Today is Monday; 23rd of the Iranian month of Dey 1398 solar hijri; corresponding to 17th of the Islamic month of Jamadi al-Awwal 1441 lunar hijri; and January 13, 2020, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1488 solar years ago, on this day in 532 AD, the 2^nd Hagia Sophia cathedral was burned down in Constantinople during the Nika Uprising, which failed leaving some 30,000-to-40,000 people dead. Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora had attended festivities at the Hippodrome, a stadium for athletic competition. Team support escalated from insults to mob riots and in the end Constantinople lay in ruins. Justinian proceeded to rebuild the city with extensive commissions for religious art and architecture, including the new Hagia Sophia.

1105 solar years ago, on this day in 915 AD, Hakam II, the 2^nd self-styled Omayyad caliph of al-Andalus or Muslim Spain, was born in Cordoba to Abdur-Rahman III and his concubine Murjan. He succeeded his father in 961 AD, and during his 15-year reign, he established Muslim supremacy over the Christian states of Navarre, Castile and León. Although he beat back the Norman attacks, his ambitions across the Strait of Gibraltar were shattered by the defeat inflicted upon his forces by the emerging Fatemid Ismaili Shi’a Muslim dynasty of North Africa. Hakam, however, utilized the peace in Spain to develop agriculture, irrigation works, urban development, and scholarly pursuits to the extent that books were procured from Damascus, Baghdad, Basra, Constantinople, Cairo, Mecca, Medina, Rayy, and Bukhara. His status as a patron of knowledge brought him fame across the Muslim world to the point that even books written in Iran, which was under Abbasid control, were dedicated to him. He undertook a massive translation effort and many books were translated from Latin and Greek into Arabic. He formed a joint committee of Muladi Muslims and Mozarab Catholics for this task. His personal library was of enormous proportions. Of special importance to him was history, and he himself wrote a history of Islamic Spain. The mathematician Lubna of Córdoba was employed as his private secretary and the famous physician, surgeon and scientist, Abu’l-Qasim az-Zahrawi (Abulcasis) flourished at his court. His building works included an expansion of the main mosque of Córdoba (962–966), the Mezquita, and the completion of the royal residence Medinat-az-Zahara (976), which his father had begun in 936. Hakam II died in 976 at the age of 61 and was succeeded by his son Hisham II – son of his Basque concubine.

921 solar years ago, on this day in 1099 AD, the Christian Crusader invaders from Europe set fire to the town of Mara, in Syria, as part of their murderous campaign to ravage Muslim lands and occupy Bayt al-Moqaddas.

570 solar years ago, on this day in 1450 AD, the Portuguese sailor and explorer, Bartholomew Diaz, was born. In 1488, after sailing the Atlantic Ocean toward the south, with the help of Muslim navigators, he became the first European to land on the Cape of Good Hope, in the most southern region of African Continent. Ten years after Diaz, his compatriot, Vasco da Gama, again with the help of Muslim navigators, became the first European to discover the sea route to India by rounding the southern peninsular tip of Africa. The discovery of this sea route was important for the West because the Ottoman Turks, after conquering Constantinople in the year 1453 and renaming it Istanbul had blocked Europe’s path to Asia. Diaz died in the year 1500.

424 solar years ago, on this day in 1596 AD, Dutch landscape painter Jan Josephszoon van Goyen was born to a shoemaker in Leiden and started life as an apprentice to his father. He later studied and developed into an extremely prolific artist. Some twelve hundred paintings and more than a thousand drawings by him are known. He died in 1656 at the age of 60.

354 solar years ago, on this day in 1666 AD, the famous French traveller and dealer of precious stones, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier arrived in Dhaka (in what is now Bangladesh) after travelling overland via Iran, and met the Moghal Governor of Bengal, Mirza Abu Taleb Tehrani Shaista Khan – brother of Empress Mumtaz Mahal and hence maternal uncle of reigning Emperor Aurangzeb. Tavernier made six voyages to Iran and India between the years 1630-1668, and in view of his fluency in Persian language, he established contacts with the Safavid and Mughal courts. He travelled as far as the Deccan (southern Indian), where he visited the famous diamond mines of the Qutb-Shahi kingdom of Golkandah-Hyderabad – of Iranian origin. Here he obtained the world famous 116-carat Tavernier Blue Diamond, now known as the Hope Diamond and currently kept in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum of Washington, with an estimated price of 250 million US dollars. In 1675 at the behest of his patron, Louis XIV, he published his travelogue titled “Six Voyages”.

188 solar years ago, on this day in 1832 AD, the French Painter, Edouard Manet, was born. He was a pivotal figure in the transition from the painting school of Realism to Impressionism. His works include “Olympia”. He died in 1883.

183 lunar years ago, on this day in 1258 AH, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Ali Shah-Abdulazimi, was born in Rayy, near modern Tehran. He went to Iraq to complete his higher religious studies at the famous seminary of holy Najaf, where he mastered Islamic sciences under Ayatollah Sheikh Morteza Ansari Dezfuli, Ayatollah Mirza Mohammad Hassan Shirazi, and Ayatollah Sheikh Mullah Ali Khalili – whose daughter he married. He passed away at the age of 76 in Tuweiraj while returning from Karbala after pilgrimage to the holy shrine of Imam Husain (AS). He was laid to rest in Najaf in the holy mausoleum of Imam Ali (AS). He was a prolific writer, whose several works have not yet been published. Among his printed works mention could be made of “al-Iqaat”, and “al-Jowharah”.  

178 solar years ago, on this day in 1842 AD, during the First Anglo-Afghan War, a total of 16,500 British troops while retreating from Kabul were ambushed and nearly all slaughtered at the Khyber Pass. The sole survivor to reach Jalalabad was (reputedly) the badly wounded Dr. William Brydon.

173 solar years ago, on this in 1847 AD, the Treaty of Cahuenga was imposed on Mexico by the US to end the war in California, and thus pave the way for Washington’s designs to annex more Mexican territory. Throughout its history, the USA has resorted to wars, bloodshed, genocide of Amerindians, enslavement of black people, and seizure of the territories of other countries.

105 solar years ago, on this day in 1915 AD, an earthquake in Avezzano, Italy, resulted in the death of 29,800 people.

79 solar years ago, on this day in 1941 AD, the Allied Powers held an important conference in London during World War II, upon the initiative of British Premier, Winston Churchill, for coordinating policies in the war against Germany and Italy. This conference was attended by the representatives of Britain, Holland, Belgium, France, Greece, Norway, Luxemburg, and Denmark.

56 solar years ago, on this day in 1964 AD, Hindu-Muslim rioting broke out in the Indian city of Calcutta (renamed Kolkata), resulting in the deaths of more than 100 people.

45 solar years ago, on this day in 1975 AD, the famous jurisprudent, Ayatollah Seyyed Abu’l-Hassan Rafi’i Qazvini, passed away at the age of 83. Born in Qazvin, he studied in Tehran and then in holy Qom under the famous scholar, Ayatollah Abdul-Karim Ha’eri Yazdi, mastering various branches of Islamic sciences. He authored several books.

41 solar years ago, on this day in 1979 AD, during demonstrations in several Iranian cities in the crucial days of the Islamic Revolution, intense clashes erupted between Shah's forces and the people, leading to martyrdom and injury of a number of courageous Iranians. The British installed regime sensing its imminent downfall floated the idea of setting up a regency council for governing the country, but the people inspired by the statements of the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA), rejected the idea and vowed to continue the struggle until final victory.

41 solar years ago, on this day in 1979 AD, students and people of the Iranian capital staged a large gathering at Tehran University, announcing their opposition to the Shah’s despotic regime and calling for return home from exile of the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA). This happened while the university campus was surrounded by soldiers. Following this gathering, Imam Khomeini, in his message from his place of brief exile near Paris in France, taking note of the rumours being spread by the Shah's regime and plots being hatched against the Islamic Revolution, called on the Iranian people to be alert and vigilant in order to foil all such plots.

39 solar years ago, this day in 1981 AD, Saddam of Iraq’s repressive Ba’th minority regime ordered the first chemical bombardment of Iran, 50 km west of the city of Elam, resulting in the martyrdom of several soldiers. During the 8-year war imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran on US orders, Saddam frequently used internationally banned chemical weapons supplied by the West, especially Germany, resulting in the martyrdom of at least 10,000 Iranian people and injury to over 130,000 others, as the UN turned a blind eye to his crimes.

AS/SS