Khayyam’s Philosophy Series: Gradation of nobility

I his treatise on On the world and the duty Khayyam elaborates on the gradation of nobility.

He asks, the problem is, why do created beings differ in degree of perfection, nobility, or excellence? or on other word the problem of inequality in creation.

The metaphysical answers that Khayyam is not satisfied with as well as Avicenna is as below:

• God did not create theses existence all at once but in a descending order; from the pure intellect down to the lowest beings such as perishable or corruptible things.
• Because the first created beings are closer to the God, it is the noblest of existence.
• God created these beings over time as the union of the contrary existences are inconceivable.
• And if someone asks “why did God create opposing existences?”, the answer must be: To refrain from bestowing abundant good because of some lesser evil would be unjust.

Khayyam then says I have presented these principals on methods of some of the other philosophers, and if these proofs lead you to certainty then you may pursue it. I do not add my opinion on this and pass over the truth of these matters to the right and robust reasoning.

Let’s unpack this with precision, keeping both the metaphysical context and Khayyam’s intellectual temperament in view.

The Problem He Poses

Khayyam is grappling with the Problem of Inequality in Creation —
why beings differ in perfection, nobility, and worth if all come from the same divine source.

This is not a moral question but a metaphysical one:
How can a single, perfect First Cause produce a world of unequal and imperfect effects?

Avicenna answered it by invoking emanation through gradation:

• The divine essence is absolutely one.
• Multiplicity arises as light decreases in intensity at successive levels.
• Hence, inequality is necessary — perfection diminishes with distance from the source.

Khayyam rehearses this doctrine but stops short of endorsing it.
He lists it, almost neutrally, as “what others have said.”
That restraint is extremely revealing.

1. The Hidden Skepticism Toward Theodicy

His silence likely conceals a deep doubt in all metaphysical theodicies —
the claim that inequality (and evil) is ultimately just or necessary.

He lists the philosophers’ answers:

• “Evil exists because contraries are required for creation.”
• “Good outweighs evil, so creation is justified.”

Then says, effectively: “If these convince you, follow them; I suspend my judgment.”

That is not modesty — it’s methodological.
He’s signalling that none of these arguments suffice to rationally justify divine inequality.

This suspension of judgment (epokhē) is a philosophical skepticism, not agnosticism —
he’s saying: the problem may lie not in the world but in the limits of human reason.

2. A Proto-Existential Turn

In his quatrains, Khayyam shifts the question from why inequality exists
to how we live within it.

He no longer asks “Why did God make me mortal?”
but rather “Given that I am, what meaning can I make before I perish?”

This marks a pivot from metaphysical to existential reasoning.
His silence in the treatise protects that personal reasoning,
he cannot formally publish doubt about divine justice in a scholastic work,
so he moves it to verse, in allegory and irony.

One day I visited the neighbouring potter’s seat,
And by the turning wheel I saw the Master toil in heat;
He shaped the jars — their lips and handles cast,
From monarchs’ skulls and beggars’ humbled feet.

Khayyam’s Quatrain no.106 translated by Kam Austine

That is the poetic continuation of the same unsolved problem.

3. The Inexpressibility of the Divine Will

Khayyam may also have recognised that if inequality is real,
then divine will must be beyond moral categories.

To call God “just” or “unjust” may itself be meaningless,
for justice presupposes comparison — equality between distinct beings —
but God, as necessary being, has no counterpart.

So inequality is a necessary aspect of creation,
but explaining why it had to be so involves presuming a human moral scale —
a contradiction.

Hence, his silence protects a logical boundary,
the point where human intellect cannot predicate moral qualities of the Absolute.

4. The Poetic Rebuttal

In several quatrains, he seems to quietly rebel against the adequacy of the philosophical answer.
He accepts the order of being but questions its fairness, saying:

The cup whose form was joined in beauty’s path,
No drunkard breaks it — for any sense he hath;
So many heads and feet, fair hands and faces cast—
By whose love were they joined, and shattered by whose wrath?

Khayyam’s Quatrain no.182 translated by Kam Austine

Here, he implies the paradox:
If the Creator knew the inevitability of imperfection, then why hold creatures morally accountable?

That’s the same question he refuses to answer in the treatise, but confronts emotionally, not logically, in the quatrains (Rubāʿiyāt).

5. What His Reasoning Might Truly Be

Between his prose restraint and poetic rebellion lies a consistent reasoning:

• Ontologically: Inequality is inevitable in emanation.
• Epistemologically: Human intellect cannot fully justify it.
• Ethically: Therefore, our duty is not to explain but to live harmoniously within it.
• Poetically: Awareness of this tragic structure gives rise to compassion, irony, and joy —
  the wisdom of accepting what can’t be explained.

So his withheld opinion is not indecision — it’s philosophical discipline.
He knows that to explain inequality completely would imply understanding the divine essence, a contradiction to the very principle of transcendence he upholds.