Hazhir Teimourian, is well placed to present this work.  A trained philosopher and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, he was educated in classical Persian and Arabic in Kurdish western Iran and was, for almost 40 years a commentator for a host of Western newspapers and broadcasters, from The Times in London to CBS News in New York, on international affairs specialising in the Middle East. In this biography, he has brought together his love of literature and his expereince of high politics.  In 1998, when he broadcast a series of autobiographical talks on BBC Radio 4, the Financial Times devoted an article to them to show that “fact can be more powerful than fiction”. The Times described him as “a natural  broadcaster, if ever there was one”. His Master’s thesis in philosophy, obtianed under the late Roger Scruton, is on the subject of The Irresolvability of the Mystery of Being, a theme that is at the heart of Khayyam’s poems. His last book, The Consolations of Autumn: Sages in Hard Times, was published, also by Peach Publishing, in 2015. Two more books are forthcoming. One is an autobiography that has been praised in advance of publication by a number of British national figures, including Sir Anthony Kenny, the father-figure of Oxford philosophers, Felipe Fernandea-Armesto, the historian and Knight Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso the Wise, Joanthan Keates, the historian and just-retired chairman of the Venice in Peril Fund, and Sir Charles Saumarez- Smith, former Diretor of the National Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts. The other, called The Ultimate Question: In Search of God in a Godless Universe, argues that a sacred centre to our lives can be found in the irresolvable mystery of existence.