Today is Monday; 3rd of the Iranian month of Aban 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 22nd of the Islamic month of Muharram 1438 lunar hijri; and October 24, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1084 lunar years ago, on this day in 354 AH, the prominent Muslim scientist and polymath, Abu Ali Hassan Ibn al-Haytham, known to medieval Europe by his Latinized name of Alhazen, was born in Basra in the Iraqi province of the Persian Buwayhid Empire. He made vital contributions to the principles of optics, as well as to medicine, physics, astronomy, mathematics, visual perception, ophthalmology, philosophy, and various other sciences, and is the inventor of the telescope. He wrote insightful commentaries on the works of Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Euclid. Ibn al-Haytham was active in both Basra and Baghdad and after visiting Islamic Spain he settled in Fatemid Egypt where he died at the age of 77 in Cairo. He was a follower of the school of the Ahl al-Bayt, and was associated with the famous academy of al-Azhar, which derives its name from the “az-Zahra” (The Radiant), the epithet of Hazrat Fatema (SA), the noble daughter of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). In Egypt he took up the project of controlling the floods of the Nile. He is said to have written over 200 books and treatises, the most famous of which is “Kitab al-Manazer” on Optics that was extensively used by later European scholars such Roger Bacon and Johannes Keppler. Among his works, mention could be made of the Configuration of the World, On the Form of Eclipse, On the Milky Way, The Model of the Motions of Each of the Seven Planets, and Treatise on the Influence of Melodies on the Souls of Animals. Among his students were Sorkhab, an Iranian scientist from Semnan and Mubashir Ibn Fatek, an Egyptian.

978 lunar years ago, on this day in 460 AH, the famous scholar and Founder of the Islamic Seminary of holy Najaf, Abu Ja'far Mohammad Ibn Hassan Tusi, known popularly as Shaikh at-Taifa, passed away at the age of 75 and was laid to rest near the shrine of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS), in his home which is now a mosque known today as Jame' at-Tusi. Born in 385 AH in Tus in Khorasan, northeastern Iran, after completing studies in his homeland, he left for Baghdad for higher studies at the age of 23 to study under the celebrated scholar Shaikh Mufid, who died five years later in 413 AH. Leadership of the Shi'ite Muslim scholars then fell to the renowned Sharif Murtaza, who remained in this position for 23 years until his death in 436 AH. During this time Shaikh Tusi was closely associated with Sharif Murtaza, and subsequently succeeded him as head of the community. So impressive was his knowledge that the Abbasid caliph, al-Qader used to attend his lectures. Eleven years later in 447 AH, when the Iranian Buwayhid dynasty was in a state of decline, sectarian riots erupted and his house in the Karkh locality, along with his library that contained some 90,000 books, was burnt down. Since remaining in Baghdad was risky, he moved to holy Najaf and transformed it into the leading centre of Islamic scholarship, a role which it has maintained till this day – despite Saddam’s reign of terror. Some 13 years later, he passed away and was succeeded by his son Shaikh Hassan Tusi, known as “Mufid-e Thani” (Second Mufid). He authored over 50 books on various topics such as jurisprudence, exegesis of the holy Qur’an, hadith, theology, history and biography of narrators. Of the four authoritative resources of hadith amongst the followers of the Prophet's Ahl al-Bayt, two were compiled by Shaikh at-Taifah Tusi. These two basic reference books are: “Tahzeeb al-Ahkaam” and “al-Istibsaar”. His exegesis on the holy Qur'an is titled “at-Tibyaan”. On the Lord of the Age, Imam Mahdi (God hasten his reappearance) he wrote the book “al-Ghayba” (Occultation). His another work is “Mukhtasar Akhbar al-Mukhtar” which is concise history of the uprising of Mukhtar ibn Abu Obaydah Thaqafi to avenge the martyrdom of Imam Husain (AS).

756 solar years ago, on this day in 1260 AD, Saif od-Din Qutuz, the 3rd Turkic Mamluk (slave) sultan of Egypt, while returning from Syria after his decisive victory over the combined forces of the Mongols, Armenian Christians, and European crusaders, was assassinated at as-Salehiyya by some of his own emirs. His bravery, along with that of his able general and successor as sultan, Baibars al-Bunduqdari, shattered the Mongol myth of invincibility at the crucial battle of Ain Jalut in Palestine in which Hulagu Khan's famous Christian Turkic general, Kitbuqa Noyan, was killed, thereby ending the threat to Egypt and North Africa, a few years after the Mongol sack of Baghdad and the subjugation of Syria, which included the turning of the Omayyad Mosque of Damascus into a cathedral. Although the reign of Qutuz was short, he remains one of the most heroic sultans of Egypt for saving the Muslim world, at a time when the eastern Islamic lands including Iran had been ravaged by the bloodthirsty Mongol hordes. His early life is obscure. Captured by the Mongols in Central Asia and sold as a slave, he was brought to Syria where he was resold to an Egyptian merchant who in turn sold him in Cairo to Ezz od-Din Aybak, the first Mamluk sultan of Egypt. According to some sources, Qutuz claimed that his original name was Mahmoud ibn Mamdoud and he was descended from Ala od-Din Mohammad II, the Khwarezm Shahi ruler. He became deputy sultan to Aybak, after whose murder he served his son, al-Mansur Ali, as Sultan for two years, before deposing him on November 12, 1259, and becoming sultan himself on the promise that the emirs could install any other sultan after he defeated the Mongols.

645 lunar years ago, on this day in 792 AH, the prominent Iranian Sunni Hanafi scholar, Sa'd od-Din Mas'oud ibn Omar Taftazaani, passed away in Samarqand at the age of 70 years and was buried in Sarakhs. He was born in the northeastern Iranian town of Taftazaan in Khorasan, in what was then the Sarbederaan Shi’ite state. He traveled to Herat, Khwarezm, Samarqand and Sarakhs to acquire sciences from prominent scholars, and mainly resided in Sarakhs, which presently straddles the Iran-Turkmenistan border. He was active during the reign of fearsome Turkic conqueror, Amir Timur (Tamerlane), who was his patron. Taftazaani was a prolific writer and has left behind a large number of books, mostly in Arabic, on various sciences, such as logic, theology, rhetoric, law, linguistics, etc. He completed “Sharh-e Zanjani” which was his first and one of his most famous works at the age of 16. He also wrote a commentary on the holy Qur'an in Persian and translated into Turkish the poems of the famous Iranian poet, Sa'di Shirazi. His books were taught for centuries in the seminaries of the Ottoman Empire.

415 solar years ago, on this day in 1601 AD, the Danish astronomer and mathematician, Tycho Brahe, died in Prague, in what is now the Czech Republic at the age of 55. Born in Scania, which was then under Denmark, but is now part of Sweden, he studied for a while in Germany, and later was helped by the Danish ruler to set up an observatory on Hven Island. Influenced by the discoveries of Muslim scientists, centuries earlier, he conducted wide scale observations of the skies and discovered a supernova.

368 solar years ago, on this day in 1648 AD, the last of the treaties of the Peace of Westphalia was signed between Prussia, Austria, France, and Sweden in Osnabruck and Munster, thereby ending the Thirty Years' War in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Netherlands. Though these treaties ended the centuries' long bloody sectarian battles between the Catholic and Protestant sects of Christianity, they did not restore peace throughout Europe. France and Spain remained at war for the next eleven years, making peace only in the Treaty of the Pyrenees of 1659. Among the outcomes of the Peace of Westphalia was reduction of the power of the Pope and the Church and emergence of nation states.

298 lunar years ago, on this day in 1140 AH, Shah Sultan Hussain, the 9th and virtually the last powerful ruler of the Safavid Empire, was brutally martyred in detention in Isfahan by the Afghan rebel, Ashraf, a year after he usurped power by killing his cousin Mahmoud Hotaki, who four years earlier had dethroned and imprisoned the Iranian monarch. Nader Qoli Afshar – who would later seize power from Shah Tahmasp II and declare himself Nader Shah – ended Ashraf’s 4-year reign of terror by defeating him and driving him out of Iran. Shah Sultan Hussain (the son and successor of Shah Sulayman Safavi), ruled Iran, the Caucasus and western Afghanistan for 29 years. Groomed by the famous Islamic scholar, Allamah Mohammad Baqer Majlisi, he was a peace-loving monarch of scholarly pursuits, who misread the dangers of the Afghan rebellion and failed to decisively crush it when he had adequate power. As a result he lost his throne and his life, thereby bringing the curtain down on two-and-a-quarter centuries of glorious rule by the Safavids to whom Iran is indebted to this day for its religious identity, national unity, and cultural affinity, although the weak dynasties that followed lost almost half of Iranian territories to the Russians, to the Turks and to the Afghans.

221 solar years ago, on this day in 1795 AD, Poland was partitioned among the Russian, Austrian, and Prussian Empires, and ceased to exist on the geographical map of Europe for 125 years until the end of World War 1, when it was revived by the victorious powers in 1921. Poland is located in Eastern Europe, and covers an area of 312,683 sq km with a population of around 39 million. Its capital is Warsaw.

203 solar years ago, on this day in 1813 AD, the Treaty of Golestan was imposed on Iran by Czarist Russia, ending the 9-year Russo-Persian War that resulted in the loss of the Trans-Caucasian territories of the Qajarid Empire. As per the treaty that was mediated by the crafty British, the Russians occupied what are now the republics of Daghestan and Georgia, as well as Baku in northern Azerbaijan. Thirteen years later in 1826, Russia again invaded Iran and occupied other regions, such as Armenia, Nakhchivan and what is now the Republic of Azerbaijan.

93 solar years ago, on this day in 1923 AD, the British colonialists forced the weak Qajarid king of Iran, Ahmad Shah to appoint the unlettered defence minister Reza Khan as prime minister, after the latter had threatened and forced the legal prime minister, Moshir od-Dowlah to resign. Two years later, when Ahmad Shah was touring Europe, the British formally installed Reza Khan as king of Iran, under the surname of Pahlavi, thus starting a bleak period in Iranian history, when people’s freedoms were curtailed, their culture distorted, their religious aspirations suppressed, and their dress changed. In 1941, the British replaced Reza Khan with his son, Mohammad Reza on the Peacock Throne. In 1979, the Pahlavi regime was thrown into the dustbin of history by the triumph of the Islamic Revolution.

71 solar years ago, on this day in 1945 AD, the United Nations was founded by the victorious powers of World War 2 in place of the defunct League of Nations. At the San Francisco Conference in the US, representatives of fifty world countries ratified the charter of the UN, whose headquarters are based in New York. Its main organs are the General Assembly, the Secretariat, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council; and the International Court of Justice. The goals behind setting up of the UN, in accordance to its charter, are safeguarding of global peace and security; promotion of amicable relations among nations; global cooperation for resolution of social, political, economic, and cultural issues of concern; and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Unfortunately, the UN has failed in its goals because of its exploitation by the 5 self-imposed permanent members, especially the US. The other four self-imposed permanent members are Russia, France, Britain, and China, all of which wield the unfair and unjust veto power at the Security Council that kills the aspirations of independent countries, as is the case with the series of unlawful sanctions the UN has imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran for its peaceful nuclear project, while turning a blind eye to the nuclear arsenal of big powers, and that of the illegal Zionist entity, Israel.

52 solar years ago, on this day in 1964 AD, Zambia gained independence from British colonial rule. Situated in southern Africa, it was seized by the British in 1888 and called Northern Rhodesia. Zambia covers an area of 752,614 sq km. Its capital is Lusaka, and it shares borders with Zaire, Angola, Tanzania, Malawi, Namibia, and Zimbabwe.

24 solar years ago, on this day in 1992 AD, Iranian poet, satirist, and translator, Abu'l-Qassem Halat, passed away. He started composing poems at the age of 16 and was highly talented in satirical poetry. He was fluent in Persian, English, French, and Arabic. He translated in verse the sayings of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) and Imam Ali (AS) under the titles "The Light of Insight", and "The Blossoms of Wisdom", respectively. His collection of poems includes odes and quatrains that contain ethical admonitions.

16 solar years ago, on this day in 2000 AD, Iranian poet, Fereydoon Moshiri, passed away at the age of 74 in his hometown Tehran. Born in a literary family, he learned poetry from his mother, who was a poet herself. Because of his father’s job, the family moved to the holy city of Mashhad, where he finished his junior high school. Since childhood he became familiar with the complete works of prominent Persian poets and memorized most of their poems. Moshiri started composing poems as a teenager, and his first published poem titled "Our Tomorrow" drew the attention of men of letters. Soon he published the collection titled “Thirsty for Typhoon”. This was followed by other publications and his poems were printed in different art and literary journals.

AS/SS