Today is Tuesday; 19th of the Iranian month of Mordad 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 6th of the Islamic month of Zi’l-Qa’dah 1437 lunar hijri; and August 9, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

6^th Zi’l-Qa’dah is commemorated every year in the Islamic Republic of Iran in honour of Seyyed Ahmad Ibn Musa, whose holy shrine is in the city of Shiraz and who is popularly known as “Shah Cheragh” (King of Lights), because of a miraculous incident. He was the second son of Imam Musa al-Kazem (AS) and the younger brother of Imam Reza (AS) – respectively the 7^th and 8^th Infallible Heirs of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). Born in Medina, he was loyal to Imam Reza (AS) and along with his friends and followers, pledged allegiance to him as the rightful Imam on the martyrdom of his father. In 203 AH, he was on his way to Khorasan, along with some of his brothers, when news reached him in Shiraz of the martyrdom of Imam Reza (AS). Mamoun the self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime, who had martyred Imam Reza (AS) through a fatal dose of poison, ordered the governor of Fars to confront and kill Seyyed Ahmad and his entourage. A battle ensued and lasted for three days at the end of which the noble defenders were martyred. Seyyed Ahmad was buried in his armour in the public graveyard of Shiraz. Years later when this son of the 7^th Imam was almost forgotten, people began to see light emanating from the graveyard. When a scholar of repute was notified about the matter, he resolved to investigate it. One night he traced the light to a grave and the following morning gave permission for its exhumation. To the pleasant surprise of all those assembled at the site, the corpse that emerged was of bright visage, remarkably fresh, and clad in armour, with a ring on a finger of the right hand bearing the inscription “al-Izzatu-Lillah, Ahmad bin Musa” (All Dignity belongs to God – Ahmad son of Musa). In the 1130s AD, over two centuries after the martyrdom of this venerable figure, the Seljuqid Turkish vizier, Atabeg Abu Sa’eed Zangi, built the tomb chamber, the dome, and a colonnaded porch over the grave. Roughly 200 years later, Queen Tash Khatoun, the mother of the local Mongol Muslim ruler of Fars, Shah Abu Ishaq Inju, during the years 1344-1349 AD (745-750 AH), carried out repairs, built a hall of audience, a college, a tomb for herself on the southern side, and presented to the mausoleum a unique Qur'an written in golden Sols characters by the calligraphist, Yahya Jamali. This Qur'an is preserved in the Pars Museum. Shah Ismail I who established the Safavid Dynasty ordered expansion of the mausoleum of Shah Cheragh in 1506. Later, the Qajarids embellished it. Today, thanks to the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, the shrine of Ahmad ibn Musa has been reconstructed on a grand scale to accommodate the growing number of pilgrims, and enclosed within its precincts is the shrine of another son of Imam Kazem (AS), named Seyyed Mohammad, who also has been endowed with miraculous powers by God Almighty to answer to the needs of the faithful.

1899 solar years ago, on this day in 117 AD, Roman emperor, Trajan, died at the age of 64 in Selinus in Cilicia in what is now the southeastern coastal region of Turkey, after a reign of 19 years, while fleeing from the counterattacks of Iran’s Parthian Empire, following his invasion of Mesopotamia (Iraq) and retreat. Born in Spain, he pursued an aggressive military policy to expand the Roman Empire, including breaking of 50 years of peace with the Parthian Empire in 110 by attacking Armenia which was a northwestern province of the Iranian Empire. After two years, the Iranians liberated Armenia and drove out the Romans. Trajan again invaded Armenia and tried to infiltrate Gilan, and then in 115 he launched a surprise attack on Mesopotamia that saw Roman armies reach for the first time the shores of the Persian Gulf in what is now Kuwait. So elated was Trajan by this unexpected success that in 116 he prematurely sent a laurelled letter to the Senate in Rome, boosting of what he called the conquest of the Parthian Empire. However, as he left the Persian Gulf for Babylon, the Iranians led by Sanatrukes, the nephew of their Emperor, Osroes I, imperiled Roman positions in both Mesopotamia and Armenia, forcing Trajan to withdraw his troops that had penetrated Khuzestan. Although Sanatrukes was killed in the battle that the Iranians lost at Seleucia and their capital Ctesiphon (Mada’en near modern Baghdad) was temporarily occupied by the Romans, Trajan's deteriorating health started to fail him. Following the heat stroke he suffered during the unsuccessful Roman attempt to capture the fortress city of Hatra on the Tigris near Mosul in what was then the Iranian province of Khavaran, and coupled with the renewed uprising of the people of Mesopotamia, Trajan was forced to retreat. His claim of being the conqueror of Parthian Empire turned out to be hollow as his health worsened and he died.

1638 solar years ago, on this day in 378 AD, the Battle of Adrianople in what is now Edirne in European part of Turkey resulted in a resounding defeat for the Roman Empire and the killing of Emperor Valens, along with over half of his army, by a joint force of Visigoths and the Iranian semi nomadic Alans – ancestors of present day Ossetians of the Caucasus in Georgia and the southwestern part of the Federation of Russia. Valens, who reigned for 14 years was constantly embroiled in wars, especially with Shapur II of Iran’s Sassanid Empire in what are now northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and Armenia. The Alans who were offshoots of the Iranian Scythians or Sakas which were once widespread throughout Central Asia before the influx of Turkic tribes from the Far East, infiltrated Europe as far as Spain, from where they crossed over into Northern Africa, were Europeanized and Christianized in the course of history.  

1203 solar years ago, on this day in 803 AD, Byzantine Empress, Irene of Athens died at the age of 51 on the island of Lesbos, a year after she was exiled there on her overthrow by her finance minister, Nikephoros. During her absolute reign of five years, following a 17-year period as regent for her son, Constantine VI, who predeceased her, in 782 she entered into a disastrous military confrontation with a Muslim army in Asia Minor that backfired on her, and made her pay an annual tribute of 70,000 or 90,000 dinars to the caliphate in Baghdad, for a three-year truce, as well as to give them 10,000 silk garments, and to provide them with guides, provisions, and access to markets during their withdrawal.

1183 solar years ago, on this day in 833 AD, Abdullah al-Mamoun, the 7^th caliph of the usurper Abbasid dynasty, died near Tarsus in what is now southwestern Turkey, during a campaign against the Byzantine Empire, at the age of 48, after a 24-year reign, four of which were involved in civil war with his step brother, Amin, the rival caliph in Baghdad whom he eventually ordered killed. Born to Haroun's Iranian concubine, Marajil, his capital was initially the Khorasani city of Merv, which is currently in the Republic of Turkmenistan. Mamoun earned lasting notoriety for forcing Imam Reza (AS), the 8^th Infallible Successor of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), to come to Merv from distant Medina, as part of his plot to isolate the Ahl al-Bayt from the ummah. When his plot failed and the Imam's popularity grew among the people during his two-year sojourn in Khorasan, the crafty Mamoun martyred the Prophet's rightful heir in Tous through a fatal dose of poison.

904 lunar years ago, on this day in 533 AH, the prominent Iranian Muslim theologian and mathematician, Abu'l-Hassan Sohravardi, passed away. He was a polymath in sciences and was a student of the Iranian Sunni Muslim philosopher, Mohammad Ghazali. His famous book is on Algebra "Usoul al-Jabr wa'l-Muqabelah".

843 solar years ago, on this day in 1173 AD, construction of the campanile of the Cathedral of Pisa (now known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa) began. It took two centuries to complete

516 solar years ago, on this day in 1500 AD, during the 4-year Ottoman-Venetian War, the Turks captured Methoni and Messenia in southern Greece, as part of the gradual conquest of the Peloponnese Peninsula.

385 solar years ago, on this day in 1631 AD, John Dryden, English poet, playwright, critic, and translator was born. He died at the age 69.

202 solar years ago, on this day in 1814 AD, the Amerindian Creek Tribe was forced to sign the Treaty of Fort Jackson by US, thus giving up huge parts of Alabama and Georgia to the white European settlers. As part of the genocide of the native population, successive US governments from time to time encroached upon the lands of the Amerindians, and almost exterminated them.

123 lunar years ago, on this day in 1314 AH, the famous Islamic philosopher and Gnostic, Mirza Abu’l-Hassan Jalweh, passed away at the age of 76. Born in Ahmadabad in the state of Gujarat in western India, he traced his lineal descent to Imam Hasan al-Mujtaba (AS), the elder grandson and 2^nd Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). As a child, he migrated to Iran and settled in Isfahan, where he had his basic education. At the age of 35 he moved to Tehran where for the next four decades he taught philosophy and mathematics at the Dar ush-Shefa seminary. He groomed a large number of scholars including Mirza Taher Tonekaboni, Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Shahabadi, Seyyed Hussain Badkubaie, Mullah Mohammad Ameli, Jahangir Khan Qashqai, etc. He wrote several books, such as annotations on Ibn Sina’s “ash-Shefa”, and Mullah Sadra’s “Asfaar al-Arba”.

86 lunar years ago, on this day in 1351 AH, the jurisprudent and theologian, Mirza Sadeq Mujtahed Tabrizi, passed away at the age of 88. Born in Tabriz, northwestern Iran to the jurisprudent/theologian Allamah Mirza Mohammad Aqa, popular as “Mujtahed Kuchak”, left for Iraq at the age of 19, along with his elder brother for higher studies at the famous seminary of holy Najaf. He returned to Iran after 21 years on attaining the status of Ijtehad and settled in his hometown Tabriz, where he opposed the deviation of the Constitutional Movement as violation of the shari’ah. He was banished to the remote parts of the country by the British-installed Pahlavi dictator, Reza Khan. He authored some 12 books. 

71 solar years ago, on this day in 1945 AD, three days after the US act of state terrorism in dropping an atomic bomb on the unsuspecting Japanese city of Hiroshima faraway from any warfront, Washington repeated its crime against humanity by targeting another Japanese city with an atomic bomb, and this time the port of Nagasaki, where almost 50,000 people were instantly killed and tens of thousands of others severely injured. The sadistic Americans jokingly called this weapon of mass destruction “Fat Man”. At a time when World War 2 was almost over, the atomic bombardment was ordered by President Harry Truman, with barely three months in office.

51 solar years ago, on this day in 1965 AD, Singapore was expelled from the Federation of Malaysia and became the first and only country to date to gain independence unwillingly. In 1819, the British were leased what is now Singapore by the Sultan of Johor, and after independence from British rule, joined the Federation of Malaysia in 1963. The Singapore Islands cover an area of 622 sq. km.

42 solar years ago, on this day in 1974 AD, US president, Richard Nixon, was forced to resign due to tapping of phones of rival Democrats during the presidential campaign of 1972. Known as the Watergate scandal because of the situation of the Democratic Party’s headquarters in the locality of the same name in Washington, the disclosure of the ruling Republicans’ plot made the House call for Nixon’s impeachment. Hence, to prevent further controversy, he resigned by handing over power for the remaining two years of his term to vice-president, Gerald Ford.

11 solar years ago, on this day in 2005 AD, Iran, under supervision of UN experts, exercised its right to remove the final seals from equipment at a uranium conversion plant, paving the way for mastering of the nuclear fuel cycle by Iranian scientists. The West, led by the US, resorted to lawlessness by uttering threats and imposing illegal sanctions on Iran, and later, it teamed up with the Zionists to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists. When all these lawless measures proved futile, last July after over a decade of intransigence, the 5+1 group acknowledged Iran’s right to enable uranium for peaceful use of nuclear energy.  

8 solar years ago, on this day in 2008 AD, Palestinian revolutionary poet and author, Mahmoud Darwish, who won numerous awards for his literary output and was regarded as the Palestinian national poet, died at the age of 66 three days after heart surgery at a hospital in Houston, US, and his body was flow to Ramallah in the West Bank of River Jordan for burial. Born in al-Birwa in Western Galilee and driven into exile along with his parents by illegal Zionist settlers from Europe who set up the spurious state of Israel, he later returned briefly to Occupied Palestine before being banned from re-entry because of his joining of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). In his works, Palestine became a metaphor for the loss of Eden, birth and resurrection, and the anguish of dispossession and exile. He has been described as incarnating and reflecting the tradition of the political poet in Islam, and the man of action whose action is poetry. His prose works include “Farewell War Farewell Peace”, “A River Dies of Thirst”, and “Something about the Homeland”. Among his famous poetical works are “Wingless Birds”, “Ode to Beirut”, and “The Adam of Two Edens”.

August 9 is observed as the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples each year to promote and protect the rights of the world’s various ethnicities in their native lands. This event also recognizes the achievements and contributions that indigenous people make to improve world issues such as environmental protection. It was first pronounced by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December 1994, marking the day of the first meeting of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations of the Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, in 1982.

AS/ME