The scholar falls in love with Shireen, a Persian princess who has discovered the missing text. The head of a great poet is saved and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is born. Write it down on these sheets which will stay hidden,' the judge whispers to him in the courtroom. 'Whenever a verse takes shape in your mind, or is on the tip of your tongue, just hold it back. Here the comparison with Rushdie ends, for the judge is an intellectual, recognises Khayyam's genius and gives him a small blank book filled with the finest leaves of Chinese paper. Street toughs declare him an infidel and he is carted off to the judge to be given an appropriate Islamic punishment. Arriving in Samarkand from his home in Persia, Khayyam is recognised in the street as a ribald poet who writes about wine and women and whose philosophy mocks Islam. IN THE remarkable opening to this remarkable novel, the great oriental mystic and Sufi poet Omar Khayyam is treated like a medieval Salman Rushdie.
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