"The Writing is On The Wall" - Omar Khayyam
In 2013, a young, newly appointed Labor MLC in South Australia was on the hustings in Port Pirie. He told the Flinders News that he,
‘…was given his Christian name [Kyam] in honour of Omar Kyam, a Middle-Eastern figure from centuries ago…’
- Flinders News, 11 December 2013
His name was Kyam Maher, and today in 2023, he is South Australia’s, Labor Attorney-General.
Figure 1 - Omar Kyam’s namesake, Labor MLC, Kyam Maher, seen here on the hustings in 2013 with Labor candidate, Marcus Connelly. Source
Figure 2 - The Hon Kyam Maher MLC, seen here ten years later in 2023, as SA’s Attorney-General.
So who is Omar Kyam [Khayyam] and what is he famous for?
Why would Kyam Maher’s parents select him as a namesake for their son?
Omar Khayyam [1048 – 1131] was a Persian polymath and poet and is best remembered today for his book of verse, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
This book was hugely popular in the late nineteenth century, with its most famous quatrain [stanza of four lines] being The Moving Finger quatrain:
This quatrain in Khayyam’s Rubaiyat is based on the Biblical story of Belshazzar's feast, in the Book of Daniel.
Figure 3 - Rembrandt's depiction of the biblical account of Belshazzar seeing "the writing on the wall" (Source: Wikipedia)
Belshazzar's feast, or the story of ‘the writing on the wall’ (Chapter 5 in the Book of Daniel), tells how Belshazzar holds a great feast and drinks from the vessels that had been looted in the destruction of the First Temple.
A hand appears and writes on the wall. The terrified Belshazzar calls for his wise men, but they are unable to read the writing.
The queen advises him to send for Daniel, renowned for his wisdom. Daniel reminds Belshazzar that his father Nebuchadnezzar, when he became arrogant, was thrown down until he learned that God has sovereignty over the kingdom of men.
Belshazzar had likewise blasphemed God, and so God sent this hand.
Daniel then reads the message and interprets it: God has numbered Belshazzar's days, he has been weighed and found wanting, and his kingdom will be given to the Medes and the Persians.
It is from this story that we inherit the idiom, ‘to be able to read the writing on the wall’, which came to mean being able to see from available evidence that doom or failure is inevitable. The phrase, ‘the writing on the wall’, itself can mean ‘anything portending such doom or failure’.
Perhaps it is time for South Australia’s Attorney-General to reflect on the name that his parents chose for him, and weigh the words of his poetic namesake, Omar Kyam:
The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
Even Dr Martin Luther King was inspired by Omar Kyam’s The Moving Finger, when he wrote,
“We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on.
Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, ‘Too late.’
There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect.
Omar Khayyam is right: ‘The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on.’”
- Martin Luther King - he also cites this quatrain of Omar Khayyam in one of his speeches, "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence".
