Today is Thursday; 16th of the Iranian month of Ordibehesht 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 27th of the Islamic month of Rajab 1437 lunar hijri; and May 5, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1450 lunar years ago, on this day in the year 13 prior to the Hijra, God formally commanded the 40-year old Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) to announce his mission to mankind as the Last and Universal Messenger of Islam. This historic event occurred at Cave Hera on Mount Noor on the outskirts of Mecca with the descent of Archangel Gabriel with the initial verses of the holy Qur’an, the scripture, which would gradually be revealed over the next 23 years as the finest and most perfect code of life for humanity. Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), who was known to the pre-Islamic society as an impeccable person of flawless character, hailed as “Sadeq” (Honest), and “Amin” (Trustworthy), first and foremost invited his near relatives to inform them of God’s commandment. At this gathering which is known as Zu’l-Ashira, when the Prophet proclaimed “Ash-hado an la ilaha il-Allah”, which means “I testify there is no god but Allah”, his still pre-teen cousin, Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS) who was present on Mount Noor on the day of entrusting of the Divine Mission, stood up said: “Ash-hado anna Mohammadan Rasoul-Allah,” which means “I testify Mohammad is the Messenger of Allah”. This day is thus known as Mab’ath which means Resurgence of monotheism and all humanitarian values.

970 lunar years ago, on this day in 467 AH, the prominent Iranian Sunni Mu’tazalite theologian and exegete of the Holy Qur’an, Abu’l-Qasim Mahmoud Zamakhshari, was born in Zamakhshar, Kharazm. He lived most of his life in Bukhara, Samarqand, and Baghdad, and because of his long stay in Mecca near the Sacred Mosque that houses the holy Ka’ba, he was known as “Jar-Allah” (God's Neighbour). He was a prolific writer in both Persian and Arabic, and is best known for “al-Kashshaaf”, a seminal commentary on the Qur'an, famous for its deep linguistic analysis of the ayahs, and which takes note of God’s revelation regarding the unsurpassed merits of the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). His other works include “Asaas al-Balaghah” on Arabic literature, “Moqaddamat-al-Adab” – an Arabic-Persian lexicon – and the voluminous “Rabi al-Abraar”, in which among other interesting information, he has exposed the doubtful parentage of Mu’awiyyah the founder of the usurper Omayyad dynasty. Zamakhshari passed away in 538 AH.

854 lunar years ago, on this day in 583 AH, Muslims liberated Bayt al-Moqaddas from almost 90 years of occupation by the European crusader invaders who had established the usurper Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in Palestine. The Muslims were led by the Kurdish ruler, Salah od-Din Ayyoubi, who commanded a united army of Kurds, Turks, Arabs and Iranians. It was Friday when Bayt al-Moqaddas surrendered and the triumphant Muslim forces performed the Prayer at al-Aqsa Mosque. The Christian occupiers, in contrast to their brutal massacre of 70,000 Muslim men, women and children when they had seized this Islamic holy city from the Fatemid Ismaili Shi’ite Dynasty of Egypt some 9 decades ago, were given fair treatment and allowed to board ships back to their original homelands in Europe. The news of liberation of Bait-ol-Moqaddas rejoiced the Muslim World from North Africa to Central Asia.

756 solar years ago, on this day in 1260 AD, Kublai Khan became the 5th Khaqan or Great Ruler of the Mongol Empire. He was the second son of Tolui, and a grandson of the ruthlessly fearsome Mongol marauder, Genghis Khan. He succeeded his older brother Mongke as Khaqan in 1260, after having conquered the northern parts of China in the preceding decade as a prince, along with the Iranic Sogdanian Muslim administrator, Mahmud Yalavach, who devised the census system accounting for the people in the newly formed Mongol Empire for the purpose of taxation and who later served as mayor of the capital, Khanbaliq (Beijing). In 1271, Kublai established the Yuan Dynasty and assumed the role of Emperor of China, ruling over present-day Mongolia, China, Korea, and some adjacent areas, in addition to the nominal position of overlord of the Mongol khanates of the Golden Horde in Eurasia and the Ilkhanids in Iran, Iraq, and parts of Syria. By 1279, the Yuan forces had overcome the last resistance of the Southern Song Dynasty, and Kublai became the first non-Chinese Emperor to conquer all of China. He failed to conquer Japan and Vietnam during his 34-year rule, which saw development and economic prosperity, including use of paper currency, as attested by the Venetian traveler, Marco Polo, who visited and stayed in China at Kublai’s court for long years.

589 lunar years ago, on this day in 848 AH, Ottoman Sultan Murad II won a decisive victory at the Battle of Varna in eastern Bulgaria over the joint Bulgarian, Hungarian and Polish armies under King Władysław III of Poland, who lost his life in the encounter in which the Turks captured some 80 thousand prisoners. This was one of the most important events in European history and established Muslim rule over a large part of southeastern Europe.

522 solar years ago, on this day in 1494 AD, Italian navigator, Christopher Columbus, on his second voyage, with the help of Spanish Muslim seafarers who were familiar with the New World, landed on the island of Jamaica in the Caribbean Sea and claimed it for Spain, which had financed his travels. He named it Santa Gloria. Later called Santiago, in 1655 it came under the rule of England, and was renamed Jamaica. It achieved full independence from Britain on 6 August 1962. With 2.8 million people, it is the third most populous Anglophone country in the Americas, after the United States and Canada. Kingston is the country's largest city and its capital. Descendants of black African people who were forced into slavery by the Europeans, form 90 percent of the population.

209 lunar years ago, on this day in 1228 AH, the prominent Islamic scholar, Allamah Shaikh Ja’far bin Khizr bin Yahya al-Hilli, known as “Kashef al-Gheta”, from the title of his outstanding book, passed away in the holy city of Najaf at the age of 71. A descendant of Malek Ashtar, the famous general of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS), he was a student of Shaikh Yusuf Bahrani, but upon arrival in Najaf of Allamah Waheed Behbahani from Iran, he renounced his previous Akhbari ideas and accepted the Usouli school. On the passing away of Allamah Seyyed Mahdi Bahr al-Uloom in 1212 AH, Shaikh Ja'far Kashef al-Gheta was recognized as the Supreme Religious Authority of the Shi’ite Muslim world. He has written many books particularly in the fields of jurisprudence, principles of jurisprudence, theology and Arabic literature, besides “Kashf al-Gheta”.

198 solar years ago, on this day in the year 1818 AD, the German philosopher and founder of Marxism, Karl Marx, was born. He initially studied law and later history and philosophy. For a while, he was the editor-in-chief of a publication, and in cooperation with his compatriot, Friedrich Engels, published his beliefs in the book “The Communist Manifesto”. Two years later, Marx was banished from Germany due to political activities and took up residence in England for the rest of his life. His other important book is “Das Capital”. The core philosophy of Marxism is materialism. According to his theory with the rise of the working class, capitalism will end and a proletariat dictatorship will be formed, before giving way to a uniformed community. Marx died in 1883, but his thoughts were presented in different frameworks for more than a century across the world. With the collapse of the Communist Soviet Union in 1991, Marx’s thoughts were exposed as baseless. The process of world developments has proved the falsity of Marx’s interpretation of history and community.

195 solar years ago, on this day in 1821 AD, French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, died in exile on St. Helena Island in the South Atlantic Ocean at the age of 52 – as a result of slow food poisoning by his British captors. He gained power in 1789 following the French Revolution, and triumphed in battles against most of the European countries. In 1804 he crowned himself emperor and started a series of wars to occupy all of Europe, and if possible, the whole world. In 1812 AD, he suffered a serious setback when his troops failed to break the resistance by Russian troops and retreated with heavy losses from Moscow. In 1814, he suffered a disastrous defeat at Waterloo by the joint forces of Britain, Russia, and Austria. He was forced to step down from power and exiled to the Mediterranean island of Elba Island. He escaped in 1815, landed in France and ruled for another 100 days, before being captured by the British forces and deported to St. Helena, where he died six years later.

156 solar years ago, on this day in 1860 AD, Giuseppe Garibaldi, set sail from Genoa, to conquer the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies – Kingdom of Sicily and Kingdom of Naples – that had been set up in 1816. Earlier he was involved in military enterprises in Brazil, Uruguay and some parts of Europe, and had served as General of the Roman Republic in 1849. He led the Expedition of the Thousand to unify Italy as one single kingdom in 1861. He is considered one of the three “Fathers of the Fatherland”, along with Count Camillo Cavour, King Victor Emmanuel II for unifying Italy.

154 solar years ago, on this day in 1862 AD, at the Battle of Pueblo, a 5,000-man Mexican force (cavalry), loyal to Benito Juarez and under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza, defeated the 10,000 French troops sent by Napoleon III. The French were attempting to capture Puebla de Los Angeles, a small town in east-central Mexico. The Battle of Puebla represented a great moral victory for the Mexican government, symbolizing the country's ability to defend its sovereignty against threat by a powerful foreign nation. The event became memorialized in the Cinco de Mayo annual festival. Napoleon III had intended to march through to the US and help the Confederacy in the Civil War.

139 solar years ago, on this day in 1877 AD, during the US-Amerindian Wars, Chief Sitting Bull led his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles.

105 solar years ago, on this day in 1911 AD, Zabihollah Safa, the Iranian Persian language expert, researcher and professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies at the University of Tehran, was born in Shahmirzad in Semnan. His contribution to Iranian studies is seen in his comprehensive works on the history of Persian literature. His thesis, a comprehensive study of epic narratives in Iran (“Hamaseh Sarai dar Iran”) was later published as a book and illustrated his ability to synthesize a vast range of readings into a coherent manual for teaching. He focused on major literary, philosophic and scientific contributions made by Iranians to civilization at large. His talents also manifested in his journalistic activities as a young man. As early as 1933 he began contributing to the influential journal Mehr, and was its chief editor from 1937 to 1941. It is however, for his work as an editor of many classical texts and above all, for his monumental “History of Persian Literature” and his valuable anthology (translated into French in the UNESCO Collection as “Anthologie de la Poésie Persane”) that he is best remembered. He was also a regular contributor to Encyclopaedia Iranica. He died on April 29, 1999 in Lubeck, Germany.

75 solar years ago, on this day in 1941 AD, Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie, returned to his capital Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, after expulsion of Italian occupation forces. The date is commemorated as Liberation Day or Patriots' Victory Day in Ethiopia, which on the same day in 1936 had seen Italian troops occupy Addis Ababa.

71 solar years ago, on this day in 1945 AD, during World War II, Canadian and British troops liberated the Netherlands and Denmark from German occupation when Wehrmacht troops capitulated.

70 solar years ago, on this day in 1946 AD, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East began in Tokyo with twenty-eight Japanese military and government officials charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War 2.

52 solar years ago, on this day in 1964 AD, Ayatollah Ruhollah Kamalvand Khorramabadi, passed away at the age of 64 in his hometown Khorramabad and was laid to rest in the mausoleum of Hazrat Fatema al-Ma’soumah (SA) in the holy city of Qom. He was a classmate of the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA), and after attaining ijtehad had spent the last fourteen years of his life in grooming students in his hometown, where he revived the Islamic seminary.

45 solar years ago, on this day in 1970, the scholar of Persian literature, Iranian linguistics and culture, and poet, Badi' oz-Zamaan Foruzaanfar, passed away at the age of 66. His real name was Ziya Boshruwaiyh, and he was an expert on Mowlana Jalal od-Din Balkhi Rumi, the author of the famous Mathnavi Ma’anavi. As a distinguished professor at Tehran University, he groomed such notable scholars as, Mehrdad Avesta, Perviz Natel Khanlari, Zabihollah Safa, Ehsan Yarshater, Abdul-Hussain Zarrinkoub, Amir Hossein Aryanpour, Mohammad-Amin Riahi, Ja’far Shahidi, and William Chittick. His critical edition of Diwan-e Shams (in 10 volumes) is the best edition of the book available to date. The first critical edition of Mowlana’s “Fihi ma Fihi” was also done by Forouzaanfar, which is now well known in the West thanks to the selective translation of A. J. Arberry.

35 solar years ago, on this day in 1981 AD, the famous Irish fighter, Bobby Sands, lost his life for independence of Northern Ireland after weeks of resistance in the Long Kesh prison hospital after a 66-day hunger strike. His death led to a wave of protests against the British colonial administration, worsening the crisis in Northern Ireland. Bobby Sands turned into a hero of resistance of the Irish people against the British occupation.

15 solar years ago, on this day in 2001 AD, Syrian President Bashar Assad greeted Pope John Paul II in Damascus with a speech against the illegal Zionist entity. Assad passionately appealed to the Head of the Catholic sect of Christianity to show concern for fairness and justice in view of the crimes against humanity of the Israelites including the persecution of Prophet Jesus and the continued slandering of his Virgin Mother, Mary (peace upon them).

9 solar years ago, on this day in 2007 AD, Theodore Harold Maiman, the US physicist who built the first working laser, died. He began working with electronic devices in his teens, and in the 1960s, he developed, demonstrated, and patented a laser using a pink ruby medium. The laser is a device that produces monochromatic coherent light – a light in which the rays are all of the same wavelength and phase. The laser has since been applied in a very wide range of uses, including eye surgery, dentistry, range-finding, manufacturing, even measuring the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

AS/ME