Today is Thursday; 14th of the Iranian month of Azar 1398 solar hijri; corresponding to 8th of the Islamic month of Rabi as-Sani 1441 lunar hijri; and December 5, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1209 lunar years ago, on this day in 232 AH, Imam Hasan al-Askari (AS), the 11th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), was born in the city of Medina. He later moved to Samarra to join his father, Imam Ali al-Hadi (AS), who was forced to come to Iraq by the tyrant Mutawakkel, the 10th self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime. The mantle of Imamate or divinely-decreed leadership of mankind came to rest on Imam Hassan Askari’s (AS) young shoulders at the age of 22, following the martyrdom of his father through poisoning by the 13th treacherous caliph, Mu’taz. For six years, the 11th Imam guided the ummah, until his own martyrdom in the prime of youth by another tyrannical caliph, Mo’tamed. During this period, his son and successor, Imam Mahdi (AS) was born and brought up in secrecy –safe and secure from the Abbasid spies. The 12th Imam, who is currently in occultation by God’s Will, will emerge in the end times as the Redeemer of mankind to cleanse the earth of all vestiges of corruption and oppression by establishing the global government of peace, prosperity and justice. We hereby felicitate the auspicious birth anniversary of Imam Hassan Askari (AS) and later in our programme will present to you a special feature on his life and times.

1084 lunar years ago, on this day in 357 AH, the famous Arabic poet, statesman, and warrior, Harres bin Sa’eed, known popularly as Abu Firaas Hamdani, passed away. He was a cousin and brother-in-law of the Hamdanid ruler of Aleppo and northern Syria, Sayf od-Dowlah, and was one of commanders in the campaigns against the Byzantine Empire. He, like the rest of the Hamdanids was a devotee of the Ahl al-Bayt, and wrote his odes describing the injustices committed by the caliphs against the progeny of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). He was once captured by the Byzantines and was freed four years later through payment of ransom. In another battle, he was injured and finally succumbed to his wounds. The reputation of Abu Firaas owes much to his personal qualities. Handsome in person, of noble family, brave, generous, and extolled by his contemporaries as “excelling in every virtue”, he lived up to the Islamic Arab ideal of chivalry which he expressed in his poetry. His poems are popular till this day, especially the “ar-Roumiyaat”, written during his captivity by Byzantines or eastern Romans. His diwan was edited with a commentary (largely from the poet himself) shortly after his death by his tutor, the famous Iranian grammarian of Arabic language, Ibn Khalawaiyh, who lived in Syria at the Hamdanid court.

611 solar years ago, on this day in 1408 AD, the Muslim ruler, Amir Edigu of the Golden Horde reached Moscow and besieged it after capturing several Russian cities. Part of Moscow was burned and the siege was lifted on resumption of the annual tribute to the Tatars by the Russians, who had withheld it for several decades. Edigu gained fame as a highly successful general of Khan Tokhtamysh before turning the arms against him. By 1396, he was a sovereign ruler of a large area stretching between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains, which would later be called the Nogai Horde. In 1397 he allied himself with Timur-Qutlugh and was appointed general and commander-in-chief of the Golden Horde armies. In 1399 he inflicted a crushing defeat on Tokhtamysh and the Christian king, Vytautas of Lithuania at the Vorskla River. In 1406 he located his old enemy Tokhtamysh in Siberia and had him killed through his agents. The following year he raided Volga Bulgaria. In 1408, he staged a triumphant Tatar invasion of Russia. Two years later Edigu was dethroned in the Golden Horde and had to seek refuge in Khwarezm. Shah Rukh, the son and successor of the fearsome Turkic conqueror, Amir Timur, expelled him back to Sarai, where he was assassinated by one of Tokhtamysh's sons in 1419. Edigu's dynasty in the Nogai Horde continued for about two centuries.

563 solar years ago, on this day in 1456 AD, a devastating earthquake struck Naples, Italy, resulting in the death of around 40,000 people.

349 solar years ago, on this day in 1670 AD, Sultan Abdullah Qotb Shah of the Iranian origin kingdom of Golkandah-Haiderabad in the Deccan (southern India), issued a farmaan to the Iranian Armenian merchant from Isfahan, Marcara Avanchintz, permitting the French to trade and build a factory in the port-city Machli Bandar on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. Marcara had joined the service of King Louis XIV, and was appointed director of the newly founded French East India Company. Because of the common bond of Persian language, Marcara had established cordial relations with the Qotb Shahi Dynasty.

228 solar years ago, on this day in 1791 AD, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the famous Austrian pianist and composer, died at the young age of 35. Born in Salzburg, he spent the last ten years of his short life in Vienna. He composed several masterpieces. His famous operas include: "The Marriage of Figaro", and "The Magic Flute".

216 solar years ago, on this day 1803 AD, Russian poet and diplomat, Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev, was born near Bryansk. He spent most of his childhood in Moscow, and is generally considered the last of three great Romantic poets of Russia, following Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov.

207 solar years ago, on this day in 1812 AD, French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, after suffering a crushing defeat by Russia, returned crestfallen to Paris. He had launched his offensive on Russia on June 2 and advanced till Moscow, where for six months he met stiff resistance in freezing cold and was driven back, having lost 320,000 of the 350,000 French troops.

184 solar years ago, on this day in 1835 AD, the Iranian statesman and political figure, Mirza Abu’l-Qasem Qa’em Maqaam Farahani, was killed for carrying out political and administrative reforms that the colonialists and their local agents deemed against their interests. He served as regent to the young Mohammad Shah Qajar, and later as Grand Vizier. But within a year, due to the intrigues of John Campbell, the British representative in Iran, Farahani was arrested and subsequently murdered. He was kept for five or six days in a room in the basement of Negarestan without any food so that he would die when his strength diminishes. Eventually, the executioner, Safar Ismael Khan Qarajeh Daghi entered the basement and thrusting a handkerchief in his mouth, suffocated him. Farahani had mastered many sciences of the day in addition to literary techniques and initiated a new style in Persian prose. Among his works is a Divan of Persian poetry and the “Mansha’at” in prose.

173 lunar years ago, on this day in 1268 AH, the celebrated religious scholar, Ayatollah Seyyed Murtaza Kashmiri, was born in scholarly family in Kashmir. He travelled to Iraq at a young age for higher academic studies at the famous Najaf seminary. On mastering various branches of Islamic sciences he groomed a large number of students. He wrote several books, and passed away at the age of 55.

149 solar years ago, on this day in 1870 AD, French author Alexandre Dumas died at the age of 68. He wrote numerous novels on the French Revolution and history based on the memoirs of his father, who was an army general. Among his books, mention can be made of “The Three Musketeers”, and “The Count of Monte Cristo”. He was also a playwright and has written a number of famous plays.

145 solar years ago, on this day in 1874 AD, Iran became member of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which was set up in Geneva, Switzerland on 17 February 1863. On 5 April 1922, the “Iran Red Cross Society” changed its name to “Red Lion and Sun Society of Iran”. After the victory of the Islamic Revolution, its name was changed to the “Red Crescent Society”, which is headquartered in Tehran, and is among the top five relief agencies of the world.

125 solar years ago, on this day in 1894 AD, the famous Urdu poet of the Subcontinent, Shabbir Hassan Khan “Joush” was born in a Pashtun family in Malihabad, northern India. After mastering Urdu and English, he studied Arabic and Persian, and in 1925 began to supervise translation work at the famous Osmania University in the semi-independent state of Haiderabad-Deccan. Soon he founded the magazine “Kaleem” in which he openly wrote articles in favour of independence from Britain. As his reputation spread, he came to be called “Sha’er-e Inqelab” (Poet of the Revolution), and was a personal friend of India’s first prime minister, Jawaherlal Nehru. Over a decade after India’s independence, disillusioned with the declining status of Muslims and Urdu language in India, he migrated to Pakistan in 1958, and settled in Karachi where he joined “Anjuman-e Tarraqi-e-Urdu” for promotion of the Urdu language in Pakistan. He passed away in Islamabad on February 22, 1982. Joush Malihabadi has left behind valuable works in poetry and prose, including lengthy odes in praise of the Ahl al-Bayt, especially Imam Ali (AS) and Imam Husain (AS) – regarded as masterpieces of Urdu poetry.

118 solar years ago, on this day in 1901 AD, the famous American showman, animator and producer of children’s cinema and cartoons, Walt Disney, was born in Chicago in a family of Irish origin. He obtained a PhD in Arts from Harvard University and went on to create world famous cartoons such as Mickey Mouse, winning academy awards on several occasions. Disney had an aversion towards the racist ideology of Zionism. In view of this, pro-Israeli Jewish groups tried to accuse him of anti-Semitism, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Semites are Arabs and not the Jews of European origin, who are in fact ethnic Khazars – a Turkic people converted to Judaism and with no connection to the soil of Palestine, where the illegal entity Israel has been set up. He died in Burbank, California, in 1966.

102 lunar years ago, on this day in 1339 AH, prominent jurisprudent Fathollah bin Mohammad Namazi Gharawi, popular as Shaikh osh-Shari’ah Isfahani, was born in Isfahan in a family of scholars from Shiraz. After initial studies he enrolled at the seminary of holy Mashhad, where his teachers included Mullah Haidar Ali Isfahani, Mullah Abdul-Jawad Khorasani Modarris Kabir, and Mullah Ahmad Sabzevari. Here he established himself as a budding scholar with dynamic views. At the age of 30, he went to Iraq for higher studies at the famous seminary of holy Najaf, where his teachers were Mirza Habibollah Rashti and Shaikh Mohammad Hussain Faqih Kazemi.He soon became an authority on different branches of Islamic sciences, and the Marja’ or Source of Emulation. He wrote several books, including “Qa’eda’eh Sodoor”. He groomed many scholars, such as Seyyed Abdul-Hadi Shirazi, Shaikh Mohammad Hassan al-Muzaffar an-Najafi, Aqa Bozorg Tehrani, and Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hussain Tabataba'i Boroujerdi. Sheikh osh-Shari’ah Isfahani was politically active against the colonialists, issuing fatwas on Italy’s aggression on Libya, the Russian attack on Khorasan and shelling of the holy shrine of Imam Reza (AS) in Mashhad, the invasion of the Ottoman state by European powers during World War 1, and the landing of British troops in Basra and their occupation of Iraq. He rejected any political, military, economic and cultural domination of Islamic lands by the colonialists. He passed away at the age of 73 and was laid to rest in the courtyard of the holy shrine of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS).

67 solar years ago, on this day in 1952 AD, a dense cold fog descended upon London, combining with air pollution and killing over four thousand people in four days. It paralyzed transport service because of almost nil visibility. Even after its clearance, deaths continued to occur for several weeks, and claimed 12,000 lives.

56 solar years ago, on this day in 1963 AD, Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardi, the 5th Prime Minister of Pakistan and one of its founding fathers, passed away in Beirut, Lebanon, and his body was brought for burial to Dhaka – then in East Pakistan and now capital of Bangladesh. He was premier from 1956 to 1957. Born into a prominent  academic family of Bengal, he traced his lineage to the Iranian mystic and founder of the Sufi order, Shehab od-Din Suhrawardi, who in turn was a descendant of Mohammad Ibn Abu Bakr, one of the loyal devotees of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS).

29 solar years ago, on this day in 1990 AD, Iranian lecturer, researcher, and Persian language expert, Dr. Gholam Hussein Yousufi, passed away at the age of 63. Born in the holy city of Mashhad, he started his career as a university lecturer after obtaining a PhD. Among the books he has left behind, mention can be made of “Cheshma-e Rowshan”. He also edited several Persian literary masterpieces such as “Qaboos-Nameh”, and the “Golestan” and “Boustan” of the famous poet, Sa’di Shirazi.

9 solar years ago, on this day in 2010 AD, The Islamic Republic announced it could now use domestically mined uranium to produce nuclear fuel, giving Iran complete control over the fuel cycle, as part of efforts for peaceful use of nuclear energy.

6 solar years ago, on this day in 2013 AD, Nelson Mandela, lawyer, politician and 1st President of South Africa, died at the age of 95 in Johannesburg. Born in the village of Mvezo in Umtata, then a part of South Africa's Cape Province, his patrilineal great-grandfather, Ngubengcuka, was ruler of the Thembu people in the Transkeian Territories of what is now Eastern Cape Province. One of this king's sons, named Mandela, became Nelson's grandfather and the source of his surname. Mandela attended Fort Hare University and the University of Witwatersrand, where he studied law. Living in Johannesburg, he became involved in anti-colonial politics, joining the African National Congress (ANC) and becoming a founding member of its Youth League. After the Afrikaner minority government of the National Party established apartheid in 1948, he rose to prominence in the ANC's 1952 Defiance Campaign, was appointed superintendent of the organisation's Transvaal chapter and presided over the 1955 Congress of the People. Working as a lawyer, he was repeatedly arrested. In 1963 he was convicted of conspiracy to overthrow the apartheid regime and sentenced to life. In 1990, he was released after 27 years in prison and was accorded a very warm welcome by the black people of South Africa. In 1991, an agreement was reached between Mandela and the minority regime for ending the apartheid system, and in 1994, after holding of the first multiracial elections Mandela was elected as the first black president of South Africa. He stepped down from office in 1999.

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