Today is Tuesday; 24th of the Iranian month of Ordibehesht 1398 solar hijri; corresponding to 8th of the Islamic month of Ramadhan 1440 lunar hijri; and May 14, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1009 lunar years ago, on this day in 431 AH, Mohammad Ibn Mikaeel Ibn Seljuq, known as Toghril Beg, won the Battle of Dandanaqan, and seized Khorasan from the Ghaznavid Empire, thereby heralding the rise of the Seljuq Turks of Central Asia as a new power in Iran, and eventually Anatolia (Turkey), Syria, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf coastline of the Arabian Peninsula. Highly Persianized in culture and language, the Seljuqs who ruled for over a century-and-a-half, played an important role in the development of the Turko-Persian tradition, even exporting Persian culture to Anatolia.

985 lunar years ago, on this day in 455 AH, the Seljuqid ruler, Mohammad ibn Mikaeel ibn Seljuq, popular as Toghril Beg, died at the age of 75 in Rayy, south of Tehran, where his grave in a conical mausoleum still stands. He established the vast Seljuqid Empire, by seizing Khorasan from the Ghaznavids and subsequently occupying Baghdad on the secret invitation of the scheming Abbasid caliph, al-Qa’em-Billah, to end the 110-year rule of the Iranian Buwaihid Dynasty of Iraq-Iran. To legitimize his rule and expand his empire, he forced the figurehead Abbasid caliph to give him his daughter in marriage, and to sign decrees for wars against the Byzantine Christian Empire in Anatolia and the Syrian territories of the Fatemid Ismaili Shi’ite Muslim caliphate of Egypt-Syria-Hijaz-North Africa. Born in Central Asia in what is now Kazakhstan to the chief of the Oghuz, he strove to unite the Turkic tribes of the vast Eurasian Steppes into a confederacy. Along with his elder brother, Chaghri Beg, he rose to prominence in the service of the Khaqan of the Qara-Khanid Dynasty of Bukhara that had displaced the Iranian Samanid Dynasty in Central Asia. He turned against the Qara-Khanids and in 1040 defeated the Ghaznavids of Khorasan-Afghanistan at the Battle of Dandanqanan. His hordes gradually swept across the Iranian Plateau before marching into Anatolia and Iraq. In 1058, he lost Baghdad to the Fatemids but recaptured it two years later. On his death in Rayy at the age of 73 the childless Toghril was succeeded after a brief struggle between the two sons of his deceased brother, Chaghri, by his surviving nephew Alp Arsalan – perhaps the greatest ruler of the Seljuq Dynasty. The Seljuqs who ruled for over a century-and-a-half, became Persianized and played a vital role in the development and spread of the Persian language and culture in Anatolia, where a branch of them ruled until 1307 as the Seljuq Sultanate of Roum.

765 lunar years ago, on this day in 675 AH, Najm od-Din Ali Dabiraan Qazvini al-Katebi, the prominent Iranian astronomer, philosopher, logician, theologian and chemist, passed away. He was part of the scientific team assembled by his teacher, Iranian-Islamic genius Khwaja Nasir od-Din Tousi, at the famous observatory of Maragha, and wrote numerous books on various topics, including “Jame’ ad-Daqa’eq”. His work on logic, titled “ar-Risala ash-Shamsiyya”, was commonly used as the first major text on logic in madrasahs, until the twentieth century and is perhaps the most studied logic textbook of all time. His logic was largely inspired by the formal Avicennian system of temporal modal logic of the famous Iranian-Islamic polymath Abu Ali Ibn Sina, but is more elaborate and departs from it in several ways. While Ibn Sina considered ten modalities and examined six of them, Katebi considers many more modalized propositions and examines thirteen which he considers 'customary to investigate'.  Great scholars such as Allamah Hilli and Qotb od- Din Mahmoud Shirazi studied in his presence.

444 solar years ago, on this day in 1575 AD, the Portuguese occupied Angola in southwest Africa which was part of the African Empire of Guinea. For four centuries they looted the natural resources and oppressed the black people, until the independence movement forced them to leave in 1975. Angola covers an area of more than 1.2 million square km, and shares borders with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, and Namibia. Its capital is Luanda.

438 solar years ago, on this day in 1576 AD, Haidar Ali Mirza, declared himself the 3^rd emperor of the Safavid Dynasty of Iran in Qazvin, immediately after his father Shah Tahmasp I died after a reign of 54 years. He was, however, killed during the same day because of dissension among the powerful Qizilbash clans, some of whom favoured his imprisoned brother Ismail Mirza as the next Shah. Born in 1554, he was attached to his father and had the support of the Ustalju and Shaykhavand clans, as well as the Georgians, since his mother was a Georgian lady. The Rumlu, Afshar, and Qajar clans, however, favored Ismail Mirza, who twenty years earlier had been incarcerated in the Qahqaheh fortress for plotting to seize the throne from his father. Ismail was brought out and declared the Shah. It was a fatal mistake for which his supporters paid dearly, since Ismail II, known in Iranian history as “murtad” or the apostate, indulged in fratricide and killing of the Qizilbash chiefs, until he was killed himself after only 15-months as ruler and replaced by his ailing brother Khodabandah –  the father of Shah Abbas the Great. Haydar’s tutor was the great scholar, Mir Mohammad Momin Astarabadi who sensing the gravity of the situation left Iran for the holy cities of Iraq and thence to the Deccan in southern India, where he became Prime Minister of the Qotb-Shahi Dynasty of Iranian origin of Golkandah and helped found the city of Haiderabad.

223 solar years ago, on this day in 1796 AD, Edward Jenner administered the first smallpox inoculation to the eight-year-old James Phipps, the son of his gardener, with material from the sores of dairymaid Sarah Nelmes who had a mild case of cowpox. A few weeks later, on July 1, he subsequently tested the boy's resistance, and fortunately, the immunization was successful. This tested a conventional wisdom he had heard that those who had survived cowpox seemed to be immune to the deadly smallpox disease. By 1798 he had 23 cases, which he recorded in “An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae”. Jenner's work was rapidly taken up in Europe and America.

208 solar years ago, on this day in 1811 AD, Paraguay in South America gained independence from Spanish rule and became a republic. Ever since it has seen autocratic regimes rise and fall in coups and countercoups. In 1989, for the first time free presidential elections were held. Landlocked Paraguay shares borders with Bolivia, Brazil, and Argentina. Its capital is Asuncion.

152 solar years ago, on this day in 1867 AD, the French orientalist, Joseph Reinaud, died at the age of 74. He was an expert in Arabic language and literature, and used to lecture on this subject. He wrote a valuable research on the Muslim Arab invasions of France, in addition to the history of the crusades. He also edited and in part translated the History of Abu’l-Fida into French. To him goes the credit of a useful edition of the interesting records of early Arab interaction with China following the advent of Islam.

140 solar years ago, in 1879 AD, the first group of 463 Indian indentured labourers arrived in Fiji. Today Indians comprise around 38 percent of this Pacific Archipelago's population of around 900,000, of whom some 10 percent are Muslims. The indentured labour system started in 1826 and continued till 1920, with tens of thousands of Indians transported to various colonies of European powers to provide cheap labour for the plantations in diverse places such as the French Indian Ocean islands of Reunion and Mauritius, the British colonies of West Indies in the Caribbean Sea, South Africa, and Dutch-controlled Surinam. The contract was for five years, renewable for further five year terms, with pay of eight rupees per month and rations provided. This was actually bonded labour and the Indians were seldom repatriated as per the contracts, whose terms were rarely met by the greedy colonialists. They settled in the lands where they went for work, and this explains the millions of people of ethnic Indian origin living in the countries of the Caribbean Basin, Fiji, South Africa, and other places.

112 solar years ago, on this day 1907 AD, Ayub Khan, Pakistan’s second president, was born in British India in Rehana village in the Hazara region of the North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa). An ethnic Pashtun of the Tareen tribe, from 1958 to 1969, he was the first of a long line of military rulers. A product of Britain's Sandhurst military academy, he saw action during World War 2. After independence he served the Pakistan army. On seizure of power he styled himself field-marshal. He died in 1974.

71 solar years ago, on this day in 1948 AD, the most scandalous event of the 20^thcentury occurred with the illegitimate birth in Palestine of the Zionist entity called Israel. Prior to seizing power, the illegal Zionist migrants of Europe had resorted to all sorts of racist and terrorist acts against the sons of the soil, with British connivance to drive into exile some 700,000 Palestinian Muslims and Christians on this day. Since then, the Zionist entity has imposed several wars on Arab states and seized their territory, in addition to terrorizing Palestinians and denying them their birthrights. With the help of the US, Britain, and France, Israel has acquired a nuclear arsenal of atomic warheads, and indulges in almost daily threats of attacking the Islamic Republic of Iran. Today, Palestinians and Muslims throughout the world hold rallies to show their determination for liberation of the Islamic land from the clutches of the European Jews and the eventual end of Israel.

64 solar years ago, on this day in 1955 AD, the Warsaw Pact was signed by eight East European communist countries in the Polish Capital, Warsaw, as part of the strategy to counter the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, (NATO). The signatories were Poland, Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, East Germany, and Romania. These countries pledged to refrain from threats and force in their relations and to defend any member state in case of attack. With the end of Cold War, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved in 1991, but unfortunately the US and West European powers have not disbanded NATO but expanded it as part of their hegemonic policy to terrorize the world.

46 solar years ago, on this day in 1973 AD, scholar and poet, Hakim Ilahi Qomshei, passed away at the age of 72. A product of the Isfahan seminary, he was an expert in the field of jurisprudence, philosophy, literature, and logic. He lectured at Tehran University where he completed his doctorate by writing the thesis “Towhid-e Hoshmandan”, or Monotheism of the Intellectuals. As a master of Persian prose and a style, his works, interspersed with the verses of classical Persian poets, convey philosophical and religious texts for the common man in a fluent and easy-to-understand language. He translated the holy Qur’an into modern Persian, and undertook a free translation of the prayer manual “Mafatih al-Jenaan” and the “Sahifat-as-Sajjadiyah”– the collection of supplications of Imam Zain al-Abedin (AS). He has also left behind a divan of Persian poetry.

35 solar years ago, on this day in 1984 AD, Iranian researcher, poet, and author, Habib Yaghmaai, passed away at the age of 83. He was an authority on Persian Literature and Islamic studies. He published the magazine “Yaghma” as of 1948 for a period of 31 years. He was a poet as well, and has left behind a large number of books, including commentaries on the works of the celebrated Persian poet, Shaikh Sa’di of Shiraz.

34 solar years ago, on this day in 1985 AD, Seyyed Ali Naqi Faiz ol-Islam passed away at the age of 80. He translated into modern Persian along with valuable notes and explanations the famous book “Nahj al-Balagha” which is a collection of the Letters, Sermons and Aphorisms of the Commander of the Faithful Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS).

23 solar years ago, on this day in 1996 AD, the Mashhad-Sarakhs-Tajan railway was launched, as part of the historical Silk Road, connecting the landlocked Central Asian states with the outside world, through Iran, thereby giving boost to the region's economy.

AS/SS