Today is Thursday; 21st of the Iranian month of Azar 1398 solar hijri; corresponding to 15th of the Islamic month of Rabi as-Sani 1441 lunar hijri; and December 12, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1392 solar years ago, on this day in 627 AD, the Battle of Ninevah was fought in Iraq in which a Byzantine army under Emperor Heraclius of the Eastern Roman Empire defeated the Persian forces of Emperor Khosrow II Pervez of Iran’s Sassanid Empire, commanded by the Armenian General, Rokh Vehan (Rahzadh). The Byzantine victory in the 26-year long Roman-Iranian war, broke the power of the Sassanid dynasty, which a few years back in the early stages of the war had conquered much of the Levant, Egypt, and most of Anatolia (modern day Turkey), even besieging the Byzantine capital, Constantinople (present day Istanbul). It is worth noting that the pagan Arabs on learning of the victories of the fire-worshipping Sassanids over the monotheistic Christians had rejoiced and mocked Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), saying the fledgling Muslim community will soon be annihilated. In response, Allah revealed the opening ayahs of Surah Roum, saying although the Romans have been vanquished in the nearby lands, soon they will triumph. With Constantinople under Persian siege, Heraclius became emperor, and immediately forged an alliance with the Turkic Khaqanate of the Gokturks, who in 626 sent a 40,000-strong army of nomads to ravage the Persian Empire in the Caucasus, distracting the Iranian forces’ attention, and resulting in their withdrawal from the Roman front. The Battle of Ninevah, followed by the sack of several cities in Iraq, made the Iranian army rebel and overthrow Khosrow II; replacing him with his son Qobad II in 628. Khosrow perished in a dungeon after suffering for five days on bare sustenance — he was shot to death slowly with arrows on the fifth day. Both the superpowers were so exhausted from their long wars that within a decade their territories were overrun by a new force from the Arabian Desert – the Muslims. It is worth mentioning that Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) had written letters to both the emperors, inviting them to Islam. Heraclius showed respect to the letter, while Khosrow Pervez showed disdain by tearing it and ordering his governor in Yemen to invade the Hijaz, but was soon killed. 

921 solar years ago, on this day in 1098 AD, during the First Crusade, the Christian invaders from Europe not just massacred over 20,000 Muslim men, women, and children of the Syrian city of Ma'arrat an-Numan after deceiving them to surrender peacefully, but resorted to cannibalism by eating the bodies of their victims. These barbaric events were chronicled by Fulcher of Chartres, who wrote: "I shudder to tell that many of our people (European Christians), harassed by the madness of excessive hunger, cut pieces from the buttocks of the Saracens (Muslims) already dead there, which they cooked, but when it was not yet roasted enough by the fire, they devoured it with savage mouth.”

510 solar years ago, on this day in 1509 AD, Portuguese admiral, Francisco de Almeida, in a bid to avenge the death of his marauding son, Lorenzo de Almeida, who was killed in the naval Battle of Chaul off the coast of Gujarat by the joint fleet of the Zamorin of Kerala and the Mamluks of Egypt led by Mir Hussain Kurdi, pursued the latter, after indiscriminately burning several Indian ships in the ports of Calicut and Cannanore. Unable to corner Mir Hussain, he took the defenseless town of Dabhol on India’s western coast on December 30, plundered it, and massacred its inhabitants including women, children, and elderly men.

445 solar years ago, on this day in 1574 AD, Selim II, the 11^th Ottoman Sultan and the 3^rd self-styled Turkish caliph, died at the age of 50 after an incompetent 8-year rule, due to drunkenly slipping on the wet floor of a bath-house, and fatally injuring his head. Son of Suleiman the Magnificent and the Rutherian (Polish-Ukrainian) concubine, Khorram Sultan (original name: Alexandra Lisowska), he succeeded to the throne through intrigue and fraternal dispute. Despite claiming to be caliph and having a powerful fleet that controlled the Mediterranean Sea, he refused the pleas for help by the Spanish Muslims during the 3-year Morisco Revolt (1568-71) in Granada, southern Spain. As a result the uprising was ruthlessly crushed by a joint Christian army of Spain, Austria, and Italy, after which hundreds of thousands of Spanish Muslims were forcibly Christianized and all books and documents in Arabic burned.  

266 solar years ago, on this day in 1753 AD, British adjutant of Virginia, 22-year old George Washington, who over two decades later became US president, delivered an ultimatum to the French forces at Fort Le Boeuf, south of Lake Erie, reiterating Britain’s claim to the entire Ohio river valley. He was sent by Governor Robert Dinwiddie to warn the French soldiers that they were trespassing on English territory, because of his apparent loyalty to the British crown. Over the two decades later on the outbreak of rebellion against the crown in the 13 New England colonies, Washington switched sides, joined the rebels, led them to victory over the British forces, and became the first president of the United States of America (USA).  

253 solar years ago, on this day in 1766 AD, Nikolay Karamzin, Russian poet and historian, was born in the village of Znamenskoye, in Simbirsk Governorate. He is best remembered for his “History of the Russian State”, a 12-volume national history, for the writing of which he left the literary circles of St. Petersburg and Moscow and secluded himself for two years at Simbirsk. He was a strong supporter of the anti-Polish policies of the Russian Empire, and expressed hope that there would be no Poland under any shape or name. On learning of his endeavor to compile the history of Russia, Tsar Alexander I invited him in 1816 to St Petersburg, had the work read to him, and lodged him in the gardens of the palace of Tsarskoye Selo to complete it. Karamzin was most industrious in accumulating materials, and the notes to his volumes are mines of interesting information, although he is justly criticized for the false gloss and romantic air thrown over the early Russian annals.

125 solar years ago, on this day in 1894 AD, Grand Ayatollah Mirza Habibollah Rashti, passed away at age of 75 in holy Najaf, Iraq. Born in Amlash in Gilan, northern Iran near the Caspian Sea, he was gifted with a sharp mind and reached the status of Ijtehad at the young age of 25. A product of the famous Islamic seminary of holy Najaf, he studied under prominent scholars such as Ayatollah Sheikh Morteza Ansari Dezfuli and Mohammad Hassan Najafi (author of the famous jurisprudential work “Jawaher al-Kalaam”). His works include the book: “Badi al-Afkaar”.

118 solar years ago, on this day in 1901 AD, for the first time, a sentence was telecommunicated across the Atlantic Ocean through radio waves, without an extension wire. The inventor was Italian Physicist Guglielmo Marconi, who later invented the Radio. This first transatlantic radio signal was from Poldhu in Cornwall, where Marconi was stationed and was received by Percy Wright Page in St John's, Newfoundland, Canada. Then electrical engineer John Ambrose Fleming transmitted the Morse code signal for "s" from across the Atlantic Ocean in England and Marconi heard it--three short clicks--through a radio speaker. Marconi had begun experimenting with radiotelegraphy around 1895, and he realized that messages could be transmitted over much greater distances by using grounded antennae on the radio transmitter and receiver. A few years after the successful transmission with Fleming, Marconi opened the first commercial wireless telegraph service.

115 solar years ago, on this day in 1904 AD, the ulema of Tehran migrated along with their followers to the holy shrine of Seyyed Abdul-Azim al-Hassani in Rayy, in protest to the repressive policies of Mozaffar od-Din Shah Qajar. Some 2000 people joined the ulema and in a few days 20,000 protestors had assembled at the shrine, forcing the Shah to yield to the demands by agreeing to establish courts of law in all towns and cities, and base the country’s laws in accordance with the Islamic shari’a. 

108 solar years ago, on this day in 1911 AD, Delhi, the former Muslim capital of North India, replaced Calcutta (presently Kolkata) as the capital of British India. It was declared the capital by Britain’s King George V in the presence of some 562 Indian princes, Muslim nawabs, Hindu maharajahs, soldiers and bureaucrats. After this announcement, George V and his wife Mary of Teck were crowned emperor and empress of India. The British, who had entered the subcontinent as traders, seized the opportunity after the death of the last Great Moghul, Aurangzeb, in early 18^th century, to spread their military influence on the weak Muslim successor states. In Bengal, on the banks of the River Hooghly, Calcutta, which started as the garrison town of Fort William, became the capital of all British possessions in 1772, some 15 years after these invaders ended through treachery, the rule of Nawab Siraj od-Dowla (of Iranian origin). After gradual encroachment on other parts of the subcontinent through wars and intrigues, in 1857 the British brutally brought to end the remnants of the Mughal Dynasty and sacked Delhi. The subcontinent was subjugated, the Persian language, which had been the official language of Muslim India for almost seven centuries, was banned, and Queen Victoria was declared as Empress of India. In 1927, the British started building New Delhi and completed it in 1931. In 1947, they left the subcontinent after partitioning it into India and Pakistan, and later Bangladesh.

94 solar years ago, on this day in 1925 AD, the illiterate British agent Reza Khan Pahlavi forced the Iranian parliament to set up a so-called constitutional assembly to change clauses of the constitution for formally deposing Ahmad Shah Qajar and declaring himself the next king of Iran. In this manner, the 131-year rule of the Qajarids ended and the 53-year rule of the tyrannical Pahlavi regime started. The common features of the Qajarid and Pahlavi rulers were their autocratic and despotic policies; lack of essential qualifications, including popular support; and submission to foreign powers. An illiterate petty officer, Reza Khan, had earlier staged a coup with British backing to impose himself as prime minister on the incompetent Ahmad Shah Qajar. . In 1941 the British dethroned Reza Khan for his sympathies with Nazi Germany during World War 2 and installed on the Peacock Throne his 21-year old indolent son, Mohammad Reza. In 1953, Mohammad Reza had to flee Iran to escape the people’s wrath but was restored to power the same year through a joint US-British coup. He again fled Iran in January 1979 and in less than a month, following the return to Iran from exile of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA), the Pahlavi regime was thrown into the dustbin of history.

76 solar years ago, on this day in 1943 AD, Iranian writer, journalist, TV host, university professor, and revolutionary politician, Seyyed Sadeq Tabatabaei, was born in holy Qom to Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad-Baqer Tabatabaei, while his mother was the sister of the famous Iranian leader of Lebanese Shi’a Muslims, Imam Musa as-Sadr – kidnapped and martyred by Libyan leader, Mo’ammer Qadhafi, while on a state visit to Tripoli in 1978. Sadeq Tabatabaei’s sister, Fatemeh was married to Hojjat al-Islam Seyyed Ahmad Khomeini, thus making him the maternal uncle of the Late Imam’s grandson, Hojjat al-Islam, Seyyed Hassan Khomeini. On completing elementary education, Sadeq Tabatabaei moved to Germany to study chemistry at Ruhr University Bochum, where he soon became a lecturer. In 1961, he went to Aachen to study biochemistry and later received his doctorate from the University of Bochum. While in Aachen, he organized a student group that campaigned against the British-installed and US supported Pahlavi regime, vehemently opposing the visit to Germany in 1967 of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. As a firm supporter of Imam Khomeini, he published many articles about him and the Islamic Revolution Movement in German newspapers. After victory of the Islamic Revolution, he returned to Tehran, along with Imam Khomeini, and became Head of Department of Political and Social affairs at the Ministry of Interior, thereby assuming the task of holding the April 1979 referendum which resulted in the establishment of the Islamic Republic. He served as Deputy Prime Minister from 1979 to 1980. He was Iran's Ambassador to West Germany from 1982 until 1986, and after that had served the Islamic Republic as a special envoy on missions abroad. He was a candidate in the 1980 presidential elections, but finished fifth. He was also a possible candidate for the 2009 election which he withdrew in favour of Mohsen Rezaie and later became one of his advisers and campaign members. He was also his deputy manager of campaign in 2013 election and a possible vice president candidate. He passed away in 2015 at the age of 72 in Düsseldorf, Germany, where he had been residing for the last six months for treatment of his lung cancer. His body was brought to Tehran and laid to rest in the mausoleum of the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA).

71 solar years ago, on this day in 1948 AD, British colonial soldiers surrounded the Sungai Rimoh rubber estate in Batang Kali, shot 24 Malaysian rubber plantation workers and set the village on fire. In 1970 Britain’s government dropped a police investigation, claiming alleged lack of evidence. In 2012, relatives of the brutally killed workers lost their court battle for a full inquiry by the British regime.

56 solar years ago, on this day in 1963 AD, Kenya in east Africa gained independence from Britain. It was occupied as of early 20^th century and formally proclaimed a British colony in 1920. After World War 2, the Kenyan people led by Jomo Kenyatta launched their uprising. The monopoly of whites and racial strife took the country to the brink of civil war in the 1950s, forcing the British to draft a constitution and hold elections. In the February 1961 parliamentary polls, the indigenous Africans won the most number of seats, and two years later complete independence was achieved. The Republic of Kenya covers an area of 582,646 sq km. It has a coastline on the Indian Ocean, and its capital is Nairobi. It shares borders with Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, and Tanzania. Over 15 percent of the 40 million population of Kenya is Muslim. Kenya has a rich Islamic cultural past in view of the fact that by the 8^th century Arab and Persian settlements had sprouted along the coast. At its height, the Kilwa Sultanate, centered in what is now Tanzania, and founded by the Iranian nobleman, Ali ibn al-Hassan Shirazi, over a thousand years ago, stretched over the entire length of the Swahili Coast, including Kenya. The Persian rulers would go on to build elaborate coral mosques and introduced copper coinage. During this period, people of Yemen and Oman also settled on the coast and set up many autonomous city-states, including Mombasa, the leading port city of Kenya. This blending of cultures left a profound influence on the local Bantu Swahili culture and language. Mombasa, which has a Muslim majority population, has had traditional trade links with commercial centers in Iran, Arabia, and India.

37 solar years ago, on this day in 1982 AD, Iranian author and translator, Dr. Ali Asghar Soroush, passed away at the age of 74. In addition to translation of several books from French into Persian, he was also fluent in English and Arabic. His translated books include the “Ancient Civilizations of the Near East”.

37 solar years ago, on this day in 1982 AD, the poet Gholam-Reza Qodsi-Nejad Mashhadi passed away at the age of 64 in Mashhad and was laid to rest in the holy mausoleum of Imam Reza (AS), the 8^th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). A student of the famous scholar Adib Naishapuri, he mastered religious sciences and started writing poems at the age of 16. He made several trips to India and Pakistan in search of Persian manuscripts. He was politically active against the British-installed and US-backed Pahlavi regime and following victory of the Islamic Revolution became lecturer at the College of Literature of Mashhad University.  

9 lunar years ago, on this day in 1432 AH, the prominent scholar and combatant religious leader, Ayatollah Mohammad Sadeqi Tehrani passed away at the age of 87. His father was one of the famous orators. Mohammad Sadeqi entered the Islamic seminary of Tehran at the age of 14. His teachers were Ayatollah Sheikh Mohammad Ali Shahabadi, and Mirza Mahdi and Mirza Ahmad Ashtiani. He acquired deep knowledge of Qur’anic exegesis from Ayatollah Shahabadi and later accomplished it in Qom under Allamah Seyyed Mohammad Hussain Tabatabaei – author of the famous exegesis “Tafsir al-Mizan”. He completed jurisprudence under Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hussain Borujerdi, and attained the status of Ijtehad. Thereafter he attended the lectures of Imam Khomeini (RA) in philosophy and ethics, and was profoundly influenced by his teacher’s political thoughts. Ayatollah Sadeqi returned to Tehran after ten years at the Qom seminary, and in addition to teaching at the university, he obtained PhD in Islamic studies and Masters in four other subjects, including law. At the same time, he attended the lectures in mysticism of Ayatollah Sheikh Mohammad Taqi Amoli as well as philosophical lectures of Ayatollah Rafi’i Qazvini. After ten years of political struggle against the despotic Pahlavi regime and giving lessons on the exegesis of the holy Qur’an in Tehran, he was invited in 1962 AD by the scholars of Qom to attend an important meeting in commemoration of the first anniversary of the passing away of Grand Ayatollah Boroujerdi. At the gathering he delivered a fiery speech exposing the oppressive policies of the British-installed and American-backed Shah. As a result, he was prosecuted by the SAVAK and sentenced to death in absentia, since he had already left for holy Mecca, where during the Hajj rituals he further exposed the tyranny of the Shah. He was imprisoned by the Saudi regime but released following protests by the scholars of Iran and Iraq. He moved to holy Najaf in Iraq, where besides teaching Islamic sciences, exegesis of the holy Qur’an in particular, he continued his political activities against the Pahlavi regime, especially since his mentor Imam Khomeini was in Najaf on being exiled by the Shah. Forced to leave Iraq by the repressive Ba’th minority regime, he went to Lebanon, where he stayed for five years and then proceeded to Mecca again. During his 2-year stay he held classes on Qur’anic exegesis and jurisprudence in the Masjid al-Haraam behind the "Maqam-e Ibrahim" where more than six hundred students from various countries used to attend his lectures. He organized peaceful debates with scholars of various jurisprudential schools, and convinced them by his strong arguments. As a result, the Wahhabi regime again expelled him. He went back to Beirut and three months later, after 17 years of exile, he returned home to Iran following triumph of the Islamic Revolution, to assist his teacher Imam Khomeini in establishment of the Islamic Republic. A few months after triumph of the Islamic Revolution, he arrived back in Qom for teaching Qur’an and jurisprudence. His lectures were wholly based on the Holy Qur’an. He authored about 110 books on various subjects. His main work is the 3-volume exegesis of the holy Qur’an titled “Tafsir al-Furqan”.  He also wrote a critique on the Bible titled “Aqaidona” (Our Beliefs). He made vigorous criticisms of the prevailing philosophy at Islamic seminaries, saying its foundation is inconsistent with the Qur’an and Sunnah. He also challenged Western and Eastern philosophers in a significant book titled “Talks between Monotheists and Materialists”.

6 solar years ago, on this day in 2013 AD, Bangladesh Islamist leader, Abdul Qader Mullah, of the Jama’at-e Islami, was tried, sentenced and executed by hanging by the government of Prime Minister Hassina Wajed, despite objections from the UN.

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