When some think of Persian literature, their minds might immediately turn to the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. There's much more than that, of course, and this online exhibition from the Library of Congress explores over a millennium of Persian printed works. Designed to complement an in situ exhibit, the sections here include The Persian Language, Writing Systems and Scripts, Religion, and Science...

Written by the Persian mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyam in the 12th century, the Rubaiyat consists of approximately 1000 quatrains. The Rubaiyat has been translated into over 70 different languages to become the most widely known poem in the world and both the beautiful poetry and the underlying philosophy of the Rubaiyat are responsible for its widespread and enduring popularity. Without...