Today is Thursday; 14th of the Iranian month of Mordad 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 1st of the Islamic month of Zi’l-Qa’dah 1437 lunar hijri; and August 4, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1264 lunar years ago, on this day in 173 AH, Hazrat Fatema al-Ma’sumah (SA), the venerable daughter of Imam Musa al-Kazem (SA), the 7^th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), was born in Medina. She was a child prodigy and acquired higher status of knowledge while less than 8 years of age, to the extent she could provide satisfactory answers to some of the most complicated issues for which grey-bearded scholars had no clue. She grew up into a paragon of piety, and till she passed away in Iran at the age of 29 years she remained a spinster since no man of her times was worthy of her hand. The reason that she journeyed to Iran was to visit her dear brother, Imam Reza (AS), who was forcibly brought to Khorasan by the crafty Abbasid caliph, Mamoun, fearful of the popularity of the Ahl al-Bayt among the ummah. Near Saveh, southwest of present-day Tehran, her caravan was attacked by Abbasid agents, making her seek the safety of the nearby city of Qom, which was a sanctuary for the Prophet’s blessed household. After seventeen days of sojourn, her soul departed for the ethereal heavens from this city, where today her grand golden-domed mausoleum stands for pilgrims from all over the globe, while Qom has been transformed into the world’s spiritual capital with students coming from the four corners of the Planet to acquire Islamic knowledge.

1260 lunar years ago, on this day in 177 AH, Shurraiy Ibn Abdullah Ibn Sinan an-Nakha’i, the hadith scholar who ended up a turncoat and betrayed his profession of a judge, died at the age of 82. Born into an Arab family of Yemeni origin in the Iranian city of Bukhara in what is now the Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan, he used to be a follower of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt, until he made the fatal mistake of contaminating his body and soul by agreeing to eat the rich food prepared through foul and unlawful means at the table of Mahdi al-Abbasi, the 3^rd self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime. Thereafter he was made a judge in Kufa, and used to give dubious verdicts, in addition to forging hadith.

793 lunar years ago, on this day in 644 AH, Sultan Naseer od-Din Mahmoud Shah of the Slave Dynasty of Northern India, crossed the Ravi River, a branch of the Indus River in Punjab, while his minister Ghiyas od-Din Balban, separating from the main army, led an expedition into the Joud Hills against the Rana who had guided the Mongol invaders in the previous year to ravage parts of the Sultanate. The Rana was duly chastised. Balban, who later married the Sultan’s daughter and succeeded him to the throne, ruling ably for twenty years, introduced the Persian etiquette at his court to control the turbulent Turkic Amirs.

438 solar years ago, on this day in 1578 AD at the Battle of al-Qasr al-Kabir, the Moroccans, supported by the Ottomans, defeated the Portuguese invaders and saved the country from Christian occupation. King Sebastian of Portugal was killed in the battle, along with 8,000 of his troops, while 15,000 Portuguese troops were captured.  Only 100 Portuguese survivors managed to escape to the coast, while almost the whole nobility was killed. The body of the 24-year old King Sebastian was never found. The ailing Sultan of Morocco, Abdul-Malik also died during the battle, but from natural causes since the effort of riding was too much for him, but the news of his death was announced only after total victory in the 4-hour battle. He was succeeded by his brother, Ahmad al-Mansur.

296 solar years ago, on this day in 1720 AD, Qamar od-Din Khan Asef Jah I Nizam ul-Mulk, while on his way to the Deccan or southern India to assert independence from the Mughal Empire of Delhi, defeated Alam Ali Khan at Balapur, following his victory earlier on June 22 near Burhanpur over Dilawar Ali Khan. At this, Seyyed Hussain Ali Khan of Barha – younger of the two ‘kingmaker’ Seyyed Brothers at the Mughal court – started from Delhi to confront him but was assassinated by Haider Khan in October 1720. The elder, Seyyed Hassan Ali Khan, set out to avenge his brother`s murder, but was defeated at Hassanpur near Palwal (in today’s Haryana) on November 15-16 in the same year and later poisoned to death on 12 October 1722. The Seyyed Brothers, who changed four Mughal emperors, had reduced the high status enjoyed at the court by the Turkic and the Iranian noblemen. These nobles rallied around Nizam ul-Mulk, prompting the Seyyed Brothers to remove him from Delhi by appointing him Subehdaar or governor-general of Malwa in 1719. Nizam ul-Mulk, who earlier from 1713 to 1717 had been Subehdaar of the Deccan, sensed danger to his life, and took the initiative by marching unannounced from Bhopal towards the south, capturing the forts of Asirgarh and Burhanpur on his way. After defeating Mubarez Khan at the Battle of Shakarkheda in Berar, in 1724 he chose Aurangabad  and later Hyderabad as the capital of his independent Persianized state that was to last for 224 years till 1948 when it was forcibly merged in the Indian Union through military action. Born in Agra in 1671 to Ghazi od-Din Khan Feroze Jung, son of the migrant scholar and general Khwaja Abed titled Qilich Khan of Samarqand, Nizam ul-Mulk traced his ancestry to the Iranian mystic, Shahab od-Din Suhrawardi – a descendent of Mohammad ibn Abu Bakr, the loyal disciple of Prophet Mohammad’s (SAWA) 1^st Infallible Heir, Imam Ali (AS). An able general, an efficient administrator, and an accomplished poet in Persian with two Diwans to his credit, he ruled for 24 years till his death in 1748, returning briefly to Delhi in 1739 during the invasion by the Iranian Emperor Nader Shah, who following the Mughal defeat in the Battle of Karnal offered him the empire of India in place of Mohammad Shah – an offer he declined. The Asef Jahi state, though reduced in size by British seizure of lands for over two centuries, was the size of France when taken over by India.

225 solar years ago, on this day in 1791 AD, the Treaty of Sistova was signed, ending the 4-year Austro-Turkish War (1787–91) between the Hapsburg and Ottoman Empires. It was signed in Sistova in present-day Bulgaria. Austria had been pushed back in the first year of the war, then conquered Belgrade and gained another victory near Calafat in 1790. Its ally Russia had also been very successful against the Turks, but Austria was threatened with invasion by Prussia. The Turks ceded only the town of Orşova and two small places on the Croatian frontier, as per the treaty that brought down the curtain on two centuries of hostilities between the two powers. Austria renounced any expansion at the expense of the Ottoman Empire and did not participate in the Russian-led wars against the Ottomans during the 19th and 20th centuries.

224 solar years ago, on this day in 1792 AD, Percy Bysshe Shelley, the British poet, was born. He was attracted to the French revolution, but thereafter indulged in sedition by inciting the Greeks to rebel against the Ottoman Empire. The result was a wide scale killing of Muslims as well as ethnic cleansing and conversion of mosques into churches. Being homeless for a while, he died at the age of 30 in the year 1822, after his boat sank in the Mediterranean Sea. Among his famous poems, mention can be made of “The Spirit of Solitude”.

211 solar years ago, on this day in 1805 AD, in the early morning hours, Irish physicist, astronomer, and mathematician, William Rowan Hamilton, was born in Dublin. He made important contributions to classical mechanics, optics, and algebra, discovering new mathematical concepts and techniques. His best known contribution to mathematical physics is the reformulation of “Newtonian Mechanics”, now called “Hamiltonian Mechanics”. This work has proven central to the modern study of classical field theories such as electromagnetism, and to the development of quantum mechanics. In pure mathematics, he is best known as the inventor of quaternions. Hamilton had immense talent at a very early age, with a penchant for learning languages of other nations. At the age of seven he made considerable progress in Hebrew, and before he was thirteen he had acquired, under the care of his uncle – a linguist – many other languages including the classical and modern European languages, as well as Persian, Arabic, Hindustani, Sanskrit, and even Marathi and Malay. He retained much of his knowledge of languages to the end of his life, often reading Persian and Arabic in his spare time, and this enabled him to borrow from the works of Islamic scientists in such fields as algebra, astronomy and mechanics. He died in his hometown Dublin at the age of 60.

192 solar years ago, on this day in 1824 AD, the Ottoman army routed in the Greek rebels in the Battle of Kos – an island that lies only four km off the Turkey’s coast, but was deceitfully given to Greece by its British occupiers after the end of the Second World War.

141 solar years ago, on this day in 1875 AD, Danish fairy tale author, and poet, Hans Christian Andersen, who is noted for his children’s stories, died at the age of 70. He is considered as one of the best authors of fairly tales in the world and he has penned famous stories such as “The Ugly Duckling”, “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” and “The Red Shoes”. In all, he wrote 150 stories for children. The birthday of this Danish author on April 2 is marked as the Global Day of Children’s Books.

110 solar years ago, on this day in 1906 AD, the movement of the Iranian people led by the ulema forced the Qajarid King, , Mozaffar od-Din Shah to sign the Constitutional Decree that aimed to end injustice, oppression, and the interference of foreign states in Iran’s internal affairs. Prime Minister Ain od-Dowlah’s brutal suppression of public protests had led to the killing and wounding of scores of people. In protest, the ulema led by Ayatollah Seyyed Abdullah Behbahani and Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Tabatabai, staged sit-ins in Rayy and Qom. The Shah, fearful of the events, dismissed the premier and issued the Constitutional Decree. Later, British agents infiltrated the Constitutional Movement and diverted it from its path.

28 solar years ago, on this day in 1988 AD, the prominent Pakistani Islamic scholar, Allamah Seyyed Arif Hussain al-Hussaini, was martyred at Peshawar in Northern Pakistan by sectarian terrorists. Born in a virtuous and academic family, he started learning Islamic sciences as of a young age. After a while, he left for Iraq and Iran to complete his higher studies. He became familiar with the thoughts of the Father of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, late Imam Khomeini (God bless him). During the Islamic Revolution, he was in Iran, and actively supported the struggle of the Iranian people against the Pahlavi despotic regime. As a result, he was expelled to Pakistan by the Shah’s regime. In Pakistan, he taught Islamic sciences and strove to improve the status of the disadvantaged people. In 1984, he was elected to lead the organization: “Tehrik-e Nefaz-e Fiqh-e Jafaria”, which means the movement to implement the Ja’fari School of Jurisprudence. Thereafter, he continued his efforts to establish unity between Shi’ites and Sunnis in Pakistan and made utmost efforts to save the rights of the followers of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt in Pakistan. These efforts of Allamah Arif Hussain al-Hussaini, enraged the enemies of Pakistani people’s solidarity, and they martyred him on this day.

10 solar years ago, on this day in 2006 AD, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Muslims chanting "Death to Israel" and "Death to the US" marched through the streets of Baghdad's biggest Shi’a district in a massive show of support for Lebanon’s legendry anti-terrorist movement, the Hezbollah, in its resistance against the aggression of the illegal Zionist entity. This alarmed the US and it moved some 3,700 of its occupation soldiers of the 172^nd Stryker Brigade into Baghdad from the northern city of Mosul.

AS/ME