Robert Craves discusses with CHRISTOPHER HOLME his new version of Omar Khay yam's quatrains, made from a literal translation by Omar Ali Shah of a manuscript in the possession of his family since the year 1153, two or three decades after Omar Khayyam 's death fn the Fitzaerald view, which some Western scholars still support, Omar Khayyam was a sceptic whose hedonistic praise of love and wine is to be taken literally. Against this Mr. Graves accepts the Sufi view that he was the very voice of Islamic mysticism, speaking of God in symbols.