The Moving Finger: A Rubāʿī Dialogue
Part 1: A Creative Imitation in Statement & Restatement
by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT-5
*Below is a construction of Omar's imagined quatrains alternating with Process-based responses. It is written as a miniature Rubāʿiyyāt cycle (AABA rhyme) in 14 stanzas, alternating Omar Khayyam's fatalistic voice with Process’s more hopeful counterpoint, in strict quatrain fashion. Again, sections I, III, V, VII, IX, XI, XIII were composed in Omar’s imagined voice but are not direct translations of his pen. They were written to imitate Khayyám’s fatalism - roses fading, goblets draining, stars indifferent, fate irrevocable - and to stand in contrast to Process’s relational hope.
I. Omar
The Moving Finger writes, and will not stay,
No hand nor prayer can turn its course away;
What once is writ endures beyond our tears —
The line is sealed, unbroken in its sway.
II. Process
The Moving Finger writes, yet still the tale extends,
Its ink does bend where love with freedom blends;
Tho' past is fixed, perceived futures are never closed,
For time is shaped by God and all God’s friends.
III. Omar
The rose will fade, the goblet soon is dry,
The stars are mute to every human cry;
So drink, my friend, and kiss while you can —
For all must sleep, though none may knoweth why.
IV. Process
Dying roses will bloom again upon every new day,
And laughter lives on in hearts when breath is gone;
What’s sown in past and present is gathered into God,
In death is redeemed all hopes and dreams unmet.
V. Omar
The kings and beggars share the selfsame grave,
No crown endures, no tyrant’s hand can save;
The earth devours the mighty and the meek —
All vanish swift beneath the dust they gave.
VI. Process
Yet every act lives on, though bodies fall,
Each moment cherished, treasured, known by all;
God holds the world, its sorrow and delight,
Preserved forever in a cosmic hall.
VII. Omar
The scholar’s book is ash, the priest’s a jest,
The wise grow weary, none can answer best;
If truth be known, it hides behind the veil —
So fill the cup, and leave to fate the rest.
VIII. Process
Yet wisdom grows through questions we pursue,
Not final walls, but openings to the new;
Truth is a journey woven out of time,
Each step revealing more than what we knew.
IX. Omar
The wheel of heaven grinds with ruthless might,
It crushes kings and beggars in its flight;
What use is prayer beneath a turning dome,
When fate is deaf and justice out of sight?
X. Process
The wheel still turns, but not by force alone,
Its axis hums with mercy softly shown;
For God persuades, not crushes, in the dance,
Inviting freedom’s seed the world has sown.
XI. Omar
What is the heart but dust that beats in vain?
What is the soul but echo, hushed again?
If all is written, let us laugh and die —
There is no balm for suffering, only pain.
XII. Process
Yet pain itself becomes God’s tender part,
A wound embraced within the cosmic heart;
No tear is lost, but gathers into streams
That flow through time to heal, renew, restart.
XIII. Omar
The Moving Finger writes; its word is fate,
Nor wit nor wisdom may its path abate;
The line is firm, the ink will never fade,
The door is locked, and locked remains the gate.
XIV. Process
The Moving Finger writes — but not alone,
Its pen is guided where new seeds are sown;
The scroll expands with every choice we make,
And love may turn its ink to brighter tone.
The Moving Finger: A Rubāʿī Dialogue
Part 2: A Revised Construction using Omar's Original Voice
by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT-5
Here is a shorter dialogue using the actual Persian rubāʿiyyāt
attributed to Omar Khayyám, centered on the Pen of destiny (qalam). These
quatrains are among those which scholars have connected to translator FitzGerald’s “Moving Finger”
verse. They are translated literally, then paired with new Process responses in
parallel quatrains.
Unlike the creative imitation above, this version anchors itself in authentic
manuscript material (Ouseley MS, Furūghī–Ghanī edition). Omar’s historical
fatalism is voiced directly: "What the Pen has written cannot be changed, grief
is futile, destiny is beyond appeal."
The Process counterpoints answer each with the claim that while the past is
indeed fixed, the future remains open to co-creation with the God of Creation, and Love
transfigures all that is written. This creates a hybrid text: an authentic Khayyám in
dialogue with postmodern process thought.
I. Omar (Ouseley 31)
From the beginning what was to be was writ;
The Pen from good and evil never quit.
On that first Day all that must be was given—
Our grief and striving are in vain of it.
II. Process
The Finger writes, yet futures are not sealed;
Love lures new paths where healing is revealed.
Though past is fixed, the page ahead lies open,
Where beauty grows from sorrow unconcealed.
III. Omar (Ouseley 54)
What the Pen has passed will never be undone,
From grief comes naught but hearts that bleed and run.
Though all your life you drink red tears of pain,
Not one drop alters what the Pen has spun.
IV. Process
The past endures, but never stands alone;
Each tear is gathered, cherished, Spirit-sown.
What’s written lives, but may be transfigured still,
Through God who weaves new beauty from the known.
V. Omar (Variant)
No change will come to what the Pen has made;
Not one grain added, nothing lost or stayed.
Why wound your heart with grief that yields no fruit?
From sorrow’s cup, no balm, no joy is laid.
VI. Process
Yet every act is held in tender hands;
No sorrow wasted, nothing leaves God’s plans.
The ink is fixed — but meanings can be mended,
And love redeems what anguish once demands.
VII. Omar (Qalam al-Qaḍā)
If fate is penned without my will or say,
Why hold me guilty, why my soul arraign?
Yesterday passed without me — so today;
By what right judge me in tomorrow’s plain?
VIII. Process
God’s hand persuades, not forces, in the scroll;
Freedom is real, co-authored with the Whole.
The future writes with God and us together,
Our lines entwined, yet each one free in role.
Omar Khayyam's Moving Finger:
His Philosophy and a Processual Response
by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT-5
Introduction
Few images in world literature have captured the inexorability of time more memorably than English translator Edward FitzGerald's rendering of Omar Khayyám’s Persian fatalism of the early 1100's from the Rubāʿiyyāt (plural; rubāʿī, singular):
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
*Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.*¹
¹The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, 1st ed., London: Bernard Quaritch, 1859;
Quatrain LI, later renumbered in subsequent editions
These verses embody a haunting conviction that once life is lived, it is irrevocably inscribed upon the scroll of existence. No devotion, no wit, no tear can undo what is written:
Once life is lived, it is irrevocably inscribed upon the Scroll of Existence.
No devotion, no wit, no tear, can undo that which is written.
Editorial Note
There is no single "original poem" from the 1100's that look like the famous Moving Finger stanza. What is known is The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859) is Edward FitzGerald’s Victorian reworking of the poet in a free and often imaginative adaptation from Persian manuscripts.
Those diverse manuscripts which were collected centuries after Khayyám’s death had preserved dozens of quatrains attributed to him, though their authenticity remains uncertain. Scholars estimate that perhaps a few dozen verses are genuinely Khayyam's, while many more were later additions under his name as embodied amanuensis material.
The Persian Philosopher, Ibn Sina
Khayyám (1048–1131) was not only a poet but also a mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. He lived in the intellectual shadow of
Avicenna ( = Latinized name of the Persian name,
Ibn Sīnā, 980–1037), the most influential
philosopher of the
Islamic Golden Age, whose metaphysics argued that
all reality is grounded in a Necessary Existence - a God beyond contingency, timeless and unchanging.²
Khayyám studied Avicenna and even wrote treatises in the same tradition,³ but his quatrains suggest deep disquiet: if all is governed by necessity, where is human freedom, where is meaning, where is comfort?
This article will explore that tension - Avicenna’s metaphysical necessity vs. Khayyám’s poetic fatalism - and consider how (Whiteheadian) process philosophy and theology provide a creative integration.
Statement of the Problem
Three contrasting claims frame the debate:
-
Avicenna: Reality requires a Necessary Being. Without this metaphysically timeless, unchanging ground, contingent beings could not exist. The universe is rational and ordered.
-
Khayyám: Human experience tells another story. Destiny is inexorable, life fleeting, the cosmos indifferent. “The moving finger” writes without appeal.
-
The problem: Is existence governed by immutable necessity (Avicenna) or by inscrutable fate (Khayyám)? And what does that mean for human freedom, meaning, and ethics?
Restatement in Contemporary Terms
The same questions echo today:
-
Science and determinism: Is the universe a closed causal system, every event fixed by natural law?⁴
-
Indeterminacy: Does modern physics (quantum uncertainty, chaos theory) show that openness and novelty are real features of existence?⁵
-
Human experience: Are we fated like Khayyám believed, or are our lives open-ended stories?
-
Theology: Can God be both the rational ground of order and the relational presence in human becoming?
Process philosophy suggests: though the past seems real, fixed and irreversible (though paradoxically affected by the future), the future is genuinely open. Determinism and fatalism are not the final word.
Part I: The Philosophical Response
Avicenna’s Metaphysical Necessity
Avicenna distinguished between essence (what something is) and existence (that something is). In contingent beings, these are distinct: a horse can be defined in essence but may or may not exist. Only in God do essence and existence coincide.⁶
God is therefore the Necessary Existent (wājib al-wujūd): a being whose existence is essential, whose non-existence is impossible. From God, all else flows in an emanating hierarchy — intellects, souls, spheres, matter. This secures cosmic intelligibility.
Avicenna’s influence stretched far beyond Islam. His metaphysics shaped Jewish philosophy (Maimonides), Christian scholasticism (Aquinas), and even modern debates on essence and existence.⁷
Khayyám’s Fatalistic Skepticism
Khayyám, though a philosopher by training, is remembered for his quatrains (rubāʿiyyāt). In them, destiny is inexorable, the future sealed, and consolation lies only in fleeting pleasures.
-
Pessimism: All human striving ends in dust.
-
Fatalism: “The moving finger writes” — and moves on.
-
Epicureanism: Since tomorrow is uncertain, drink wine and savor roses.
Historically, FitzGerald’s translation exaggerated Khayyám’s fatalism, but even in Persian the tension is clear: he doubted reason’s promises and distrusted claims of cosmic order.⁸
The Process Philosophical Intervention
Process philosophy, rooted in Alfred North Whitehead, reframes the tension.
-
Creativity over necessity:
-
Actual occasions over substances:
-
Past fixed, future open:
-
Khayyám’s fatalism rightly sees the past as irreversible.
-
Process thought agrees: the past is preserved forever (“objective immortality”).¹⁰
-
But it rejects fatalism: the future is unwritten, open to genuine novelty and freedom.
Philosophical conclusion: Where Avicenna froze reality in necessity and Khayyám despaired in futility, process philosophy insists reality is relational, temporal, and open.
Part II: The Theological Response
Avicenna’s God
Avicenna’s God is the Necessary Existent: timeless, immutable, pure actuality. This secures order, but makes God abstract and impersonal. Such a God cannot suffer, cannot change, cannot relate.
Khayyám’s God
Khayyám’s quatrains often portray God as inscrutable, silent, or arbitrary. If God has inscribed destiny, then prayer and piety are powerless. God is not companion but question mark.
The Process God
Process theology critiques both.
-
Against Avicenna:
-
God is not a static ground but a dynamic relation.
-
God’s essence is constant (love, relationality, creativity), but God’s experience is temporal, shaped by the world.¹¹
-
This is the dipolar God: eternal in nature, temporal in experience.
-
Against Khayyám:
-
The past is indeed unalterable — God does not erase history.
-
But God redeems the past by holding it in divine memory, weaving even suffering into future possibilities.¹²
-
The future is open: God does not decree but persuasively lures creation toward beauty and justice.
Ethical Implications
-
If Avicenna is right, ethics is subordinated to cosmic necessity.
-
If Khayyám is right, ethics dissolves into fleeting pleasure before oblivion.
-
In process theology, ethics becomes co-creative responsibility: our choices shape not only our lives but the divine life itself. God feels every act, every joy, every sorrow. Our freedom matters infinitely.
Theological conclusion: God is neither distant necessity nor indifferent scribe, but the co-creative companion of the world.
Part III: Integration
Avicenna and Khayyám represent two poles:
Process thought integrates them:
-
Like Avicenna, it affirms order — reality is not chaos, but intelligible process.
-
Like Khayyám, it affirms irreversibility — the past is real and cannot be erased.
-
Beyond both, it insists on openness — the future is unwritten, co-authored by God and creation.
Thus, the “Moving Finger” becomes not merely a fatalistic scribe but a living symbol of process: inscribing each moment with the ink of past necessity while leaving the page of tomorrow open to possibility.
Conclusion
The debate between Avicenna and Khayyám is more than historical. It captures the enduring human struggle to reconcile metaphysical order with lived experience of fate.
-
Avicenna sought certainty in a Necessary Existent.
-
Khayyám found futility in a cosmos indifferent to our cries.
-
Process philosophy and theology offer a third way:
-
Philosophically: creativity is ultimate, time is real, the future is open.
-
Theologically: God is relational, feeling with the world, redeeming the past, and luring the future toward beauty.
Thus the “Moving Finger” writes, yes — but it writes with us, not over us. Its ink is not only fate but freedom; not only necessity but creativity; not only inevitability but divine love.
Notes
-
Omar Khayyám, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, trans. Edward FitzGerald (1859), Quatrain 51.
-
Avicenna, The Metaphysics of the Healing (al-Ilāhiyyāt min al-Shifāʾ), ed. and trans. Michael E. Marmura (Provo: BYU Press, 2005).
-
Mehdi Aminrazavi, The Wine of Wisdom: The Life, Poetry and Philosophy of Omar Khayyam (Oxford: Oneworld, 2005), 97–115.
-
Pierre-Simon Laplace, “Philosophical Essay on Probabilities” (1814), the classic deterministic formulation.
-
Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy (1958); Ilya Prigogine, Order Out of Chaos (1984).
-
Avicenna, Metaphysics of the Healing, bk. I, ch. 5.
-
Etienne Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1949).
-
Aminrazavi, Wine of Wisdom, 183–209.
-
Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, corrected ed., ed. David Ray Griffin and Donald Sherburne (New York: Free Press, 1978), 21.
-
Ibid., 350–52.
-
Charles Hartshorne, The Divine Relativity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948).
-
John B. Cobb Jr., A Christian Natural Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965).
Bibliography
-
Aminrazavi, Mehdi. The Wine of Wisdom: The Life, Poetry and Philosophy of Omar Khayyam. Oxford: Oneworld, 2005.
-
Avicenna. The Metaphysics of the Healing. Ed. and trans. Michael E. Marmura. Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2005.
-
Cobb, John B. Jr. A Christian Natural Theology. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965.
-
FitzGerald, Edward, trans. The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. London: 1859.
-
Gilson, Etienne. Being and Some Philosophers. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1949.
-
Hartshorne, Charles. The Divine Relativity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948.
-
Heisenberg, Werner. Physics and Philosophy. New York: Harper, 1958.
-
Prigogine, Ilya. Order Out of Chaos. New York: Bantam, 1984.
-
Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality. Corrected edition, ed. David Ray Griffin and Donald Sherburne. New York: Free Press, 1978.
The Moving Finger: A Rubāʿī Dialogue
by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT-5
*Written in oppositional columns of statement and restatement
| Omar (Fatalism) |
Process (Openness) |
| I. The Moving Finger writes, and will not stay, No hand nor prayer can turn its course away; What once is writ endures beyond our tears — The line is sealed, unbroken in its sway. |
II. The Finger writes, yet still the tale extends, Its ink may bend where love with freedom blends; The past is fixed — but futures are not closed, For time is shaped by God and all God’s friends. |
| III. The rose will fade, the goblet soon is dry, The stars are mute to every human cry; So drink, my friend, and kiss while yet you can — For all must sleep, though none may knoweth why. |
IV. Yet roses bloom again with each new dawn, And laughter lives in hearts though breath be gone; What’s sown in time is gathered into God, And death redeems what seemed a joy withdrawn. |
| V. The kings and beggars share the selfsame grave, No crown endures, no tyrant’s hand can save; The earth devours the mighty and the meek — All vanish swift beneath the dust they gave. |
VI. Yet every act lives on, though bodies fall, Each moment cherished, treasured, known by all; God holds the world, its sorrow and delight, Preserved forever in a cosmic hall. |
| VII. The scholar’s book is ash, the priest’s a jest, The wise grow weary, none can answer best; If truth be known, it hides behind the veil — So fill the cup, and leave to fate the rest. |
VIII. Yet wisdom grows through questions we pursue, Not final walls, but openings to the new; Truth is a journey woven out of time, Each step revealing more than what we knew. |
| IX. The wheel of heaven grinds with ruthless might, It crushes kings and beggars in its flight; What use is prayer beneath a turning dome, When fate is deaf and justice out of sight? |
X. The wheel still turns, but not by force alone, Its axis hums with mercy softly shown; For God persuades, not crushes, in the dance, Inviting freedom’s seed the world has sown. |
| XI. What is the heart but dust that beats in vain? What is the soul but echo, hushed again? If all is written, let us laugh and die — There is no balm for suffering, only pain. |
XII. Yet pain itself becomes God’s tender part, A wound embraced within the cosmic heart; No tear is lost, but gathers into streams That flow through time to heal, renew, restart. |
| XIII. The Moving Finger writes; its word is fate, Nor wit nor wisdom may its path abate; The line is firm, the ink will never fade, The door is locked, and locked remains the gate. |
XIV. The Moving Finger writes — but not alone, Its pen is guided where new seeds are sown; The scroll expands with every choice we make, And love may turn its ink to brighter tone. |
Quatrains on the Pen of Fate (Qalam)
Attributed to Omar Khayyám
Appendix: Persian Texts
Here is provided the original Persian rubāʿiyyāt that form the basis of the Revised English Construction. Each 4-line quatrain includes the original Persian script, it's transliteration, and a literal and poetic English rendering.
Quatrain 1 – Ouseley 31
| Persian | Transliteration | Literal English | Poetic Rendering |
|---|
زین پیش نشان بودنیها بودهست
پیوسته قلم ز نیک و بد ناسودهست
در روز ازل هر آنچه بایست بداد
غم خوردن و کوشیدنِ ما بیهودهست | zīn pīsh nishān būdanī-hā būda-st
peyvaste qalam ze nīk o bad nā-sūda-st
dar rūz-e azal har ānche bāyest bedād
gham khordan o kūshīdan-e mā bīhūda-st | From the beginning what was to be has been marked;
the Pen has never rested from writing good and bad.
On the First Day all that must be was given;
our grieving and our striving are in vain. | Before all time, the scroll of fate was spread;
The Pen wrote ceaseless, tallying good and ill.
On that first dawn all things were fixed and said —
Why strive, why sorrow, when it is God’s will? |
Quatrain 2 – Ouseley 54
| Persian | Transliteration | Literal English | Poetic Rendering |
|---|
از رفته قلم هیچ دگرگون نشود
وز خوردن غم بجز جگرخون نشود
گر در همه عمر خویش خونابه خوری
یک قطره از آن که هست افزون نشود | az rafte qalam hīch digargūn nashavad
va-z khordan-e gham be-joz jigar-khūn nashavad
gar dar hameh ‘omr-e khīsh khūnāba khurī
yek qatra az ān keh hast afzūn nashavad | Nothing changes from what the Pen has written;
from grief comes nothing but a bleeding liver (heart).
Even if all your life you drink tears of blood,
not a single drop will be added to what already is. | No change will come to what the Pen has sealed;
From sorrow only bleeding hearts are born.
Though all your days you drink red tears concealed,
The tally stays — no line erased, no sworn. |
Quatrain 3 – Variant
| Persian | Transliteration | Literal English | Poetic Rendering |
|---|
از رفته قلم هیچ دگرگون نشود
یک ذره از آنچه هست افزون نشود
هان تا جگر خویش به غم خون نکنی
کز خوردن غم بهجز جگرخون نشود | az rafte qalam hīch digargūn nashavad
yak zarra az ān-che hast afzūn nashavad
hān tā jigar-e khīsh be-gham khūn nakonī
kaz khordan-e gham be-joz jigar-khūn nashavad | What the Pen has passed cannot be changed;
not a grain is added to what exists.
Beware, do not make your liver bleed with grief,
for from grieving comes nothing but a bleeding heart. | The Pen has writ — no letter may be turned;
No atom added to what was decreed.
Why wound your heart with grief that brings no end?
From sorrow’s cup, no fruit, no balm, no seed. |
Quatrain 4 – The Pen of Decree
| Persian | Transliteration | Literal English | Poetic Rendering |
|---|
بر من قلمِ قضا چو بیمن رانند
پس نیک و بدش ز من چرا میدانند
دی بیمن و امروز چو دی بیمن و تو
فردا به چه حجّتم بداور خوانند | bar man qalam-e qażā cho bī-man rānand
pas nīk o bad-ash ze man cherā mīdānand
dī bī-man o emrūz cho dī bī-man o to
fardā be che hojjat-am ba-dāvar khānand | If the Pen of Decree is run without me,
why then account its good and bad to me?
Yesterday was without me, today the same without you or me —
on what grounds shall they summon me to judgment tomorrow? | If fate is penned without my hand or say,
Why blame my soul for evil or for good?
Yesterday passed without me — so today;
What claim remains when God has sealed the Book? |
Notes & context
- #1 and #2 (Ouseley MSS 31 & 54) are the core Persian loci scholars use when discussing where FitzGerald’s “Moving Finger” likely drew its imagery of an unhalting Pen and the irrevocability of what is written. The page quoted gives the Persian, transliteration, and scholarly notes.
- #4 is a classical editorial witness (Furūghī & Ghanī text on Wikisource) that explicitly names qalam-e qażā (“Pen of Decree”).
- #5 complements the theme with qażā/ qadar (fate/decree); while it doesn’t say “Pen,” it sits in the same fatalist semantic field that FitzGerald condensed.
- Another Persian witness of #2 is preserved in Iranian online text libraries, confirming the formula “az rafte qalam…” across editions.
What could be found on the Internet:
Wikisource, Persian Author Page – Omar Khayyám: A general page listing works by Khayyām in Persian. Wikisource
-
Ganjoor.net: a large digital library of Persian literature that includes many of Khayyām’s rubāʿiyyāt (though not always with the exact critical apparatus or manuscript identifiers). (I saw references in earlier work to quatrains involving “qadar / qażā” there, but location is not always precisely documented.)
What could not be reliably found on the Internet:
-
A stable, authenticated online version of Ouseley MSS 31 or 54 that includes Persian + scholarly transliteration + commentary, clearly labeled with those MS numbers, that I could confirm matches scholarly editions.
-
A verified online full text of the Furūghī & Ghanī edition quatrain that explicitly uses qalam-e qażā (“Pen of Decree”), with commentary, that matches the referenced quatrain.
-
Clear, stable URLs for “Another Persian witness of #2… confirming the ‘az rafte qalam…’ formula” in manuscripts with scholarly notes, accessible publicly.
