Today is Wednesday; 27th of the Iranian month of Shahrivar 1398 solar hijri; corresponding to 18th of the Islamic month of Muharram 1441 lunar hijri; and September 18, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1966 solar years ago, on this day in 53 AD, Roman Emperor Trajan was born in an Italian family in Spain in what was then the city of Italica (now on the outskirts of Seville). In 98, he was declared emperor on the death of his patron, Emperor Nerva. He died in 117 at the age of 64 in Selinus in Cilicia in what is now the southeastern coastal region of Turkey, after a reign of 19 years, while fleeing from the counterattacks of Iran’s Parthian Empire, following his invasion of Mesopotamia (Iraq) and retreat. He pursued an aggressive military policy to expand the Roman Empire, including breaking of 50 years of peace with the Parthian Empire in 110 by attacking Armenia which was a province of the Iranian Empire. After two years, the Iranians liberated Armenia and drove out the Romans. Trajan again invaded Armenia and tried to infiltrate Gilan, and then in 115 he launched a surprise attack on Mesopotamia that saw Roman armies reach for the first time the shores of the Persian Gulf in what is now Kuwait. So elated was Trajan by this unexpected success that in 116 he prematurely sent a laurelled letter to the Senate in Rome, boosting of what he called the conquest of the Parthian Empire. However, as he left the Persian Gulf for Babylon, the Iranians led by Sanatrukes, the nephew of their Emperor, Osroes I, imperiled Roman positions in both Mesopotamia and Armenia, forcing Trajan to withdraw his troops that had penetrated Khuzestan. Although Sanatrukes was killed in the battle that the Iranians lost at Seleucia and their capital Ctesiphon (Mada’en near modern Baghdad) was temporarily occupied by the Romans, Trajan's deteriorating health started to fail him. Following the heat stroke he suffered during the unsuccessful Roman attempt to capture the fortress city of Hatra on the Tigris near Mosul in what was then the Iranian province of Khavaran, and coupled with the renewed uprising of the people of Mesopotamia, Trajan was forced to retreat. His claim of being the conqueror of Parthian Empire turned out to be hollow as he succumbed to his worsening health.

963 lunar years ago, on this day in 478 AH, the Iranian Shafe’i scholar, Abdul-Malik Ibn Abdullah Ibn Yusuf al-Juwaini, died in his hometown Naishabur, Khorasan. Known as Imam al-Haramain, because of his four years of teaching in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, he was the teacher of the famous Iranian Sufi theologian, Shaikh Abu Hamed Ghazali.

491 solar years ago, on this day in 1528 AD, the Iranian historian, Ghiyas od-Din Mohammad Khwandamir, arrived from his hometown Herat in Khorasan at the court of India’s First Mughal Emperor, Zaheer od-Din Mohammad Babar, in Agra. He was the maternal grandson of the famous Iranian historian of the Timurid era, Mir-Khwand, and completed volumes 7th and 8th of his grandfather’s monumental universal history “Rawzat as-Safa” (Garden of Purity). Years earlier in his native Herat, Khwandamir had authored his own valuable historical work “Habeeb os-Siyar” in several volumes on the instructions of the famous Timurid minister and scholar Ali-Shir Navaei. He died in India and during the reign of the 2nd Mughal Emperor, Humayun Shah, wrote another valuable Persian work titled “Qanoun-e Humayuni” on rules and observances.

465 solar years ago, on this day in 1554 AD, Haydar Ali Mirza, who declared himself the 3rd Shah of the Safavid Empire of Iran, was born. In 1576, immediately after the death of his father Shah Tahmasp I, who ruled for a record 54 years, he ascended the throne in Qazvin, but was soon killed because of dissension among the powerful Qizilbash clans. Although he had the support of the Ustalju and Shaykhavand clans, as well as the Georgians (his mother was a Georgian lady), the Rumlu, Afshar, and the Qajar clans favored his imprisoned brother 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.

309 solar years ago, on this day in 1709 AD, the creator of the first dictionary of the English language, Samuel Johnson, was born in England. He made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. After nine years of efforts, his work titled “A Dictionary of the English Language” was published in 1755. It had a far-reaching effect on modern English, and until the completion of the “Oxford English Dictionary”150 years later, Johnson's was viewed as the pre-eminent English dictionary.

280 solar years ago, on this day in 1739 AD, the Ottoman and the Austrian Empires signed a peace treaty according to which Belgrade was returned to the Turks after 22 years of occupation. Turkish Muslims who had first liberated Belgrade in 1521 had built it as an Islamic city, complete with baths, public fountains, libraries, mosques, and bazaars. The city was occupied by the Serbs in 1807 and became capital of Serbia in 1841. The Christians have erased much of the Islamic features of Belgrade. 

260 solar years ago, on this day in 1759 AD, Quebec in Canada, surrendered to the British after a battle which saw the deaths of both James Wolfe and Louis Montcalm, the British and French commanders. The people of Quebec still speak French and resent the domination of the English speakers. Separatist tendencies are rife in this Canadian province.

236 solar years ago, on this day in 1783 AD, Swiss mathematician and physicist Leonhard Euler died at the age of 76. He made important discoveries in fields as diverse as infinitesimal calculus and graph theory. He also introduced much of the modern mathematical terminology and notation. He is also renowned for his work in mechanics, fluid dynamics, optics, astronomy, and music theory. Euler is considered to be the preeminent mathematician of the 18th century and one of the greatest mathematicians to have ever lived. At age 28, he blinded one eye by staring at the sun while working to invent a new way of measuring time. He spent most of his adult life in St. Petersburg, Russia, and in Berlin, then the capital of Prussia.

209 solar years ago, on this day in 1810 AD, the first Government Junta took power in Chile. Though supposed to rule only in the absence of the king, it was in fact the first step towards independence from Spain, and is commemorated as such. Spain conquered and colonized Chile in the mid-16th century, replacing Inca rule in northern and central Chile, but failing to conquer the independent Mapuche that inhabited south-central Chile. After declaring its independence from Spain in 1818, Chile emerged in the 1830s as a relatively stable authoritarian republic. In the 19th century, it saw significant economic and territorial growth, ending Mapuche resistance in the 1880s and gaining its current northern territory in the War of the Pacific (1879–83) after defeating Peru and Bolivia. In the 1960s and 1970s the country experienced severe left-right political polarization and turmoil. This development culminated with the 1973 Chilean coup d'état that overthrew Salvador Allende's democratically-elected government and instituted a 16-year-long right-wing military dictatorship that left thousands of people dead or missing. The regime, headed by Augusto Pinochet, ended in 1990 after it lost a referendum in 1988 and was succeeded by a center-left coalition which ruled through four presidencies until 2010. Chile is today one of South America's most stable and prosperous nations.

148 lunar years ago, on this day in 1293 AH, the Islamic scholar, Haydar Qoli Khan Afghani, known as Sardar Kabuli, was born in Kabul. He travelled to Iran and Iraq to attend the classes of the leading ulema, and among his teachers in holy Najaf was the authority on Hadith, Ayatollah Mohaddith Mirza Hussain Noori. Besides his native Persian, Sardar Kabuli also mastered Arabic, Urdu, English and Hebrew languages, and became an authority in logic, mathematics, astronomy, history, geography, jurisprudence, hadith and Arabic literature. He obtained the “ijaza” or permission to relate hadith from prominent authorities in this field such as Mohaddith Shaikh Abbas Qomi, Ayatollah Seyyed Hasan Sadr, and Ayatollah Shaikh Aqa Bozorg Tehrani. He settled in Kermanshah in western Iran where he enlightened people with the teachings of the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). He wrote a valuable book on the virtues of the Prophet’s 1st Infallible Heir, Imam Ali (AS). He translated into Persian, the famous book “al-Muraja’at”, on exchange of letters between Allamah Seyyed Abdul-Hussain Sharaf od-Din of Lebanon and Dean of Egypt’s al-Azhar Academy, Shaikh Saleem al-Bishri. He gave it the title “Monazeraat”. He also translated from the Hebrew the “Gospel of Barnabas”. Sardar Kabuli passed away at the age of 79 and was laid to rest in the holy shrine of Imam Ali (AS) in Najaf.

135 lunar years ago, on this day in 1306 AH, the prominent Gnostic and philosopher, Hakeem Mohammad Reza Sahba Qomshei, passed away in Tehran at the age of 65 and was laid to rest in the mausoleum of famous scholar, Shaikh Sadouq ibn Babawaih Qomi in Rayy. Born in the town of Shahreza (Qomshe) he was a product of the seminary of nearby Isfahan, where after mastering Islamic sciences, he groomed several students who later became scholars in their own right. He was an authority on the works and commentaries of such great philosophers as the Spanish Sheikh Mohy od-Din Ibn al-Arabi and Mullah Sadra of Shiraz. It could be said that his shifting from Isfahan to Tehran, transferred the gnostic and philosophical heritage of the former capital of Iran to the current capital. He wrote several books and treatises, and was an excellent poet as well.

132 lunar years ago, on this day in 1309 AH, the prominent jurisprudent, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Khwansari, was born. At the age of 20 he left for Iraq to study at the famous seminary of holy Najaf, where his teachers were Ayatollah Mohaqqeq Khorasani, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Kazem Yazdi, Ayatollah Shaikh as-Shari’a Isfahani, and Ayatollah Mirza Hussain Na’ini. On his return to Iran, he taught at the seminary in Arak, and assisted Grand Ayatollah Shaikh Abdul-Karim Ha’eri Yazdi in re-establishing the seminary in holy Qom. He was prayer leader of the Faiziyyeh religious school, and later shifted to Tehran where he led the prayers at the Seyyed Azizollah Mosque, until the last years of his life.

118 lunar years ago, on this day in 1323 AH, the prominent Iranian religious scholar, Ayatollah Shaikh Mohammad Hassan Mamaqani, passed away. He lived a life of piety, having attained the status of Ijtehad – or independent reasoning based on the Holy Qur’an and Prophet’s Hadith. He has left behind a large number of valuable compilations in jurisprudence, including “Zara'eq al-Ahkaam” and "Mujalladaat al-Bashari". He has also written an annotation on the famous jurisprudential book "al-Makaseb" of Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Morteza Ansari Dezfuli.

88 solar years ago, on this day in 1931 AD, Manchuria in northeast China was occupied by the Japanese army, which installed the puppet Manchukuo regime. Following its defeat in World War 2, Japan was forced to evacuate the more than a million square km of Chinese territory it had occupied.

58 solar years ago, on this day in 1961 AD, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld of Sweden died in a plane crash while attempting to negotiate peace in the war-torn Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the age of 56. He served two terms as the UN Chief and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

39 lunar years ago, on this day in 1402 AH, the great philosopher and famous exegete of the holy Qur’an, Ayatollah Allamah Seyyed Mohammad Hussain Tabatabaei, passed away at the age of 82, and was laid to rest in the mausoleum of Hazrat Ma’sumah (SA) in Qom. He was born in an academic and religious family in the city of Tabriz, northwestern Iran. His previous 14 ancestors were well-known scholars of Tabriz. Following completion of preliminary studies, he learned Islamic sciences and Arabic language, and after studying in holy Najaf, Iraq, where he attained the rank of Ijtehad, he returned to Iran and taught at Islamic seminaries. He studied under well-known scholars in Najaf, such as Ayatollah Mohammad Hussain Na'ini, Ayatollah Mohammad Hussain Gharawi Isfahani, Ayatollah Seyyed Abu’l-Hassan Jilwa, and the famous gnostic, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Qazi Tabatabaie. He was an innovative philosopher, an expert mathematician, and an active farmer, in addition to being an Islamic Gnostic. He was also well versed in literature and theology and steeped in spiritual values. He wrote several works in philosophy and Islamic sciences, including “The Principles of Philosophy and the Method of Realism” and the famous 20-volume exegesis in Arabic titled “al-Mizan fi Tafsir al-Qur’an”, which has been translated into English language as well. His sessions with French philosopher, Henry Corbin, were held every autumn for 20 years, from 1959-to-1979, in the presence of other scholars and seminarians. Vital issues about religion, philosophy, and also the challenges of the present world for those who seek truth and spirituality were discussed. The result was the writing of an interesting book by the Allamah titled “Musahibat ba Ostad Qorban” (Dialogues with Professor Corbin). His students include such famous personalities as Martyr Ayatollah Morteza Motahhari, Martyr Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Hussaini Beheshti, Martyr Ayatollah Ali Qoddousi, Martyr Ayatollah Mohammad Mufatteh, Imam Seyyed Musa as-Sadr, Ayatollah Abdullah Jawadi Amoli, Ayatollah Hassan Hassanzadeh Amoli, Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi, Ayatollah Ja’far Sobhani, Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi, Ayatollah Ibrahim Amini, and Grand Ayatollah Hussain Noori Hamedani.

38 solar years ago, on this day in 1981 AD, the city of Susangerd and its surrounding areas in southwestern Iran, were liberated by Iran’s Muslim combatants from Ba’thist occupation. Some 750 Ba’thist occupation soldiers were either killed or injured, while 40 tanks and personnel carriers of the enemy were destroyed. Several tanks and personnel carriers and a large amount of ammunition and communication equipment were captured by the Iranian soldiers.

37 solar years ago, on this day in 1982 AD, Lebanon’s Phalangist Christian militia mercilessly slaughtered at least 600 Palestinians in southern Lebanon during the civil war, as part of the US-Israeli plan to weaken and terrorize Muslims.

AS/SS