The story, through which many images of Persian life and thought are interspersed, concerns three boyhood friends, Omar, Nizam and Hassan, who made a solemn pact that whichever became successful would share his good fortune with the others.

[2] The film includes many scenes relating to verses from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, including the market places, the Sultan and his courtiers, the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer, the crowd clamoring at the tavern door, the potter molding his wet clay, gardens ablaze with roses, ruined temples and palaces, Heaven and Hell.

[8] The film was then taken to Hobart's Strand theatre[9] and to Adelaide, where it was shown at the Town Hall and hailed as a "masterpiece" and the "last word in artistic achievement of motion picture history".

[10] It went on to regional Victoria and New South Wales, where it was universally well received — "the picture magnificent, which no-one should miss"[11] It reached Perth in September.

[12] Richard Walton Tully's play Omar the Tentmaker, depicting illicit love in the harems, was in 1921 made into a film, directed by its author,[13][14] and starring Virginia Brown Faire and Guy Bates Post.