Khayyam, a Shi'a Muslim[3][4], was born in Nishapur, Iran, then a Seljuk capital in Khorasan (present Northeast Iran), rivalling Cairo or Baghdad. He is thought to have been born into a family of tent makers (literally, al-khayyami means "tent maker"); later in life he would make this into a play on words:
Khayyam, who stitched the tents of science,
Has fallen in grief's furnace and been suddenly burned,
The shears of Fate have cut the tent ropes of his life,
And the broker of Hope has sold him for nothing! [