Today is Wednesday; 22nd of the Iranian month of Aban 1398 solar hijri; corresponding to 15th of the Islamic month of Rabi al-Awwal 1441 lunar hijri; and November 13, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1685 solar years ago, on this day in 354 AD, Christian bishop, Augustine of Hippo was born in Thagaste in what is now Souq Ahras, Algeria, in a Romanized pagan Berber family. Although raised as a Christian by his mother, he left the church to follow the Manichaean Iranian religion, and led a hedonistic life. Later in life he became a priest. He was a proponent of the theory of the so-called "just war", saying a nation’s leaders must consider among other things, anticipated loss of civilian life and whether all peaceful options have been exhausted before war starts. Intellectuals have criticized his views, pointing out that his dogmatic invective laid the foundations for centuries of intellectual tyranny by the Catholic Church. He died in Hippo – present day Annaba in Algeria in 430. His writings include "The Confessions."

1293 lunar years ago, on this day in 148 AH, the scholar Sulaiman Ibn Mehran Kufi al-A'mash passed away in Kufa. He had a sharp memory and had memorized a great number of hadith. A follower of the Infallible Imams of the Household of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), he was greatly respected by all other Muslims. He was said to be from Damavand, northeast of Tehran. Two days before his death he was visited by several scholars including Ibn Abu Layla and Abu Hanifa – the founder of the Hanafi School of jurisprudence. The discussion turned to hadith, and the famous statement of Imam Ali (AS): "I am the distributor of heaven and hell". A'mash enlightened the assembly saying that Abu Mutawakkil Naji had told him on the authority of Abu Sa'eed Khudri, who heard the Prophet saying:

"On the Day of Judgement, God will make me and Ali sit on the Sirat with instructions to allow into heaven whoever acknowledged my mission and the friendship of Ali, and to cast into hell whoever denied my mission and was hostile to Ali."

The Prophet then added: "None have true faith in God except those who acknowledge my mission, and none have really acknowledged my mission except the one who sincerely believed in Ali."

This hadith has been narrated through various other sources as well.

1267 lunar years ago, on this day in 174 AH, Abdullah bin Lahiyya, the chief judge of Egypt passed away. He was considered a reliable narrator of hadith by most of the Sunni scholars, and among his narrations are many which expose Mu’awiyah ibn Abu Sufyan as a criminal and murderer of Muslims, including the companions of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) such as Hujr Ibn Adi, who was martyred near Damascus for being a staunch follower of Imam Ali (AS). Recently Hujr’s tomb was desecrated by Takfiri terrorists, who stole the body that had remained fresh despite passing a millennium and three centuries.

1118 lunar years ago, on this day in 323 AH, Obaidullah Mahdi died. He claimed to be a descendant of Ismail, the son of Imam Ja'far as-Sadeq (AS), the 6th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). He rejected the Abbasids and all preceding caliphs as usurpers of the political rights of the Prophet’s divinely-appointed heir, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS). He declared himself caliph in the Maghreb or North Africa, in what is now Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, and founded the Fatemid Dynasty, which later shifted its capital to Egypt, ruling for a total of 274 years.

1017 solar years ago, on this day in 1002 AD, English king Æthelred II ordered the killing of all Danish men in England. Known till this day as the St. Brice's Day Massacre, it resulted in the killing of thousands of people, including Danish women. Among those slain were Gunhilde, the sister of King Sweyn I of Denmark, along with her husband Pallig Tokesen, the Danish Ealdorman of Devonshire.

876 solar years ago, on this day in 1143 AD, King Fulk of the usurper Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, established in Palestine by the Crusader occupiers from Europe, died a horrible death while hunting when his horse stumbled. He fell and his skull was crushed by the saddle, while his brain gushed forth from both ears and nostrils. Born in France, he was Count of Anjou for twenty years before coming to Palestine to marry Melisende, the eldest daughter of Baldwin II, whom he succeeded in 1131. His 12-year reign was marked by battles with the Fatemids of Egypt and the rising power of the Zangids of Syria, who decisively defeated him in 1137 in the Battle of Baarin. The usurper Latin Kingdom ended in 1187 after 88 years of occupation when a united Muslim army of Arabs, Kurds, Iranians and Turks liberated Bayt al-Moqaddas.

395 solar years ago, on this day in 1624 AD, Dutch Orientalist, Thomas van Erpe (Erpenius), died at the age of 40 in Leiden, while preparing an edition of the Holy Qur’an with a Latin translation and notes. Born in Gorinchem, Holland, he travelled to France and Italy, learning and perfecting Arabic, Turkish, Persian and Ethiopic languages. After a long absence, he returned to Holland in 1612, and in February 1613 was appointed professor of Arabic and other Oriental languages. Among his works are “Grammatica Arabica”, “Grammatica Ebraea generalis” (Hebrew), “Grammatica Chaldaica et Syria” (Chaldean & Syriac) and an edition of Elmacin's “History of the Saracens”.

239 solar years ago, on this day in 1780 AD, Founder of the Sikh kingdom in the northwest parts of the Subcontinent, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, was born in Gujranwala, Punjab. Acquainted with the Persian language, he began as a young soldier in the service of the Afghan king, Zamaan Shah Durrani, who made him governor of a part of Punjab. He then assembled his Sikh army and began war with his Afghan benefactors by seizing Lahore and ending their rule in Punjab. He desecrated the grand Badshahi Mosque of Lahore by turning it into a stable. In 1818, he occupied Multan and advanced upon Peshawar. His dreams of invading Afghanistan did not materialize, but when Shah Shuja sought asylum with the Sikhs, Ranjit Singh forced him to give up the fabulous Koh-e Noor diamond which Nader Shah of Iran had taken from the Mughal Emperor Mohammad Shah of Delhi and which after him had fallen to the share of the Afghan general, Ahmad Shah Abdali Durrani. In 1849, when the British defeated the Sikhs, they seized Koh-e Noor which is Persian for Mountain of Light and which is currently in the crown of the British queen. He died in 1839 after a reign of nearly forty years and within ten years the empire he had built up by conquering Punjab, Kashmir, and the Pashtu areas up to the frontier of Afghanistan, was annexed by the British.

178 solar years ago, on this day in 1841 AD, James Braid first saw a demonstration of animal magnetism that led to his study of the subject he eventually called hypnotism.

169 solar years ago, on this day in 1850 AD, English author, Robert Louis Stevenson, was born in Edinburgh, in Scotland. He wrote several books including the famous work “Treasure Island”. He died in 1894.

147 lunar years ago, on this day in 1294 AH, the scholar Mohammad Qazvini was born in Tehran. His talents emerged in his teens in literature and theology, and he soon became an authority in these fields. He spent some years in Europe where he made copies of valuable Persian manuscripts in museums and libraries. Of the books he wrote "The Era of Hafez" is regarded as his masterpiece. At the age of 75 he passed away, and was laid to rest in Rayy, south of Tehran.

107 solar years ago, on this day in 1912 AD, Ayatollah Shaikh Abdullah Mazandarani, passed away at the age of 72. He travelled to Iraq and in the holy city of Karbala he studied under the celebrated Ayatollah Shaikh Zain al-Abedin Mazandarani, and later at the seminary of holy Najaf he attained the status of Ijtehad. On the victory of the Constitutional Movement in Iran, he formed a 3-member leadership council at the Najaf Seminary, along with Akhound Mullah Mohammad Kazem Khorasani and Grand Ayatollah Mirza ‘Khalil’ Hussain Hussaini, issuing directives for guidance of the Iranian people.

105 solar years ago, on this day in 1914 AD, Berber Muslim tribesmen inflicted the heaviest defeat on French forces in Morocco at the Battle of El-Herri. The cause of the battle was the opposition of the confederation of Zaian tribes continued French expansion into the interior of Morocco. Almost the entire French garrison was wiped out, including around a thousand Frenchmen, in addition to an equal number of mercenaries made up of Algerians, Tunisians, and Senegalese.

104 solar years ago, on this day in 1915 AD, the Iranian national parliament was dissolved before completing its 3rd round, upon the orders of the last Qajarid king, Ahmad Shah. This unwarranted measure was taken after Ahmad Shah’s meeting with the British and Russian ambassadors to Iran. At the time, Russia and Britain were trying to drag Iran into World War I against Germany. British forces were deployed in southern Iran, while Russian forces controlled the north. Following the movement of Russian forces toward Tehran, several Iranian parliamentarians formed the National Defence Committee in protest to the violation of Iran's territorial integrity. But, they fell short of any major accomplishment because Iran’s national sovereignty was at its lowest ebb due to the inefficiency of officials. Following the revolution in Russia in 1917, Russian forces withdrew from northern Iran, but the British forces replaced them, and continued their stranglehold on the country until removal of the Qajarid dynasty and installing of the Pahlavis as their new agents.

98 solar years ago, on this day in 1921 AD, Orientalist, Ignaz Goldziher, a Hungarian Jewish scholar of Islam, died at the age of 71 in Budapest. Along with the German Theodor Noldeke and the Dutch Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, he is considered the founder of modern Islamic studies in Europe. In 1873, he began a journey through Syria, Palestine and Egypt, and took the opportunity of attending lectures of Muslim sheiks in the mosque of al-Azhar in Cairo. In 1890 he published the book “Muhammedanische Studien” in which he showed the Hadith works of Sunni compilers, reflected the legal and doctrinal controversies of the two centuries after the passing away of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) rather than the exact words of the Prophet of Islam himself.

54 solar years ago, on this day in 1965 AD, the acclaimed Iranian literary figure, author, and researcher, Professor Sa'eed Nafisi, passed away at the age of 71. Following completion of high school, he went to France to learn law and political science. On return to Iran he lectured at the country's universities. He was a permanent member of Iran's Cultural House. He has left behind more than 180 compilations and translations and authored “The Politico-Social History of Contemporary Iran”. Sa'eed Nafisi also compiled the “French-to-Persian Comprehensive Dictionary”.

34 solar years ago, on this day in 1985 AD, the volcano Nevado del Ruiz erupted melting a glacier and causing a lahar (volcanic mudslide) that buried Armero, Colombia, killing approximately 23,000 people.

25 solar years ago, on this day in 1994 AD, the prominent authority on ancient Iranian languages, Dr. Mehrdad Bahar, passed away. He was the son of the celebrated Iranian Poet Laureate (Malik osh-Sho'ara), Mohammad Taqi Bahar, and grew up in a cultural and literary environment. He completed his academic studies at London University. On returning to Iran, he started working at the Iran Culture Foundation and lectured at the university. He conducted numerous studies and researches on Iran's ancient languages, and has left behind a number of valuable books, including one on Iranian mythology.

23 solar years ago, on this day in 1996 AD, Ayatollah Seyyed Morteza Pasandideh, passed away at the age of 100. Son of the scholar Seyyed Mostafa al-Hindi of Khomein, he was the elder brother of the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Ruhollah Khomeini (RA). He studied at the Isfahan seminary mastering jurisprudence, literature, logic, theology and astronomy, before returning to Khomein, where he became Imam of a mosque and established a seminary. His role as guardian of his younger brother and sisters increased when their mother and aunt died within a year of each other. He taught his brother at his school for four years in Islamic theology and jurisprudence, and encouraged him to perfect his skill as a wrestler – Imam Khomeini eventually became the village champion. In 1929, he took the surname “Pasandideh” (‘Pleasing’ in Persian) when the Pahlavi regime imposed surnames on all Iranians, while his younger brother took the surname “Khomeini” after their hometown. After his brother's exile from Iran in 1964, Ayatollah Pasandideh was a central figure in the network of ulema opposing the Pahlavi regime, and was subsequently summoned to the court several times, and banished to remote parts of the country. After the victory of the Islamic Revolution he continued his life of teaching at the Qom seminary.

11 solar years ago, on this day in 2008 AD, in Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan gunmen kidnapped Iranian diplomat Hashmatullah Attarzadeh, and killed his local guard. Iranian intelligence agents freed Attarzadeh in late March 2010.

AS/SS