Khayyam Geometry Manuscript

What it is

This is a page (folio 46r) from a manuscript of mathematical writing by Omar Khayyám, held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Arabe 4946). It shows a geometric diagram with a rectangle and its diagonals, followed by lines of Arabic text.

Why it matters

Khayyám was a mathematician as well as a poet, and this manuscript shows the geometric work for which he was respected in his own time, long before he became famous as a poet in the West. Manuscripts like this are how his scientific writing survived and spread through copying by later scribes.

Look closer

• What does the diagram at the top tell you about the kind of problem being solved on this page?
• Why do you think mathematics was written in Arabic rather than Persian in this period?
• What can a copied manuscript tell us, and what might it not tell us, about the original work?