Today is Sunday; 19th of the Iranian month of Khordad 1398 solar hijri; corresponding to 5th of the Islamic month of Shawwal 1440 lunar hijri; and June 9, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1951 solar years ago, on this day in 68 AD, the deceitful, cruel and bloodthirsty Roman Emperor, Nero, to evade a Senate-imposed death by flogging, committed suicide at the age of 31 by imploring his secretary Epaphroditos to slit his throat. Thus ended the 14-year reign of terror during which Nero tortured to death the monotheistic followers of Prophet Jesus (AS), killed his own mother Agrippina who had secured the throne for him through treachery, and torched the entire city of Rome while sadistically enjoying the sight of its burning from a hill. His widowed mother had married her own uncle Emperor Claudius and forced him to adopt Nero as son. Nero poisoned the emperor to death and on seizing the throne got rid by fatally poisoning the emperor’s teenaged son Britannicus. He eliminated all possible rivals, killed his wives at pleasure, and ordered the death of his own mother. In foreign policy, unable to face the might of Iran’s Parthian Empire, after hostilities in Armenia, he concluded peace. His death made the people joyous.

1404 lunar years ago, on this day in 36 AH, the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS), started from his capital Kufa in Iraq towards Syria with a force of 90,000 to meet the threats of the rebellious governor, Mua'wiyyah ibn Abu Sufyan. The result was the protracted War of Siffeen in the place of the same name, in the vicinity of Aleppo near Reqqa that exposed the hypocrisy of the Omayyads and proved the righteousness of the Imam as the First Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).

1389 solar years ago, on this day in 630 AD, the victorious Iranian general Farrokhan titled “Shahrbaraz”, who had seized power as the 25^th Sassanid Emperor, was killed. “Shahrbaraz” means Boar of the Empire, since the boar was the animal associated with the Zoroastrian Izad Vahram (epitome of victory). Appointed “Iran Sepahbod” (or Commander of the Army of Iran) by Emperor Khosrow II (Pervez), he swept through Syria taking Damascus and Jerusalem from the Byzantine Empire in 613 and 614 respectively, before marching towards the capital Constantinople. However, when Heraclius assumed power as the new Byzantine Emperor and pushed back the Persians from Anatolia (modern Turkey) in the 620s, mutual suspicion arose between Khosrow and Shahrbaraz. Byzantine agents showed Shahrbaraz letters indicating that Khosrow was planning his execution. This kept one of the main Persian armies and its best general neutral during this crucial period, speeding the end of the long war and Byzantine victory. Following the Persian surrender, Shahrbaraz was heavily involved in the intrigues of the Sassanid court. On April 27, 630, he killed Emperor Ardashir III and seized power. He made peace with Heraclius and returned to him the relics of Jerusalem. In April 630 he failed to deal with the invasion of Armenia by a Khazar-Gokturk force under Chorpan Tarkhan. He was slain by the nobles and replaced by his wife – Khosrow’s daughter – Purandokht, as Empress of the rapidly declining Sassanid Empire, which six years later would be overrun by Arab Muslim armies.

1298 solar years ago, on this day in 721 AD, the Arab army suffered a setback at the Battle of Toulouse in southern France against Odo of Aquitaine. Faulty planning by the Omayyad governor of Spain, Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani, made the huge Muslim force immobile against the lightly armed Christians. However, this did not end the Muslim march into Europe that continued as far as north-western France for another decade until the decisive defeat at the Battle of Tours.

347 solar years ago, on this day in 1672 AD, Tsar Peter the Great of Russia was born to Tsar Alexis. He was crowned at the age of 10, but was soon dethroned by his half-sister Sophia and banished to a village in the vicinity of Moscow. After a while, he gathered a large number of troops and confronted his sister, winning the battle as well as the crown. He was an expansionist and waged wars on neighbouring states to enlarge the Russian Empire. To the south, he sought an outlet to the Black Sea which was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Peter entered into an agreement with Poland to acquire Kiev in Ukraine, so as to use it as a base for launching attacks on the Tartar Muslims of the Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea. Peter's primary objective became the capture of the Ottoman fortress of Azov, near the Don River. In the summer of 1695 he organized the Azov campaigns to take the fortress, but his attempts ended in failure. Peter returned to Moscow in November of that year and began building a large navy. He launched about thirty ships against the Ottomans in 1696, capturing Azov in July of that year. He soon realized that he cannot defeat the Ottomans alone, and travelled to Europe to seek alliances against the Turks, but to his dismay, found France and Austria, reluctant to start hostilities with the Ottomans. In the end he made peace with the Ottomans to keep control of Azov, and died in 1725 without succeeding in his expansionist goals of pushing into the Caucasus against the Turkish and Iranian territories. In 1703 he founded the city of Saint Petersburg on the estuary of Neva River flowing into the Baltic Sea, a fortnight after he had captured it during the Great Northern War what was then the Swedish fortress of Nyenskans in the land called Ingermanland inhabited by the Finnic tribe of Ingrians. Peter moved the capital from Moscow to St Petersburg in 1712. Between 1713-to-1728 and from 1732-to-1918, St Petersburg was capital of Russia, until Vladimir Lenin replaced it with Moscow.

245 solar years ago, on this day in 1774 AD, Austrian orientalist, Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, was born in Graz. He mastered Arabic, Persian and Turkish, and on entering the diplomatic service in 1796, was appointed in 1799 to a position in the Austrian embassy in Constantinople. For fifty years Hammer-Purgstall wrote prolifically on the most diverse subjects and published numerous texts and translations of Arabic, Persian and Turkish authors. By traversing so large a field, he laid himself open to the criticism of specialists, and he was severely handled by Friedrich Christian Diez who, in his “Unfug und Betrug” (1815), devoted to him nearly 600 pages of abuse. He also came into conflict on the subject of the origin of “The Thousand and One Nights” with his English contemporary Edward William Lane. The Austrian Oriental Society, founded in 1959 to foster cultural relations with the Near East, is formally named “Österreichische Orient-Gesellschaft Hammer-Purgstall” in recognition of Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall's accomplishments. He wrote several books including an English language translation (1834) of the first two volumes of Ottoman scholar Avliya Chelebi's travelogue titled “Siyahat-Nameh”.

204 solar years ago, on this day in 1815 AD, the Vienna Congress, attended by European kings and ministers, drew to its close. Commenced in September 1814, following the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte, it restored to power the dynasties overthrown by the French Emperor. It redrew the new political map of Europe that saw Belgium annexed by the Netherlands and Norway annexed by Sweden, while Poland was divided among Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Prussia also annexed many of the German states, while Italy remained divided into several small states. Several French colonies abroad were handed to Britain.

149 solar years ago, on this day in 1870 AD, the English author and novelist, Charles Dickens, died at the age of 58. He was the founder of Realism Style in English literature. His books include "Oliver Twist" and "David Copperfield" which brought him world fame. Among his other famous novels, mention can be made of "Great Expectations" and "The Tale of Two Cities". Dickens who was editor of “Bentley’s Miscellany” a general interest monthly magazine, from January 1837 to 1839, paid tribute to the Martyr of Karbala in it, by writing: “If Husain had fought to quench his worldly desires…then I do not understand why his sister, wife, and children accompanied him. It stands to reason therefore, that he sacrificed purely for Islam.”

135 solar years ago, on this day in 1884 AD, Germany forced Togo in West Africa to become its protectorate by signing a treaty with King Mlapa III. In 1905, this former slave trade centre for European merchants was declared the German colony of Togoland. During World War I it was invaded by British troops from the neighbouring Gold Coast or today’s Ghana and French troops from Dahomey, which is now the republic of Benin. As a result, Togoland was separated into two League of Nations mandates administered by Britain and France. After World War II, these mandates became UN Trust Territories. In 1957, the residents of British Togoland voted to join the Gold Coast as part of the new independent nation of Ghana in 1957, while in 1959, French Togoland became an autonomous republic within the French Union. The next year it was declared the Togolese Republic. It has a coastline on the Gulf of Guinea and shares borders with Benin, Ghana, and Burkina Faso. Some 25 percent of its people are Muslims.

126 lunar years ago, on this day in 1314 AH, pan-Islamist thinker and pioneer of the anti-colonial struggles, Seyyed Jamal od-Din Asadabadi, attained martyrdom in Istanbul at the age of 59; being poisoned on the orders of the Ottoman Sultan, Abdul-Hamid II. Born in Asadabad near the western Iranian city of Hamedan, he honed his skills in religion, philosophy, astronomy, and history. Well-versed in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, English, French, and Russian languages, he strove for Islamic solidarity and strongly opposed colonialists. At the age of 17, he started his travels abroad, first studying theology in Iraq, and then visiting India at a crucial period in its history – shortly after the British had crushed the Uprising by massacring Muslims and exiling to Burma, the last king of the once mighty Timurid Moghal Empire, Bahador Shah Zafar, a year after they overthrew Wajed Ali Shah of the Naishapuri kingdom of Iranian origin of Awadh. The young Jamal od-Din was profoundly affected by the events, and lived for several years in the semi-independent Muslim state of Haiderabad-Deccan under patronage of its famous prime minister, Salar Jung Mokhtar ol-Mulk. Here he countered through pamphlets and treatises the “naturist” views of the pro-British Sir Seyyed Ahmad Khan, the founder of the Anglo-Mohammadan College that later became Aligarh Muslim University. These were published in book form in Haiderabad under the title “Haqiqat-e Madhhab-e Naychari wa Bayan-e Hal-e Naychariyan” (Truth about the Nature Sect and an Explanation of Naturists). After a brief detention in Calcutta, he had to leave India under pressure from the British, and after performing the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, he returned to Iran. A few years later he left for Afghanistan to serve as advisor to Amir Dost Mohammad Khan. Expelled from Kabul by the next ruler, Sher Ali Khan, he went to Egypt, where until his expulsion eight years later, he won several admirers and students – including Shaikh Mohammad Abduh, who wrote a commentary on the “Nahj al-Balagha” (Collection of Imam Ali’s [AS] sermons, letters and maxims). Forced to leave Egypt, he went to Istanbul, from where he travelled around Europe, visiting Paris, London, Munich, Moscow and St. Petersburg. From France, he published the daily “al-Orwat al-Wosqa” and from Britain “Zia al-Khafeqin” to awaken the Muslims. He was invited back to Iran by Nasser od-Din Shah Qajar to serve as political advisor, but soon fell out with the autocratic king and took refuge in the holy shrine of Seyyed Abdul-Azim al-Hassani, before being expelled seven months later to Iraq. He informed the leading marja’ of the time, Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi of the ruin brought on Iranian economy by granting of the tobacco concession to the British. The Ayatollah’s fatwa against tobacco consumption saved Iran. Seyyed Jamal od-Din was invited by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Hamid to Istanbul, where several of his disciples visited him, including Mirza Reza Kirmani, who was to assassinate Nasser od-Din Shah. Jamal od-Din Asadabadi eventually fell out with the Ottoman Sultan and was poisoned to death. His reformist and pan-Islamist ideas were opposed by colonial powers and the repressive Muslim regimes. Among his works is “ar-Radd ala ad-Dahriyyiin” (Refutation of the Materialists), in answer to Darwin's absurd theory of evolution titled “On the Origin of Species”. Seyyed Jamal od-Din Asadabadi, who at times called himself ‘Afghani’ in order to conceal his Iranian and Shi’a Muslim identity, profoundly impacted many thinkers of his age and the subsequent generations. Among these were the famous Persian-Urdu poet Mohammad Iqbal Lahori, Mohammad Ali Jinnah (Founder of Pakistan), and prominent Indian Muslim educationist, Abu’l Kalaam Azad. In Egypt, besides Abduh, he deeply influenced Rashid Redha, and Ali Abdur-Razeq, while in Turkey: Namik Kemal, Said Nursi and others. The Constitutional Movement that triumphed in Iran was also influenced by him.

57 solar years ago, on this day in 1962 AD, the University of Algiers in the Algerian capital was set ablaze by French agents, as a result of which 500,000 volumes of books were destroyed. The majority of burnt books were important and unique reference works.

52 solar years ago, on this day in 1967 AD, during the 6-day war, the usurper state of Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria, and later illegally annexed it. Despite several UN Security Council Resolutions, the illegal Zionist entity, with the backing of the US, has refused to withdraw from occupied Syrian territory.

51 solar years ago, on this day in 1968 AD, the prominent Islamic scholar and mystic, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Hassan Elahi Tabatabai, passed away at the age of 62. Born in Tabriz, northwestern Iran, he left for holy Najaf in Iraq at the age of 19 for higher Islamic studies. After attaining Ijtihad he returned to his hometown, Tabriz, and started teaching. Among his valuable works is “A Treatise on the Science of Music and Spiritual Relations with Sounds”.

8 solar years ago, on this day in 2011, the famous Indian artist and painter Maqboul Fida Hussain, died in self-exile in Qatar at the age of 96. Born into a family of Bohras of the Sulaymani Ismaili Shi'ite sect, he is considered the Picasso of India and was forced to leave his homeland because of threats against his life by Hindu extremists.

AS/SS