Adam LeBor
Drunk Again, Khayyam?
Omar Khayyam: Poet, Rebel, Astronomer
By Hazhir Teimourian
Sutton Books 365pp £20 order from our bookshop
The oil-fuelled rise of the Wahhabis, the austere, even puritanical (if such a word can be applied to Muslims) literalists from Saudi Arabia, has eclipsed far older Muslim traditions of independent scholarship, mysticism and even sensuality. From Pakistan to Morocco, young believers learn the Koran by heart, certain that they need enquire no further. Nowadays in Omar Khayyam’s native Iran, radical Shiite clerics run a tyrannical regime where teenagers are hanged from cranes in public for having sex.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Sign up to our e-newsletter!
Get highlights from the new issue and selected archive articles, as well as exclusive competitions and subscription offers delivered straight to your inbox.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/freenewsletter
'Some Labour MPs who were shocked by Corbyn’s rise behaved appallingly ... Not only were they disloyal; they also had no coherent strategy for removing Corbyn or an alternative left-of-centre project.'
@steverichards14 https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-accidental-leader
'As readers, we are immersed in Tambu’s self-alienation, at one and the same time reached out to and held at arm’s length.'
@ellekeboehmer weighs up Tsitsi Dangarembga's Booker-shortlisted novel, 'This Mournable Body'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/what-tambu-did-next