Today is Thursday; 30th of the Iranian month of Aban 1398 solar hijri; corresponding to 23rd of the Islamic month of Rabi al-Awwal 1441 lunar hijri; and November 21, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1240 lunar years ago, on this day in 201 AH, Hazrat Fatema al-Ma’sumah (SA), the venerable descendent of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), arrived in Qom, which proved to be her permanent abode, since seventeen days later her soul flew to the ethereal heavens from this city in the Iranian desert. The daughter of the Prophet’s 7th Infallible Heir, Imam Musa al-Kazem (AS), she was on her way from Medina to Merv in Khorasan to meet her brother Imam Reza (AS), when her caravan was attacked near Saveh by agents of the tyrannical Abbasid regime. As a result, several people, including two of her brothers were martyred, and the exhausted lady, reportedly poisoned, asked the caravan to turn towards Qom, which was a centre of adherents of the Prophet’s Ahl-Bayt. People came out in large numbers to greet her and to escort her to the city – a ceremony that is enacted till this day by the people of Qom. On the 10th of Rabi al-Akher, she departed from the world at the young age of 28, and was laid to rest in an orchard near the riverbank. Her tomb soon grew into a sprawling mausoleum, topped by a gold-plated dome, which is the site of pilgrimage today for people from all over the world, who seek intercession with God and see their prayers answered. Imam Reza (AS) had remarked: “Whoever visits her (shrine), aware of her status, is like the one who has visited me.”

633 solar years ago, on this day in 1386 AD, the Turkic conqueror, Amir Timur, captured Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, and took King Bagrat V as captive to Samarqand, because of the latter’s alliance with the Khan of the Golden Horde, Tokhtamysh, with whom Timur was engaged in a fearsome war in what is now southern Russia. Bagrat was later released and restored as king of Georgia.

574 lunar years ago, on this day in 866 AH, Jam Nizam od-Din II, known as Nindo, the most powerful ruler of the Samma Dynasty, succeeded his father Sanjar Sadr od-Din and ruled for 48 years over Sindh, parts of Punjab, Baluchestan and Gujarat. Towards the end of his reign he defeated a Mughal army sent against him by Shah Beg Arghun from Qandahar. Founded by Rajputs who had embraced the truth of Islam, the Samma civilization contributed significantly to the evolution of the "Sindhi-Islamic" architectural style, which is a blending of Persian art as well. Thatta, which is in modern Pakistan, was the capital of this kingdom that lasted almost two centuries. The city is still famous for its necropolis, which covers 10 square km on the Makli Hill. Every year thousands perform pilgrimage to this site to commemorate the saints buried here. The graves testify to a long period when Thatta was a thriving center of trade, religion and scholarly pursuits.

343 solar years ago, on this day in 1676 AD, Danish astronomer Ole Christensen Romer, inventor of the modern thermometer showing the temperature between two fixed points, namely the points at which water respectively boils and freezes, claimed to have made the first quantitative measurements of the speed of light, although Islamic scientists had already made such discoveries several centuries earlier. It is interesting to note that Imam Zain al-Abedin (AS), the 4^th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), has even spoken of the weight of light in one of his supplications to God Almighty as is evident in the Sahifat-as-Sajjadiya, almost a millennium earlier than Romer. In 1021, the Islamic scientist Hassan Ibn al-Haytham –Alhazen to medieval Europe – in his famous “Kitab al-Manazer” (or Book of Optics) has presented a series of arguments dismissing the emission theory of vision of the Greek philosopher Aristotle in favour of the now accepted intromission theory, in which light moves from an object into the eye. This made Ibn al-Haytham, who flourished in the Shi’a Muslim dynasties of Buwaihid-ruled Iraq and Fatemid-ruled Egypt, propose that light must have a finite speed and that the speed of light is variable, decreasing in denser bodies. He argued that light is substantial matter, the propagation of which requires time, even if this is hidden from our senses. In the same period, the celebrated Iranian Islamic genius Abu Rayhan Birouni agreed that light has a finite speed, and observed that the speed of light is much faster than the speed of sound.

325 solar years ago, on this day in 1694 AD, French author and philosopher, Francois-Marie Arouet, famous as Voltaire, was born. He was imprisoned in Bastille twice during his lifetime and was deported to England for three years. These incidents made him an opponent of the French regime, as is evident from his writings. He popularized the English scientist Isaac Newton's work in France by arranging a translation of "Principia Mathematica" to which he added his own commentary. Voltaire's commentary bridged the gap between non-scientists and Newton's ideas at a time in France when the pre-Newtonian views of Descartes were still prevalent. He has penned more than fifty works, some of which are considered as best examples of the French classical prose. In his approach to history and non-European cultures, Voltaire wrote: “We have slandered the Chinese because their metaphysics is not the same as ours…We carry the prejudices of our contentious spirit to the end of the world.” In speaking of Persia (Iran), he condemned Europe's “ignorant audacity” and “ignorant credulity”. When writing about India, he declares: “It is time for us to give up the shameful habit of slandering all sects and insulting all nations!” In his work “Essai sur les mœurs et l'esprit des nations”, he defended the integrity of the Native Americans and wrote favorably of the Inca Empire.

236 solar years ago, on this day in 1783 AD, for the first time in history, a balloon was successfully sent up in the air. It had two passengers, including the French physicist, Francois de Rozier. This French physicist thought about building an object for flying during his student years and finally when Montgolfier Brothers made the first balloon, Rozier also built a balloon and went up in the air with it. This physicist crashed and was killed during a flight over the English Channel.

228 solar years ago, on this day in 1791 AD, Colonel Napoleon Bonaparte was promoted to full general and appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the French Republic. In 1804, he assumed totalitarian powers and declared himself Emperor.

213 solar years ago, on this day in 1806 AD, the Berlin Decree was issued by French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, following his victory over Prussia (Germany) at the Battle of Jena. The decree forbade all European countries under the influence of France from any trade with Britain.

173 solar years ago, on this day in 1846 AD, the word anesthesia was coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes in a letter to William Thomas Green Morton, the surgeon who gave the first public demonstration of the pain-killing effects of ether.

142 solar years ago, on this day in 1877 AD, Thomas Edison announced invention of his "talking machine" - the tin-foil cylinder recorder that preceded the phonograph. He appears to have envisioned it as a business dictation machine. Earlier in September the same year, he wrote that its purpose was "to record automatically the speech of a very rapid speaker upon paper; from which he reproduces the same Speech immediately or years afterwards preserving the characteristics of the speaker’s voice so that persons familiar with it would at once recognize it." The indented tin foil, however, would survive only a few playings. By the first public showing of a phonograph, which took place in New York City in early February 1878, its practical applications had not yet been realized.

98 solar years ago, on this day in 1921 AD, Iran as per the approval of the Majlis (parliament), secretly signed a contact with Standard Oil of the US for exploitation of its northern oilfields. Two days later, when the news leaked out, the Soviet Union, followed by Britain, delivered ultimatums to Iran to cancel the contact with the American company, but the Majlis ignored them.

79 lunar years ago, on this day in 1362 AH, famous Iranian poet and scholar, Hussain Khan Danesh, died at the age of 70. He spent a major part of his life in Turkey, conducting research on Persian works in Ankara, Istanbul and other cities, and making efforts to publish them. Among his works, mention could be made of "Dastour Zaban-e Farsi" and "Saramadan-e Sokhan".

57 solar years ago, on this day in 1962 AD, China declared a unilateral cease-fire in the Sino-Indian War after a month of fighting. The war was fought in harsh mountainous terrain and freezing temperatures at altitudes of over 4,000 meters. The Sino-Indian War was also noted for the non-deployment of the navy or air force by either the Chinese or Indians. A disputed Himalayan border was the main pretext for war, but other issues played a role, since the violent border incidents after the 1959 Tibetan uprising, when India had granted asylum to the Dalai Lama.

40 solar years ago, on this day in 1979 AD, the scholar and poet, Mohammad Hussain Jalilli “Bidaar”, passed away at the age of 60 in his hometown Kermanshah. Son of Ayatollah Hadi Kermanshahi, after elementary school, he studied hadith, jurisprudence, philosophy and Arabic literature under his father and Allamah Haidar Qoli Sardar Kabuli. He then graduated from Tehran University and returned to Kermanshah to teach literature. An accomplished poet of the classical Persian style, he composed lively ghazals. He wrote several books, including “Ancient Kermanshah” and “History of Seljuq Dynasty” in Persian, and “Abkaar al-Afkaar” in Arabic.

34 solar years ago, on this day in 1985 AD, former US Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard was arrested while spying for the illegal Zionist entity called Israel. This was a rare case of a surrogate state spying against its own godfather who, because of shared animosity against Muslims and Arabs, never withheld any sensitive information or sophisticate military technology. In 1987 Pollard, who is a Jew, confessed that he passed classified documents to Israel, and was subsequently sentenced to life in prison. The Zionist entity has continued to lobby for his release, and in 1995 on this same day, it granted citizenship to this American Jew.

31 lunar years ago, on this day in 1410 AH, Grand Ayatollah Jawad Aqa Tehrani passed away at the age of 88. He was born in Tehran and after completing his studies in Qom left for Holy Najaf in Iraq to continue his higher studies. He groomed many scholars and was known for his piety and ascetic nature. Among the books written by him are: "Mizan al-Mataleb" in Arabic and "Aieen-e Zindagi" in Persian.

23 solar years ago, on this day in 1996 AD, Pakistani physicist and Nobel laureate, Abdus-Salaam, who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physics with Steven Weinberg and Sheldon Lee Glashow, died at the age of 70. Each had independently formulated a theory explaining the underlying unity of the weak nuclear force and the electromagnetic force. His hypothetical equations, which demonstrated an underlying relationship between the electromagnetic force and the weak nuclear force, postulated that the weak force must be transmitted by hitherto-undiscovered particles known as weak vector bosons, or W and Z bosons. Weinberg and Glashow reached a similar conclusion using a different line of reasoning. The existence of the W and Z bosons was eventually verified in 1983 by researchers using particle accelerators at CERN.

23 solar years ago, on this day in 1996 AD, World Television Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly through resolution 51/205 (ratified on 17 December 1996). The day recognizes that television plays a major role in presenting different issues that affect people. It is a day to renew the commitments of the governments, organizations and individuals, to support the development of television media in providing unbiased information about important issues and events that affect society.

7 solar years ago, on this day in 2012 AD in Afghanistan, 23-year old Seyyed Mohammad, a farmer from Karim Dad village, was abducted by US occupation forces. He was subjected to torture and abuse, like so many Afghans detained by US troops. Several months later on May 21, 2013, near a former US Special Forces base in Wardak province, his footless body was found. Tens of thousands of Afghans have been killed by the US occupation forces.

AS/SS