Iranian seminar on religious sceptic

An international seminar on the great Persian poet and mathematician, Omar Khayyam, has opened in his birthplace -- the city of Nishapour in northeast Iran.

Correspondents say Khayyam -- generally regarded as a religious sceptic -- is coming back into favour in Iran.

The seminar has been organised with the backing of the United Nations cultural organisation, UNESCO, and support from the Iranian minsteries of culture and higher education. The four-line verses of Khayyam have become widely known in the English-speaking world through the elegant nineteenth century translation by Edward Fitzgerald.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service