Spanish universities host international conference on Persian poet Khayyam

February 18, 2020 - 18:16

TEHRAN – A number of Iranian and world scholars came together at Nebrija University and the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain on Monday and Tuesday to attend a conference on Persian poet and mathematician Omar Khayyam.

The meeting, which was organized to commemorate the millennium of Omar Khayyam, began at the Khayyam Centre for Iranian Studies at Nebrija University on Monday.

In his brief speech, Nebrija University rector Juan Cayón said that universities should be places for dialogue between different nations and cultures.

The director of the center, Najmeh Shobeiri, also said that the establishment of the Khayyam center has helped promote the Persian language and culture and added, “It is the duty of all Iranian individuals to promote Persian art and culture.”

The center plans to publish 52 articles submitted to the conference in a book.

The closing day of the conference was held at the Complutense University of Madrid on Tuesday.

The position of Khayyam in different countries, different aspects of Khayyam’s character, Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, Khayyam in the East and the West, Khayyam and wisdom, Khayyam and astrology, Khayyam and mathematics, Khayyam and poetry, and Khayyam and mysticism were among the topics discussed at the conference.

Khayyam is chiefly known to English-speaking readers through the translation by the English writer Edward Fitzgerald of a collection of his quatrains in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.