Logan Lamech
http://www.eloquentbooks.com/LingeringPoets.html

Well said, and a common observation by rationalists in just about any religious society, particularly the fundamentalist ones.

I would expect all copies being destroyed and the author stoned to death.

Persia--and the medieval Islamic world in general--was remarkably tolerant of religious dissent and what we might consider freethought. Much more so than the Christian world at the time, and far, far more so than Islam today. In particular, in Muslim Spain, Christians, Jews and Muslims lived together fairly harmoniously and with a notable lack of religious persecution.

Guy Gavriel Kay's quasi-fantasy novel, "The Lions of Al-Rassan," does a wonderful job of exploring the cultural tensions between freedom & religiosity in this historical setting. If you like that kind of thing.

The final stanza, incidentally, was used by Clarence Darrow at the close of his defense of Leopold and Loeb and, more recently, by Keith Olberman in defense of same-sex marriage.

"Near is as near to God as any Far" - too true, and in a way people do not wish to see.

I have been inspired to reed more of this Rubaiyat.

But yours the cold heart, and the murderous tongue, The wintry soul that hates to hear a song, The close-shut fist, the mean and measuring eye, And all the little poisoned ways of wrong.

I especially like this stanza. It captures so well the venal, and narrow mindset of so many religious people in my experience.