Today is Wednesday; 28th of the Iranian month of Farvardin 1398 solar hijri; corresponding to 11th of the Islamic month of Sha’ban 1440 lunar hijri; and April 17, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1428 lunar years ago, on this day in 12 AH, Battle of Khanafes (or Beatles) between Arab Muslims and Arab Christians in al-Anbar in Iraq, resulted in the victory of Islam.

1406 lunar years ago, on this day in 33 AH, Ali Akbar (AS), the son of Imam Husain (AS) was born in Medina, and greatly resembled his great-grandfather, Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). According to another narration his birth occurred in 42 AH, and he grew up into a virtuous youth and played a pivotal role during the epic of Ashura where he sacrificed his life for Islam and humanitarian values. His birthday is marked in the Islamic Republic of Iran as Day of Virtuous Youths.

1275 solar years ago, on this day in 744 AD, Waleed II, the 11^th self-styled caliph of the usurper Omayyad regime, was killed after a reign of a year and two-and-a-half months, because of his immoral habits. On assuming power he had ordered his forces in Khorasan to harass Yahya Ibn Zayd, the grandson of Imam Zain al-Abedin (AS) – the 4^th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). Yahya was martyred in a battle in Jowzajan, which is presently in Afghanistan, and his severed head was sent to Damascus, where it is believed to be buried in the Omayyad Mosque in the spot which is mistakenly known today as the tomb of Prophet Yayha (John the Baptist). He built in his palace a fountain of wine in which he used to take dips. On one occasion he threw the holy Qur’an and riddled it with a volley of arrows. Once, in the state of intoxication and in the act of cohabiting with a drunken concubine, when he heard the call for the Fajr Prayer, he promptly asked the ritually unclean woman to put on his clothes, enter the mosque, and lead the Morning Prayer. In a famous hadith, Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) had foretold about this ungodly Omayyad ruler by name, and called him the Pharaoh of the ummah. Eventually Waleed II was besieged in al-Aghdaf in what is now Jordan and killed by his own forces.

911 lunar years ago, on this day in 529 AH, acclaimed Persian poet and mystic, Abul-Majd Majd od-Din ibn Adam Sana'i Ghaznavi, passed away in Ghazni in what is now Afghanistan at the age of 62. He was connected with the court of the Ghaznavid king, Bahram Shah, who ruled for 35 years. When accompanying the king on a military campaign to India, Sana’i met the Sufi teacher Lai-Khur, and immediately quit Bahram Shah's service as a court poet, even though he was promised wealth and the hand of the king's daughter in marriage. He now started serving the people and criticized in his poems the unjust and corrupt rulers. He was a trend-setter in the style of Persian poetry. His most important work is “Hadiqat-al-Haqiqah” (Walled Garden of Truth) which is in the form of odes, reflecting his ethical and Gnostic thoughts. Among his other works, one can mention “Elahi Namah” and “Tariq at-Tahqiq” (Path to Research). He has written some excellent panegyrics in praise of Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS), the First Infallible Successor of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). For the past nine centuries Sana'i has had a tremendous influence on Persian literature, and along with Shaikh Farid od-Din Attar, was regarded by Mowlana Jalal od-Din Rumi as an inspiration.

670 solar years ago, on this day in 1349 AD, with the murder of Fakhr od-Dowla Hassan II, the Bavand dynasty of Mazandaran came to its end, and Kiya Afrasiyab, who had defeated the Bavandid army, crowned himself the first ruler of the new Afrasiyabi dynasty – which ended 155 years later in 1504 with the annexation of Mazandaran by Ismail I, the founder of the Safavid Empire.

622 solar years ago, on this day in 1397 AD, Geoffrey Chaucer of England recited for the first time his magnum opus “The Canterbury Tales” at the court of King Richard II, in the colloquial language of the ordinary English masses, rather than the church language Latin or the court language French, thus paving the way for emergence of English as the official language of the people of England.

370 lunar years ago, on this day in 1070 AH, Allamah Mohammad Taqi Majlisi, passed away at the age of 63 in his hometown Isfahan, and was laid to rest behind the famous Jame’ Mosque. He is known as Majlisi-e Awwal, since his son Allamah Mohammad Baqer Majlisi-e Thani (Second Majlisi), developed into one of the greatest scholars of all time. Born in a scholarly family to Sheikh Maqsoud Ali Isfahani that traced descent to the famous scholar, Abu Nu’aym Ahmad bin Abdullah Isfahani (d. 430 AH) – author “Hulyat-al-Awliya” and “Zikr-e Akhbar-e Isfahan” – on his mother’s side he was the grandson of Kamal od-Din Darwish Mohammad bin Hassan al-Amili (a disciple of the celebrated Shahid Ṯhani. Among his teachers was the celebrated Sheikh Baha od-Din al-Amili, on whose death he succeeded him as the Friday Prayer Leader of Isfahan, Mohammad Taqi Majlisi wrote commentaries in both Arabic and Persian on the great scholar, Ibn  Babawaiyh Sheikh Sadouq’s “Man la yahdhar al-Faqih”, as well as on Sheikh at-Ta’efa Tusi’s Hadith compendium “Tahdhib al-Ahkaam” titled “Iḥyā al-Ahadith fi Sharh Tahdhib al-Hadith”, and on the “Sahifat-as-Sajjadiya”– the collection of supplications of Imam Zain al-Abedin (AS), the 4th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). He concentrated his activities on revival and transmission of of the hadith of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt.

267 lunar years ago, on this day in 1173 AH, Mullah Ismail Mazandarani Khaju’i, one of Iran’s prominent ulema, passed away. A product of the Islamic seminary of Isfahan, he survived the 7-year occupation of Iran by the Hotaki Afghans, who killed many religious scholars and destroyed seminaries. After the liberation of Iran, he strove to revive the religious and cultural values of the country, groomed students and wrote 150 books and treatises, including "Jame' ash-Shataat" and “Fawa’ed ar-Rijaliyyah”.

229 solar years ago, on this day in 1790 AD, US politician, inventor, diplomat, and printer, Benjamin Franklin, died at the age of 84. One of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America that was set up by the 13 rebellious New England colonies, he was born in Boston to British parents. He became widely known in European scientific circles for his reports of electrical experiments and theories. He invented the lightning rod, and a type of stove – still being manufactured – to give more warmth than open fireplaces. Bifocal eyeglasses were his ideas as well. When the colonies rebelled against the British crown, he became an ardent supporter of independence, served as diplomat both at home and in Europe, and was regarded as second only to President George Washington in power and prestige. Franklin emphasized that the US could survive only if the people were virtuous, followed religious rules in both personal and civic life, and abstained from corruption, oppression, violence, and immoralities – all of which are dragging the US today towards its eventual doom.

139 solar years ago, on this day in 1880 AD, British archeologist of Mesopotamia, Charles Leonard Woolley, was born. His excavations during 1922-to-1934 of the ancient Sumerian city of Ur in modern Iraq and the burial sites, greatly advanced knowledge of the ancient Mesopotamian civilization, enabling scholars to trace the history of the city from its final days during the 4^th century BC back to its prehistoric beginnings (around 4000 BC). His finds revealed much about everyday life, art, architecture, literature, government, and religion in the cradle of civilization. In royal tombs dating from about 2700 BC, he uncovered the practice of the sacrificial burial of a deceased king's personal retinue. He discovered tombs of great material wealth, gold and silver jewelry, large paintings of ancient Mesopotamian culture at its zenith, and other furnishings. The most extravagant tomb of Queen Pu-Abi was untouched by the hands of looters through the millennia, with many well-preserved items, including a cylindrical seal bearing her name in Sumerian. His widely read book titled “Ur of the Chaldees” is a record of seven years of excavation, described his findings in a manner both informative to specialists and accessible by lay-persons.

124 solar years ago, on this day in 1895 AD, Japan forced upon China the Treaty of Shimonoseki, marking the end of the First Sino-Japanese War, and compelling the defeated Qing Empire to renounce its claims on Korea and to concede the southern portion of the Fengtien province, Taiwan and the Pescadores Islands to Japan. Japan’s arrogantly imperialist attitude towards China and Korea led to destructive wars and massive killing of people.

108 lunar years ago, on this day 1332 AH, the scholar Sheikh Mohammad Taqi Isfahani known as Aqa Najafi Isfahani, passed away at the age of 70. A product of the famous seminary of holy Najaf in Iraq, on return to Iran, he involved himself in the struggle against despotism of the Qajarid dynasty and the spurious outfits like the Zionist-affiliated Baha’is, through the writing of such invaluable books on the guidance of the masses, as “Hidayat al- Mustarshidin” and “Fiqh al-Imamiyya”. He groomed a large number of scholars, including the Marja’ Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hussain Boroujerdi.

104 solar years ago, on this day in 1915 AD, chemical gases were used for the first time in a war. In this inhuman measure, which took place during World War I, German forces attacked British and French forces with chemical gas, killing a large number of them. Following the end of World War I, the use of chemical weapons was banned as per international treaties, but this did not prevent the US to use chemicals against the Vietnamese in the 1960s and 1970s. The US, along with Germany, also supplied internationally-banned chemical weapons to Saddam for use against Iran during the 1980-88 imposed war. In addition to martyring and maiming a large number of Iranian civilians and combatants, while the UN and the West turned a blind eye to his crimes, Saddam also used chemical weapons on the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabche massacring over 5,000 men, women, and children, and maiming more than 10,000 others, for welcoming the Iranian combatants as liberators from Ba’thist rule.

73 solar years ago, on this day in 1946 AD, the last French troops left Syria following formal recognition of its independence earlier in the year. Bilaad ash-Shaam or Greater Syria, which for four centuries had been occupied by the Ottoman Turks, was seized by the Allied powers of Britain and France in 1917 during World War I. The victors divided Syria between them, with the British creating Jordan and Palestine, and the French creating present-day Syria and Lebanon. Following independence from colonial rule, Syria went through instability for 24 years with frequent coups, counter-coups and overthrow of military and civilian governments that saw the rise and fall of more than a dozen regimes. The situation was stabilized and progress became possible, only with the coming to power in 1970 of President Hafez al-Assad, who during his 30-year rule made Syria a strong bulwark of resistance against the designs of the West and the illegal Zionist entity. He was succeeded in 2000 by his son, Dr. Bashshar al-Assad, who for the past 18 years has ably led the country, although at present he is facing an insurrection and state-sponsored terrorism incited by the US, Britain, France, Israel, Turkey and Arab reactionary states, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

58 solar years ago, on this day in 1961 AD, following failure of their diversionary landing near Baracoa, Oriente Province, over 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban anti-revolutionaries, launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in a failed attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. Cuban forces killed 200 rebels and captured 1,197 in less than 72 hours. The command vessel Marsopa and supply ship Houston were sunk and an entire battalion was lost. A single copy of a CIA report written by inspector general Lyman Kirkpatrick was made public in 1998. The operation, which had been devised during the Eisenhower Administration, was nonetheless endorsed by the new president, John F. Kennedy.

44 solar years ago, on this day in 1975 AD, the US-backed Lon Nol regime of Cambodia surrendered to the Khmer Rouge (Red Cambodia). Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge, occupied the capital Phnom Penh ending Cambodia's five-year war. He renamed the country “Democratic Kampuchea”, thus beginning his brutal rule that resulted in the death of some three million people or approximately 25 percent of the Cambodian population, through executions, forced labour, malnutrition and poor medical care.

15 solar years ago, on this day in 2004 AD, Palestinian activist and Leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, Dr. Abdul-Aziz Rantisi, was martyred when the car carrying him was targeted with missiles by Zionist choppers. Born in Palestine in 1947, he graduated in medicine from Egypt’s Alexandria University in 1967, and joined the struggle against the usurper state of Israel. He was imprisoned, tortured and exiled to “no man’s land” on the frontier of Occupied Palestine with southern Lebanon, where the contact of Rantisi and his group with members of the legendry anti-terrorist movement, the Hezbollah, positively changed their outlook, and infused new spirit into Hamas.

AS/SS