  Khayyam is known as a determinist in both the East and the West, and deterministic themes can be seen in much of the Rubā‘iyyāt. But if we read his Rubā‘iyyāt together with his philosophical writings, the picture that emerges may be more rightly called “soft determinism.”   One of Khayyam’s best known quatrains in which determinism is clearly conveyed asserts: