reason nor of Scripture can we construe any other purpose of the Lord. Nor can his nature be questioned.—Although the creation of this world appears to us a weighty and difficult undertaking, it is mere play to the Lord, whose power is unlimited. And if in ordinary life we might possibly, by close scrutiny, detect some subtle motive, even for sportful action, we cannot do so with regard to the actions of the Lord, all whose wishes are fulfilled, as Scripture says.14

As can be seen from the text, the word “sport” is an accepted translation for “lila”. Another accepted translation is “game”.15 This depiction of the Creator as a sportsman or game-player is also evident in Khayyam’s robá’iyát:

We are puppets and Heaven, the puppeteer,

This is a reality and not just an image.

While we play on the stage of life,

We fall, one by one, into the coffer of nothingness.16

Despite the commotion surrounding Khayyam for being supposedly daring like no other poet, there is nothing unusual or heretical about presenting God as a player or sportsman in Persian poetry. One of the most frequently recurring motifs in Sufi literature is, indeed, God as a polo player:

You are the river that turns the Green Wheel;

You are the [beautiful] face that astonishes the moon and Venus;

You are that kingly polo-stick that, in the field of the spirit,

Sets all the balls rolling in harmony.17

I thought I would ask the firmament’s ball about the state of things.

It said, “I endure so much from His polo-mallet that you wouldn’t want to know!”18

Despite the prevalent Sufi notion of life as a play and the Cosmos as God’s playground, Khayyam’s works are often singled out as representing a rare voice that likens life to a play, interpreted as a protest against God. One of the most famous proponents of this view, Sádeq Hedáyat, suggests that, unlike other Persian poets, Khayyam presents the world as a “strange, alienating theatre” where a “stupid child is having fun with us”.19 However, a closer examination reveals that: Firstly, the motif of God as a player is prevalent throughout Sufi literature, not just in Khayyam’s poetry. For instance, the following verse clearly places Rumi in the same league as Khayyam:

Every day brings me madness with another game,

For I am His plaything, bewildered by His games.20

Secondly, Persian poets who use the simile of play or game are drawing inspiration from the Quran itself. The Quran refers to life as a game and amusement.21 In Persian, this has become a commonly used phrase directly borrowed from Quranic passages: lahv va la’b (literally: amusement and game). Sufi poetry unsurprisingly employs this phrase, sometimes directly referencing the Quran:

What is this highly regarded old Wheel but?

Time and space, without beginning or end!

[…]

He who is not bound by this time and space,22

Becomes courageously liberated.

Since the Deity Itself calls the world “game and amusement”,

No sane person seeks a station there!23

Khayyam’s poems indeed depict a “strange, alienating theatre.” However, it would be incorrect to assume that this alienation is experienced universally. Rather, the “theatre” only alienates those who, in the words of Šabestari, are foolish enough to seek a “[permanent] station” on its stage. This explains Khayyam’s relentless emphasis on the transitory nature of things and the importance of taking delight in the hic et nunc (here and now). Salvation, according to Khayyam, cannot be achieved through the futile effort of finding permanence in the transient. Instead, it comes from accepting and embracing the here and now as it is.

3. The Playful Designer

The theology of play is deeply intertwined with the theology of creation as an artistic act. Among God’s names in Islam, one is particularly relevant to our discussion: “al-Mosavver”, which can be translated as “The Designer”, “The Fashioner”, or simply, “The Artist”. References to God as an artist or craftsman are ubiquitous in Sufi literature. When God’s artistry is mentioned, the emphasis is typically on seeing beyond mere shapes and designs. The Sufi uses the simile of the artist with care, not pejoratively. God is seen as an artist who creates shapes and designs; while these creations are praised for their beauty, it should always be remembered that these can become snares if their illusory nature is forgotten. The very beauty for which God’s artistic activity is praised can seduce a person away from God. Despite the positive connotations of “al-Mosavver”, it is crucial to remember that, just like in a dream, the shapes and designs created by the Artist are ultimately empty; they are mere appearances and representations. Thus, the same shapes and designs that can lead a person astray can also bring about spiritual enlightenment if their empty nature is recognised.

For the Sufi, the painting, the painter, the paint, and the observer of the painting are all One:

Regard everything as one and be one—

When you become one, you will see the Painter.24

In other words, there is a Reality behind the painting that is not recognised as such by the average person. Common sense tells us that a painting is representational; in its concrete reality (as opposed to its representational reality), a painting is nothing more than paint on a surface. The Sufi takes this a step further by stating that even the paint itself is a representation. As concrete as the paint on the canvas may seem, there is something beyond the material paint—something that material things (such as paint in this example) represent. This is one reason why worshipping images or sculptures in Islam is considered idolatry: the worshipper might fail to understand that everything we observe, no matter how concrete it may seem, is nothing more than an appearance. Indeed, the concreteness of things is itself an appearance, as things appear to us as “concrete”.

The analogy of the painting aims to highlight that there is something beyond the painting, compared to which the painting is a mere semblance. This idea evokes Platonic philosophy. In the Republic, Socrates uses the analogy of a mirror to discuss painting. He states that if someone holds a mirror, they can reproduce the world in the mirror, but they cannot reproduce things as they truly are: “I could make them appear, but I couldn’t make the things themselves as they truly are.”25 This means the semblance should not be equated with the object it represents. Furthermore, Socrates concludes that what we see in paintings are only appearances (representations), not the Truth. He rhetorically asks, “What does painting do in each case? Does it imitate that which is as it is, or does it imitate that which appears as it appears? Is it an imitation of appearances or of truth?” The answer he arrives at, not surprisingly, is: “Of appearances”.26 This analogy can be used to argue that the world we perceive around us is just a semblance of a higher Reality.

Plato’s assertation that “imitation is far removed from the truth”27 is certainly relevant to our discussion, as “Truth” happens to be one of God’s names—in fact, apart from “Allah”, “Truth” (al-Haq) is, in Sufism, God’s most frequently used name. This Platonic analogy, however, is only one perspective that can help us understand the Sufi conception of design, and it is limited to the notion of “mimesis” (imitation or representation).

Beyond this Platonic analogy, there is something much more relevant to our discussion: the analogy of the rope and snake, which is commonly associated with Advaita Vedanta. Most famously, Adi Shankara discusses a person who is afraid of what he thinks is a snake, but upon closer examination, realises that the cause of his fear was a non-threatening rope that appeared to him as a snake.28 In this analogy, the appearance of the snake is illusory and vanishes into the reality of the rope. Like the Sufi, Adi Shankara often refers to the ultimate Reality as “the One” and “the Truth” in arguing that the “universe of appearance is indeed unreal”.29 Similarly, for the Sufi, what seems to be real is nothing but simulated fabrication:

Everything in both worlds plays out as game and fantasy on the Veil of Imagination.30

What is the world? A veil of shapes and phantasms—

Remove the veil and see It exposed!31

This Vedantic parallel aims to highlight that we are like a person who takes a fabricated universe seriously—a universe that, upon closer inspection, vanishes into Brahman. Similarly, for the Sufi, everything we see in everyday reality is a “design” that we fail to recognise as such. To be more precise, the world is a perceived design.

What is being discussed here differs from theological arguments that liken God to a designer who created the world like a watch. The most famous analogy of this sort comes from William Paley. He imagines that, while crossing a heath, he would not wonder where a stone on his path came from; however, things are different when he encounters a watch:

But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that, for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there.32

Paley writes that once the mechanism of the watch is observed, “the inference, we think, is inevitable; that the watch must have had a maker.”33 Unlike this analogy, the design Sufis speak of is, firstly, artistic in nature (not mechanical) and, secondly, is a perceived design. To illustrate the point, it can even be thought of as a hallucinated design, as the word “xiyál” (“dream”, “phantasm”, “imagination”, or “fantasy”) is often used to describe it. God’s grand painting (that is, the created world) can be thought of as an impressionistic painting: When you get close enough, you see that all the patterns and shapes, which were clearly recognisable as people and objects, vanish into points or brush strokes. From a Sufi perspective, these points and strokes are themselves perceived realities that, upon closer examination, vanish into the Real, or Truth, or One—whichever term you prefer.

All this would be of little interest to our discussion if God as al-Mosavvar (the Artist) were different from God the Player. For the Sufi, both artistry and playfulness are two aspects of the same Reality. The artistry that the Sufi discusses necessarily involves play. The Artist creates and destroys simply for the sake of creating and destroying. It is important to bear in mind the naturalness of this: creation comes to the Artist as naturally as breathing comes to people. There is no “rational reason” behind breathing—it just happens. It is in this light that Khayyam’s description of the Potter shattering its pots should be understood. This is yet another parallel between Hinduism and Sufism, for in Hinduism, Vishnu also acts without reason: “In all the three worlds, Arjuna, there is nothing I need to do, nothing I must attain; and yet I engage in action.”34 Similarly, Shiva creates the world for no reason whatsoever. Shiva’s actions come from overabundance: “He is complete. Therefore, he has no need for creation himself.”35

As observed by Ananda Coomaraswamy, the “reason of His (Shiva’s) dance lies in His own nature, all his gestures are own-nature-born (svabhava-jah), spontaneous, and purposeless—for His being is beyond the realm of purposes.”36 This purposelessness is highly associated with Khayyam and is one of the things wrongly assumed to be unique about his poetry. For instance, Mehdi Aminrazavi contrasts Khayyam with “traditional Sufi masters like Hallaj, Bayazid, or Rumi”, claiming that Khayyam’s approach is that of an “honest, responsible thinker” in the face of the “apparent purposelessness of life”.37 Firstly, it is important to point out that the word “purposeless” does not appear anywhere in Khayyam’s work in a strictly nihilistic sense—that is, in the way “nihilism” is typically understood in contemporary philosophy. Nor does it appear in an explicitly atheistic sense as espoused by reductionist materialists. Thus, those who use terms like “purposeless” in these senses to describe Khayyam’s worldview are merely offering their own interpretation. Secondly, despite this caveat, Khayyam’s quatrains do contain descriptions and sentiments that could be viewed as pejorative descriptions of purposelessness if understood literally (or exoterically); but, even in these cases, there is no explicit endorsement of nihilism, denial of God, or anything of the sort. Note that the emphasis is on the word “could”—meaning, it is a matter of interpretation. Whether to read his poems esoterically or exoterically is a choice. In my view, Khayyam’s poetry is not so shallow as to have only a superficial, exoteric layer. Moreover, such sentiments are abundant elsewhere in Sufi literature, not just in Khayyam’s work. Yet, no one assumes that these occurrences are descriptions of purposelessness in a pejorative sense when they appear in other authors. Least of all are such instances taken to be challenging God or His existence. This reveals a double standard in scholarship, where the same themes are interpreted one way in Khayyam and another in other poets.38

To illustrate my point, here is Attár, a traditional Sufi master par excellence, expressing the exact same sentiment as Khayyam:

So that you may know, this is a Kingdom39 in which

Whatever happens is gratuitous.40

It is important to understand that “gratuitous” is meant to describe what, from the human perspective, is taken to be both positive and negative. From the non-dual perspective, there is no good or bad; accordingly, gratuitousness is to be understood as something utterly neutral. Arguably, the most revealing similarity between Khayyam’s and Attár’s vision of “purposelessness” can be found in the parable of the sage who traces planetary orbits in sand: A learned astrologer sage traces the orbits of the stars and planets on a sand tray, creating the Earth and the skies in pictorial form, sometimes ruling one thing and sometimes another. Through this artistic and playful activity, he creates an entire cosmos. When his astrological calculations are over, he takes one corner of the tray and shakes it, leaving the tray as if nothing was ever drawn in it. After telling this parable, Attár reveals its moral: “This world, with all its complexities and intricacies, is like the surface of that sand tray: nothing!”41 That is, al-Mosavver artistically creates this world and then wipes out His own creation—all for nothing. This parable is recounted in the larger context of Attár’s description of the “Valley of Detachment,” where the apparent absurdities discovered through mystical illumination are discussed. One can hardly find a more Khayyamian worldview.

To consider another great Sufi master, here is Rumi clearly talking about life as a “purposeless game”:

I said, “give us a purpose in this game [of life].”

He said, “I play this game beyond purpose.”42

Elsewhere, after contrasting the profit-seeking nature of Reason with the nonchalance of Love, Rumi describes “gratuitousness” as a quality of both the lover and the Beloved (God). Just as God gives existence without any reason whatsoever, the lover of God is expected to gamble away everything recklessly for the Beloved (i.e., God).

God gives existence without reason,

And the chivalrous one gives up that existence without reason.43

Thus, for Rumi, gambling serves as a metaphorical game in which all of God’s creation is entangled. It is worth noting that Rumi is not alone in using this metaphor; the same imagery appears in the writings of many other Sufis. But to interpret words such as “game”, “gambling”, “gratuitousness”, or “play” as “purposelessness” in a pejorative sense would be a misunderstanding, because neither Rumi nor any other major Persian poet, including Khayyam, uses these terms in a pejorative way.

In Khayyam’s poetry, the Creator’s artistic activity of choice is pottery. In many of his poems, Khayyam uses the pot as a metaphor not just for the human being, but also for something recycled from dead bodies. According to the Biblical and Quranic creation stories, humans were created from the earth. The Quran specifically states that Adam was created from clay.44 Death, therefore, means decomposing back to the same element from which the person was created: the earth. Khayyam marvellously incorporates this idea into his poems, constantly reminding the reader that the cup or pot they use without a second thought is, in fact, made from clay formed of countless decomposed bodies, ranging from the most wretched to kings and emperors. Here are two examples of such a quatrain:

Last night, I smashed my jug on a stone;

I was drunk when I acted so absurdly.

The broken jug seemed to tell me:

“Once I was like you; you will be like me.”45

Yesterday, at the bazaar, I saw a potter.

He was repeatedly trampling a lump of clay.

That clod of earth seemed to tell him:

“Once I was like you; treat me well.”46

As strong as the association between this imagery and Khayyam’s poetry may be, he is far from the only poet to have used such imagery. Attár, for instance, uses the very same metaphor in a parable he narrates about Jesus. In the parable, Jesus is drinking from a spring whose water is so pure it tastes like rose water. A passerby comes and uses a jar to collect some water, offering it to Jesus. Jesus accepts the kind offer but spits out the water as soon as he drinks it. Puzzled, he asks God how it is possible that the same water, which tasted like the sweetest fruit, tasted so bitter when drunk from the jar. At that moment, the jar comes to life and tells its tale to Jesus, describing its life as an endless cycle of transformations: from earth to human, back to earth, then to a drinking vessel, and back again to earth, repeating this cycle endlessly. Any drinking vessel can be seen as a memento mori, as its clay is formed from countless decomposed bodies of both humans and other creatures. Here are the words of the jar to Jesus:

I have been on the potter’s wheel a thousand times,

Turning into pots, jars, and bowls.

Even if I became a jar a thousand more times,

The bitter taste of death would remain.47

As can be seen, both poets use the same metaphor to the same end. These examples demonstrate that interpreting the same themes one way in Khayyam and a completely different way in other Persian poets would be a double standard—a practice that is too prevalent in Khayyam scholarship.

4. The Playful Dancer

Our discussion would be incomplete without addressing the Creator’s Dance. The image most commonly associated with Shiva is that of Shiva as the Lord of Dance: “Śiva, the king of dancers, brings about the creation of the world by means of dancing. [...] Once Śiva has created the world, he continues to dance with the world.”48 This image of God as a dancer whose dance sustains the world is also present in Sufism. Nezári writes,

If I call You “Venus,” it’s because,

You dance and sing well.49

According to Sufism, the entire cosmos is engaged in a dance:

You will find all atoms of the Cosmos dancing.

Once the Light of the Sun becomes evident to you.50

O You who have brought every atom of my being to dance.

In the atmosphere of your incomparable Sun’s Beauty.51

The lover is constantly engaged in a spiritual dance—even when appearing motionless.52

And as the following verse shows, Háfez’s mention of the ceremony of samá’, in which dancing is an essential part, serves to emphasise the musical and dance-like nature of existence:

O King, from your banquet, the Cosmos is engaged in dance and samá’—

Do not let merriness let go of this song-whispering.53

The great Sufi master Ruzbehán Baqli describes the samá’ as follows: “Samá’ is the samá’ of God. Samá’ is from God, and samá’ is unto God, and samá’ is in God, and samá’ is with God.”54 Thus, the samá’ ceremony in which the Sufi participates symbolises the dancing of God Himself as manifested by the Cosmos. The significance of the whirling during the ceremony is to symbolise how “the Heavens turn like dervishes to a ‘flowing’ melody”.55 The idea that everything in the Cosmos dances was also expressed by Rumi, whose order (the Mevlevi Order) is strongly associated with the samá’.56 The cosmic “whirling” sustains everything; Baqli writes that all beings are “drawn to the Samá’, for each possesses a spirit by which it lives, and that spirit lives by the Samá’.”57

As can be seen, there are strong parallels between what we find in Sufi literature and the image of Shiva. The famous Shiva Nataraja sculpture, dating from about a millennium ago, has greatly contributed to presenting Shiva as the Lord of Dance to the public. The sculpture depicts Shiva “performing a dance of bliss” that symbolises “both creation and the perpetuation of the cosmos.”58 Similarly, in Persian Sufi literature, we read that God not only creates the world through dancing but also sustains it.

5. Discussion

Content-wise, there is virtually no difference between what we find in Khayyam’s work and what is present in Persian Sufi poetry in general. Yet, for some reason, the very same content is interpreted differently when it comes to Khayyam. I believe this has more to do with the myths and misconceptions woven around Khayyam than with the poems themselves. Khayyam’s poems are often interpreted in a way that portrays him as markedly different from other Persian (Sufi) poets, rather than being appreciated in the context of his profound mysticism. Contrary to common interpretations, this paper has argued that Khayyam is, in fact, a representative of Persian mystical poetry.

Just as in Hinduism, a recurring theme in Persian Sufi literature is the Creator playfully bringing the world into existence, sustaining it, and eventually destroying it—all through the same playful, artistic process. In other words, for the Sufi, creation is seen as an act done purely for its own sake. This paper has argued that considering the nature of Divine Play in both Sufism and Hinduism reveals clear parallels between these spiritual traditions and Khayyam’s poetry.