Today is Sunday 31st of the Iranian month of Shahrivar 1398 solar hijri; corresponding to the 22nd of the Islamic month of Muharram 1441 lunar hijri; and September 22, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1087 lunar years ago, on this day in 354 AH, prominent Muslim scientist and polymath, Abu Ali Hassan Ibn al-Haytham – Latinized by medieval Europe to Alhazen – was born in Basra in the Iraqi province of the Persian Buwayhid Empire. He made vital contributions to the principles of optics, as well as to medicine, physics, astronomy, mathematics, visual perception, ophthalmology, philosophy, and various other sciences, and is the inventor of the telescope. He wrote insightful commentaries on the works of Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Euclid. Ibn al-Haytham was active in both Basra and Baghdad and after visiting Islamic Spain he settled in Fatemid Egypt where he died at the age of 77 in Cairo. He was a follower of the school of the Ahl al-Bayt, and was associated with the famous academy of al-Azhar, which derives its name from the “az-Zahra” (The Radiant), the epithet of Hazrat Fatema (SA), the noble daughter of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). In Egypt he took up the project of controlling the floods of the Nile. He is said to have written over 200 books and treatises, the most famous of which is “Kitab al-Manazer” on Optics that was extensively used by later European scholars such as Roger Bacon and Johannes Keppler. Among his works, mention could be made of the Configuration of the World, On the Form of Eclipse, On the Milky Way, The Model of the Motions of Each of the Seven Planets, and Treatise on the Influence of Melodies on the Souls of Animals. Among his students were Sorkhab, an Iranian scientist from Semnan and Mubashir Ibn Fatek, an Egyptian.

980 lunar years ago, on this day in 460 AH, famous scholar and Founder of the Islamic Seminary of holy Najaf, Abu Ja'far Mohammad Ibn Hassan Tousi, popular as Shaikh at-Taifa, passed away at the age of 75 and was laid to rest near the shrine of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS), in his home which is now a mosque known as Jame' at-Tusi. Born in 385 AH in Tous in Khorasan, northeastern Iran, after completing studies in his homeland, he left for Baghdad for higher studies at the age of 23 to study under the celebrated scholar Shaikh Mufid, who died five years later in 413 AH. Leadership of Shi'a Muslim scholars then fell to the renowned Sharif Murtaza, who remained in this position for 23 years until his death in 436 AH. During this time Shaikh Tousi was closely associated with Sharif Murtaza, and subsequently succeeded him as head of the community. So impressive was his knowledge that the Abbasid caliph, al-Qader used to attend his lectures. Eleven years later in 447 AH, when the Iranian Buwayhid dynasty was in a state of decline, sectarian riots erupted and his house in the Karkh locality, along with his library that contained some 90,000 books, was burnt down. Since remaining in Baghdad was risky, he moved to holy Najaf and transformed it into the leading centre of Islamic scholarship. He passed away 13 years later and was succeeded by his son Shaikh Hassan Tousi, known as “Mufid-e Thani” (Second Mufid). He authored over 50 books on various topics such as jurisprudence, exegesis of the holy Qur’an, hadith, theology, history and biography of narrators. Of the four authoritative resources of hadith, two were compiled by Shaikh at-Taifah Tusi. These two basic reference books are: “Tahzeeb al-Ahkaam” and “al-Istibsaar”. His exegesis on the holy Qur'an is titled “at-Tibyaan”. On the Lord of the Age, Imam Mahdi (God hasten his reappearance) he wrote the book “al-Ghayba” (Occultation). His another work is “Mukhtasar Akhbar al-Mukhtar” which is concise history of the uprising of Mukhtar ibn Abu Obaydah Thaqafi to avenge the martyrdom of Imam Husain (AS).

808 solar years ago, on this day in 1211 AD, the famous biographer of Kurdish origin, Shams od-Din Abu'l-Abbas Ahmad Ibn Mohammad Ibn Khallikan was born in Arbil in northeastern Iraq. He studied in Aleppo, Damascus, and Mosul before settling in Cairo, where he served as assistant to the chief judge of Egypt. Later he became the chief judge of Damascus where he passed away at the age of 71. His most renowned work is the biographical dictionary entitled "Wafayaat al-Ayaan wa-Anba Abna az-Zamaan" (Deaths of Eminent Men and Accounts of the Sons of the Epoch), which took eighteen years to complete. This book does not include biographies of individuals already sufficiently covered, such as the Prophet and the caliphs. It was translated into English by William McGuckin de Slane.

649 lunar years ago, on this day in 792 AH, prominent Iranian Hanafi scholar, Sa'd od-Din Mas'oud ibn Omar Taftazani, passed away in Samarqand at the age of 70 years and was buried in Sarakhs. He was born in the northeastern Iranian town of Taftazaan in Khorasan, in what was then the Sarbederaan Shi’a Muslim state. He traveled to Herat, Khwarezm, Samarqand and Sarakhs to acquire sciences from prominent scholars, and mainly resided in Sarakhs, which presently straddles the Iran-Turkmenistan border. He was active during the reign of fearsome Turkic conqueror, Amir Timur (Tamerlane), who was his patron. Taftazaani was a prolific writer and has left behind a large number of books, mostly in Arabic, on various sciences, such as logic, theology, rhetoric, law, linguistics, etc. He completed “Sharh-e Zanjani” which was his first and one of his most famous works at the age of 16. He also wrote a commentary on the holy Qur'an in Persian and translated into Turkish the poems of the famous Iranian poet, Sa'di Shirazi. His books were taught for centuries in the seminaries of the Ottoman Empire.

499 solar years ago, on this day in 1520 AD, the Ottoman sultan, Selim I, died at the age of 55 after a reign of 8 years, some 3 years after seizing Syria and Egypt from the Mamluk rulers and declaring himself caliph, although he had no right or legitimacy even from the Sunni point of view. In 1512, he had usurped the throne by dethroning his father, Bayazid II and immediately embarked on fratricide, killing his brothers and cousins. An accomplished poet in both his native Turkish and in Persian, he was of violent temper and notorious for his frequent killing of his viziers and the genocide of Shi'ite Muslims in Anatolia because of his fears of the growing influence of the Safavid Dynasty of Iran, against whom he was lucky to win the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. His bid to build an alliance with Ubaydollah Khan Shaybani of Bukhara and the Timurid prince of Kabul, Zaheer od-Din Babar, against the Safavids failed. Babar (the future founder of the Mughal Empire of the Subcontinent) spurned the offer and opted to join Shah Ismail, while Shaybani was killed in battle by Iranians.

480 solar years ago, on this day in 1539 AD, the founder of the Sikh religion, Guru Nanak, passed away at the age of 70 in Kartarpur in what is now Pakistan’s Punjab province. Born in what is now Nankana Sahib near Lahore in Pakistan, on growing up he became disillusioned by the weird practices of the Hindus such as idol-worship, the divisive caste system, etc. He travelled widely, as far as Baghdad and holy Mecca, and as is clear from his teachings, he became profoundly impressed by the egalitarian principles of the divine message of Islam. He thus taught that God is One, is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, without shape and form, not bound by time, and cannot be perceived by the physical eye of creatures. According to him the Sikhs should have control over their internal vices and adhere to the virtues clarified in their religious book, the Guru Granth Sahib. Among prohibitions in Sikhism are idol-worship and superstition, ban on consumption of all sorts of intoxicants (alcohol, drugs, and even tobacco), abstention from adultery and extra marital relations, and refraining from cutting hair. The Sikh population is estimated to be 30 million worldwide, with the majority of them living in India, especially in Punjab State.   

317 solar years ago, on this day in 1702 AD, Ottoman Grand Vizier, Koprulu Hussein Pasha, passed away at the age of 58 after five years as prime minister. Of Albanian origin, he had spent his youth in the Ottoman Province of Bulgharistan (Bulgaria), and had taken part as a senior military officer in the failed siege of Vienna in 1683. He was appointed Grand Vizier by Sultan Mustafa in 1697 following the disastrous Turkish defeat in the Battle of Zenta by European powers that resulted in the signing of the humiliating Peace Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, according to which the Ottomans ceded to the Habsburg Monarchy, all of the Province of Majaristan (Hungary) including Transylvania; while Podolia was given to Poland and most of Dalmatia and Morea (the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece) passed to Venice. Hussein Pasha carried out significant reforms in agriculture, economy and military. As a member of the Mowlavi Dervesh Order founded in Anatolia by the famous Iranian mystic and Persian poet, Mowlana Jalal od-Din Balkhi Roumi, he was close to ordinary Muslims and was concerned with the needs of the common people as well as those of the military and bureaucratic classes.

301 lunar years ago, on this day in 1140 AH, Shah Sultan Hussain, the 9th and virtually the last powerful ruler of the Safavid Empire, was brutally martyred in detention in Isfahan by the Afghan rebel, Ashraf, a year after he usurped power by killing his cousin Mahmoud Hotaki, who four years earlier had dethroned and imprisoned the Iranian monarch. Nader Qoli Afshar – who would later seize power from Shah Tahmasp II and declare himself Nader Shah – ended Ashraf’s 4-year reign of terror by defeating him and driving him out of Iran. Shah Sultan Hussain (the son and successor of Shah Sulayman Safavi), ruled Iran, the Caucasus and western Afghanistan for 29 years. Groomed by the famous Islamic scholar, Allamah Mohammad Baqer Majlisi, he was a peace-loving monarch of scholarly pursuits, who misread the dangers of the Afghan rebellion and failed to decisively crush it when he had adequate power. As a result he lost his throne and his life, thereby bringing the curtain down on two-and-a-quarter centuries of glorious rule by the Safavids to whom Iran is indebted to this day for its religious identity, national unity, and cultural affinity, although the weak dynasties that followed lost almost half of Iranian territories to the Russians, to the Turks and to the Afghans.

230 solar years ago, on this day in 1789 AD, the Battle of Ramnic took place in Wallachia, near Ramnicu Sarat, during the Russo-Turkish War of 1787-1792. Russian general Alexander Suvorov, acting together with the Habsburg general Prince Josias of Coburg, attacked the main Ottoman army under Grand Vizier Hassan Pasha to inflict a crushing defeat.

228 solar years ago, on this day in 1791 AD, British physicist, Michael Faraday, was born near London. He initially worked in a bookshop, where he studied scientific works. A few years later, he became a laboratory assistant to the physicist, Humphrey Davy at the Royal Institution. His most important work was in electromagnetism, in which field he demonstrated electromagnetic rotation and discovered electromagnetic induction (the key to the development of the electric dynamo and motor). With this discovery in 1831, a huge step was taken in the scientific field. His inventions of electromagnetic rotary devices formed the foundation of electric motor technology, and it was largely due to his efforts that electricity became practical for use in technology. He made valuable experiments in the fields of chemistry, metallurgy, and development of electrical lamps. One of the important rules of physics, the SI unit of capacitance is named in his honour: the farad. He was one of the first scientists who managed to liquefy many gases, including chlorine. He died at the age of 76.

191 solar years ago, on this day in 1828 AD, Shaka Zulu, the founder of the Zulu Kingdom in present day South Africa, was killed by his two step brothers after a reign of 13 years. One of his brothers who succeeded him fought the Dutch invaders, known as Boers, from 1830 to 1839. In 1880, the new colonial power, Britain, occupied the Zulu kingdom and divided it into several parts. Zulus are currently considered a powerful minority in South Africa and are represented by the Inkatha Freedom Party.

159 solar years ago, on this day in 1860 AD, war broke out between China and a joint invasion force of the French and British. The poorly-equipped Chinese suffered defeat and the British-French force plundered Beijing. China was forced to sign a treaty giving numerous concessions to Britain and France to monopolize Chinese seaports.

147 solar years ago, on this day in 1872 AD, Vladimir Dal, Russian lexicographer and linguist, died in Moscow at the age 71. He knew six languages including Turkic and is considered to be one of the early Turkologists. His magnum opus, titled “Explanatory Dictionary of the Live Great Russian Language” was published in four huge volumes. He also compiled a 100-page report titled: "Investigation on the Murder of Christian Children by the Jews and the Use of Their Blood." He said after due investigation that present-day Jews seem to have abandoned this sordid practice, which was carried out mostly by Hasidic Jews who used the blood of Christian children for magical purposes.

138 solar years ago, on this day in 1881 AD, Qajarid Iran was forced to officially recognize Russia's annexation of the ancient Iranian land of Khwarezm in Central Asia through the Treaty of Akhal. Following Iran’s defeat in 1860, and with the increasing occupation of its territories in the southern Caucasus by Russia, and eastern Khorasan by Britain and the Afghans; Moscow stepped up its campaign to take full control of Central Asia. Forces led by Generals Mikhail Skobelev, Ivan Lazarev and Konstantin Kaufman led the campaign, while Iran was unable to react. The immobilized Naser od-Din Shah sent foreign secretary Mirza Sa'eed Khan Mo'tamen ol-Mulk to meet Ivan Zinoviev and sign the treaty, by virtue of which Iran would henceforth cease any claim to all parts of Transoxiana, setting the Atrak River as the new boundary. Three years later in 1884, the historical Iranian cities of Merv, Sarakhs, Ishqabad, and the surrounding areas were transferred to Russian control, and are now part of the modern republic of Turkmenistan. Khwarezm is a large oasis region on the River Oxus delta in West-Central Asia, bordered to the north by the Aral Sea, to the east the Qyzylkum Desert, to the south the Qarakum Desert and to the west the Ustyurt Plateau. Its famous capitals where Iranian scholars and scientists flourished were Kath, Gurganj and from the 16th century onwards Khiva. Today Khwarezm is divided among the republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.

59 solar years ago, on this day in 1960 AD, the northwest African country of Mali gained independence from French colonial rule. An ancient centre of civilization, Mali had accepted Islam over a thousand years ago and founded a glorious Muslim empire that lasted till the 16th century. The first attacks were made by Morocco that led to the disintegration of the Mali Empire and in the subsequent centuries paved the way for France to penetrate and occupy it by 1898. Mali which was called French Sudan gained autonomy in 1958 followed by independence in 1960. It covers an area of over 1.2 million sq km and shares borders with Algeria, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Senegal.

54 solar years ago, on this day in 1965 AD, the second Indo-Pakistani War (also known as the Second Kashmir War between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, ended after the UN called for a ceasefire. India's Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, suffered a fatal heart attack soon after the declaration of the ceasefire, during the peace talks in Tashkent with Pakistan’s president, General Ayyub Khan, under the auspices of the Soviet Union.

40 solar years ago, on this day in 1979 AD, Indian-Pakistani Islamic scholar and journalist, Abu’l-Ala Maududi, passed away at the age of 76 in Buffalo New York State, US, where he was undergoing medical treatment. Born in Aurangabad, in the Hyderabad-Deccan Muslim state, he migrated to Pakistan on its creation. Earlier in 1941, he had founded the Jama’at-e Islami in British India, which is now the largest Islamic organisation in Pakistan. His numerous works were written in Urdu and included the analytical book titled “Khilafat va Muloukiyat” (Caliphate and Monarchy), in which he has strongly criticized Osman ibn Affan, the 3rd self-styled caliph, as incompetent and unworthy.

39 solar years ago, on this day in 1980 AD, Saddam of the repressive Ba’th minority regime of Baghdad, six days after tearing in front of TV cameras the 1975 Algiers Accord, launched an unprovoked invasion of the Islamic Republic of Iran at the behest of his masters in London and Washington, by air, land and sea. He occupied vast parts of southwestern and western Iran. In response the Iranians started the holy defence that thwarted all plans of the occupier and his eastern and western backers. For 8 years, the Iranian Muslims defended their homeland and managed to drive out the Ba’thist forces from almost all occupied Iranian territory. The US and Saddam, fearing the impact of the Islamic Revolution had resorted to wanton war, but as is clear today by the friendly ties between the Iranian and Iraqi people, they failed miserably. Every year Iran commemorates the Holy Defence Week to promote and preserve its egalitarian values.

18 solar years ago, on this day in 2001 AD, the Islamic Republic of Iran opened in Tehran the First Universal Exhibition of Holy Culture and Defense with the theme of the Islamic Revolution and the 8-year war imposed by the US (1980-88) through Saddam of the repressive Ba’th minority regime of Baghdad.

13 solar years ago, on this day in 2006 AD, Lebanon’s legendry anti-terrorist movement, the Hezbollah celebrated "Divine Victory" over the illegal Zionist entity, in a massive demonstration in Beirut, following Israel’s shattering defeat in its 33-day unprovoked war.

AS/SS