Today is Thursday; 6th of the Iranian month of Ordibehesht 1398 solar hijri; corresponding to 20th of the Islamic month of Sha’ban 1440 lunar hijri; and April 26, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1898 solar years ago, on this day in 121 AD, Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor was born. In 161 AD, he was declared emperor and commenced his 19-year rule that saw his generals emerge as victors of the 5-year long war (161-65) against the Parthian Empire of Iran in Armenia and Mesopotamia (Iraq), following initial Iranian victories in Syria and Anatolia (present day Turkey). The Roman success, however, was short-lived, and despite the sacking of the Iranian-controlled Greek city of Seleucia on the eastern banks of the Tigris and plunder of the Parthian capital, Ctesiphon, on the eastern banks of the same river, the Iranians soon remobilized and reclaimed lost ground, although Armenia was briefly lost. The Parthian Empire was at that time under the long 44-year rule of Balaash, known to the Romans as Vologases IV. Marcus Aurelius was the last of the supposedly 5 good emperors in Roman history.

1262 solar years ago, on this day in 757 AD, Hisham I, the 2^nd Omayyad emir of Muslim Spain was born to Abdur-Rahman I and his wife, Halul, a couple of years after his fugitive father, fleeing the persecution of his clan in Syria and Egypt by the Abbasids, arrived in Andalusia, and was welcomed by Syrian commanders. In 788, he became ruler, and faced with threats from France, sent his general Abdul-Malik ibn Abdul-Wahid ibn Mughith across the Pyrenees mountains to defeat Louis the Pious’ Carolingian mentor William of Orange. Despite this victory, the Muslims did not advance further into France as they had done half-a-century earlier, advancing till Poitiers before their historic defeat in 732. In 794, Ibn Mughith suppressed a Basque rebellion and soundly defeated the Christian principality of Asturias in southern France. Hisham died in 796 at the age of 40 after eight years as ruler.

1055 lunar years ago,on this day in 385 AH, famous Islamic historian and bibliographer, Mohammad Ibn Is'haq Ibn an-Nadeem, passed away. He was a follower of the Prophet's Ahl al-Bayt and the author of the famous encyclopedic work "al-Fehrist". In his own words, this work is "an Index of the books of all nations, Arabs and non-Arabs alike, which are extant in the Arabic language and script, on every branch of knowledge; comprising information as to their compilers and the classes of their authors, together with the genealogies of those persons, the dates of their birth, the length of their lives, the times of their death, the places to which they belonged, their merits and their faults, since the beginning of every science that has been invented down to the present epoch: namely, the year 377 of the Hijra." Ibn an-Nadeem's choice of the rather rare Persian word "pehrest" (Arabicized as fehrist/fehris) for the title of his masterpiece on Arabic literature is noteworthy. This work is ample testimony to his knowledge of pre-Islamic, Syriac, Greek, Sanskrit, Latin and Persian books. He gives the titles only of those books which he had seen himself or whose existence was confirmed by a trustworthy person.

588 lunar years ago, on this day in 852 AH, Ottoman Sultan Murad II decisively defeated a united European Christian Crusader army of 100,000 soldiers in the Second Battle of Kosovo, led by the king of Hungary, after three days of fierce fighting. The Crusaders arrived at the Kosovo Field, the same place the famous First Battle of Kosovo had occurred 60 years earlier between the Serbs and Ottomans, and resulted in Turkish domination of the Balkans. In this Second Battle of Kosovo, the 60,000-strong Muslim army completely destroyed the numerically superior Christian army, and five years later ended the existence of the tottering Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire by taking its capital Constantinople and renaming it Islambol (present day Istanbul).

414 solar years ago, on this day in 1605 AD, Europe’s first weekly newspaper titled “Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien” was published in German language by Johann Carolus in the city of Strasbourg, which is currently in France but was then part of Germany’s Holy Roman Empire. It seems the Europeans came up with the idea of a newspaper through their contacts with the Muslim World, especially the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal Empires, in what is now Turkey, Iran and the Subcontinent, where the Waqia-Navis or Newswriter used to release weekly record of various events in the form of Waqianameh or newsletters to keep the court officials and the elite informed.

298 solar years ago, on this day in 1721 AD, a massive earthquake devastated the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz in eastern Azarbaijan Province, killing more than 80,000 people and destroying buildings, including many historical structures. The quake was interpreted as an omen of misfortune, or a demonstration of divine wrath, resulting in economic difficulties at a time when political chaos had gripped the border areas of the Safavid Empire, with Bahrain invaded by Oman, Lizgis in revolt in the Caucasus, and Ghilzai Afghans in rebellion in Qandahar – all due to gross mismanagement from the capital Isfahan. As the Safavid Dynasty collapsed the next year after two centuries and over two decades of glorious rule, the Ottomans invaded and occupied quake devastated Tabriz, while Russia seized Daghestan and advanced into Azarbaijan.

214 solar years ago, on this day in 1805 AD, a regiment of US led a band of Greek and Arab mercenaries against forces of Tripoli to attack and occupy Derne, the capital of the North African province of Cyrenaica, during the First Barbary War which it imposed on the Ottoman lands of Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria. It was the first military expedition of the US abroad and met with mixed results as the Muslims regrouped and defeated the American fleet in the Mediterranean Sea.

153 lunar years ago, on this day in 1287 AH, the great scholar, Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Najafi Isfahani, known as Masjid-Shahi, was born in the holy city of Najaf in Iraq. After attaining the status of Ijtihad, he came to Iran and settled in his ancestral city of Isfahan, where he engaged in teaching. In 1344 AH, on the invitation of Ayatollah Sheikh Abdul-Karim Ha’eri Yazdi, he went to holy Qom to help strengthen the revival of the Islamic seminary, and during his short stay of a year-and-a-half, before returning to Isfahan, he groomed several budding scholars, including the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA). Besides the principles of jurisprudence, Imam Khomeini and other scholars regularly studied under him the Critique of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Imam Khomeini had profound memories of Ayatollah Masjid-Shahi and in his book “Makaseb Muharramah” (Prohibited Professions) has quoted extensively from his teacher’s “Risalah Rawdhat al-Ghina”, which he considers the best work on the critique of music. He has also quoted this respected teacher as authority in his discourse on the terminology of the principles of jurisprudence concerning the sanctioned or lawful things. Ayatollah Masjid-Shahi, who authored some 34 books, was among the teachers who authorized Imam Khomeini to relate hadith as the latter has mentioned in his book “Arba’een” (Collection of Forty Hadith). Among Ayatollah Masjid-Shahi’s books is “Wiqayat al-Adhan”, “Naqd-e Falsafa-e Darwin” and “Amjadiyyah”. He was also an expert in Arabic literature, and a poet himself. He was laid to rest in the Takht-e Fulad Cemetery of Isfahan.

119 solar years ago, on this day in 1900 AD, American seismologist, Charles Francis Richter, was born. He devised the Richter Scale that measures earthquake magnitudes which he developed with his colleague, Beno Gutenberg, in the early 1930s. The scale assigns numerical ratings to the energy released by earthquakes. Richter used a seismograph to record actual earth motion during an earthquake. That is an instrument generally consisting of a constantly unwinding roll of paper, anchored to a fixed place, and a pendulum or magnet suspended with a marking device above the roll. The scale takes into account the instrument's distance from the epicenter. Gutenberg suggested that the scale be logarithmic so, for example, a quake of magnitude 7 would be ten times stronger than a 6.

107 lunar years ago, on this day in 1333 AH, Ayatollah Mullah Mohammad Akhund Kashi, passed away at the age of 84 in Isfahan. A student of famous scholars such as Aqa Mohammad Reza Qomshe'i, Mullah Hassan Nouri, and Mullah Abdul-Jawad Khorasani, he became a prominent teacher and promoter of the philosophy of Mullah Sadra Shirazi. In addition to philosophy, he mastered mathematics, astronomy, jurisprudence, and Gnosis, and is reported to have displayed “karamaat” or supernatural abilities. He groomed several students he became outstanding ulema, such Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Abu’l-Hassan Isfahani, Ayatollah Seyyed Hassan Modarres, and Haj Aqa Rahim Arbab.

93 solar years ago, on this day in 1926 AD, Iran’s first radio transmission and wireless telegraph station became operational. Soon more such stations were set up the same year in Mashhad, Tabriz, Shiraz, Khorramshahr, and Kermanshah. The next year all Iranian cities became connected to the national network.

86 solar years ago, on this day in 1933 AD, the dreaded Gestapo organization was formed in Germany by Nazi Field Marshal, Hermann Goering, one of the senior aides of Adolf Hitler. The term Gestapo means state secret police. The goal was identification, detention, and execution of those who were against Nazism and Hitler. The most infamous head of Gestapo was Heinrich Himmler.

76 solar years ago, on this day in 1943 AD, Kashmiri religious scholar and politician, Mowlavi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari, organizer of the Grand Ashura Procession in Kashmir on the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Husain (AS), was born in Srinagar. He completed his religious education at Sultan al-Madares in Lucknow. In 1962, he succeeded his father Mowlavi Mohammad Jawad Ansari as president of All Jammu and Kashmir Shi’a Muslim Association. He was a sitting member of the Jammu-Kashmir Legislative Assembly as representative of the Jammu-Kashmir People's Democratic Party. He was earlier a member of National Conference and Congress. Ansari was thrice the target of unsuccessful assassination attempts. In June 2000 he barely escaped the explosion of a landmine while addressing a religious congregation at Gund Khwaja Qasim. The blast killed twelve of his followers. On 1 September 2000 Ansari was injured by an IED explosion that killed two policemen and a driver. Police suspected Hizb ul-Mujahideen of carrying out this terrorist attack. Iftikhar Hussain Ansari passed away at the age of 72 in 2014.

55 solar years ago, on this day in 1964 AD, with the forced union of the Muslim populated Zanzibar Island with Tanganyika on the African mainland, following the overthrow of the Sultanate of Zanzibar and Pemba, the Republic of Tanzania was formed. Earlier in 1961 and 1963, the two countries of Zanzibar and Tanganyika had respectively gained independence from British colonial rule. Julius Nyerere who engineered the overthrow and annexation of Zanzibar is called the father of Tanzania, which is a federal republic. It covers an area of almost 950,000 sq km in eastern Africa and lies on the coastlines of the Indian Ocean. It shares borders with Kenya, Kongo, Uganda, Rwanda, Brunei, Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique. Some 50 percent of the people of Tanzania are Muslims, with many following the school of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt.

35 solar years ago, on this day in 1984 AD, a prominent figure of the Islamic Revolution, Hojjat al-Islam Mahdi Shahabadi, attained martyrdom at the warfronts against Saddam’s despotic Ba’th minority regime. Following the completion of his Islamic studies, Martyr Shahabadi actively participated in the struggles against the Shah’s dictatorship. He was incarcerated by the Pahlavi regime on several occasions and was ruthlessly tortured. Following the victory of the Islamic Revolution, he was elected as a lawmaker. With the outbreak of the imposed war, he left for the warfronts to defend the country. He would say: “If martyrdom can safeguard our monotheist system; and if martyrdom can convey our Islamic thoughts to the world; we are prepared for martyrdom.”

34 solar years ago, on this day in 1985 AD, the UN Security Council condemned Iraq’s use of internationally banned chemical weapons against Iran during the war imposed by the US through Saddam, although it did not issue any resolution in this regard, because of pressure of western, eastern and Arab states. The condemnation was made possible in view of Iran’s sending the chemical victims to hospitals in Europe for treatment. 

33 solar years ago, on this day in 1986 AD, in Pripyat in the Soviet Union on the borders of Ukraine and Belarus, one of the four reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded in the world's worst civil nuclear catastrophe. It sent a cloud of radioactive dust over Europe. The cause was an experiment that went wrong, causing the fourth reactor to explode and melt down. Thirty-one people, mostly firemen, were killed immediately after the explosion, and several thousand more - those involved in the clean-up and children - have since died from radiation-related illnesses. Ukraine says the health of millions of its people have been affected by the disaster. The final shutdown of the undamaged last reactor on the site took place ceremoniously on 15 Dec 2000.

30 solar years ago, on this day in 1989 AD, the deadliest tornado in world history struck Central Bangladesh, killing upwards of 1,300, injuring 12,000, and leaving as many as 80,000 homeless.

23 solar years ago, on this day in 1996 AD, the 16-day aggression of the Zionist entity on southern Lebanon, codenamed Grapes of Wrath, ended. During its savage attack from land, air, and sea, Israel destroyed most of the infrastructure of Lebanon as far as Beirut, martyring 180 men, women, and children, and wounding hundreds of others. The goal was to try to demoralize people and weaken the Islamic Resistance. Israel, however, failed miserably and was forced to withdraw on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 425. Four years later, the Zionists and their surrogate forces, the South Lebanese Army, were humiliated by the legendry anti-terrorist movement, Hezbollah, and forced to retreat from the Litani River and almost all of south Lebanon.

AS/SS