Today is Saturday; 16th of the Iranian month of Bahman 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 6th of the Islamic month of Jamadi al-Awwal 1438 lunar hijri; and February 4, 2017, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1805 solar years ago, on this day in 211 AD, after a reign of 18 blood-soaked years, Roman Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus died at Eboracum (modern York in Britain) at the age of 65, while preparing to lead a campaign against the Caledonians. He had seized power on the death of Emperor Pertinax, after deposing and killing the incumbent emperor Didius Julianus, during the “Year of the Five Emperors”. Of Syrian-Punic origin, he then fought his rival claimants, the generals, Pescennius Niger and Clodius Albinus, to consolidate his power. Niger was defeated in 194 at the Battle of Issus in Cilicia in what is now south-central Turkey. Later that year Severus waged a punitive campaign beyond the eastern frontier by annexing the Kingdom of Osroene, which was under protection of the Parthian Empire, thereby starting a new phase of Roman-Iranian hostilities. The Battle of Lugdunum (modern Lyon in France) against Albinus was the bloodiest-ever battle between rival Roman armies that resulted in the death of over a 100,000 soldiers. A ruthless pagan, Septimius Severus persecuted monotheists, especially the followers of Prophet Jesus (AS), and waged war against Iran’s Parthian Empire in Iraq, sacking the capital Ctesiphon in 197. Like Trajan a century earlier, he was not much successful, as the Iranians regrouped and forced him to pull back. Although he briefly annexed the upper part of Mesopotamia in what are now northern Syria and southern Turkey, he failed to subdue the impregnable fortress of Hatra near Mosul in what was then the Iranian province of Khavaran, despite two lengthy sieges. Septimius Severus was succeeded by his equally bloodthirsty and treacherous elder son, Caracalla, who soon killed his younger brother and six years later in 217 was destined to meet a miserable death, following his deceitful slaughter in Erbil (Iraqi Kurdistan) of the unarmed wedding party of the Parthian Emperor Artabanus’ daughter whom he had tricked into marriage.

1430 lunar years ago, on this day in 8 AH, Ja’far ibn Abu Taleb, the cousin of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), was martyred at the age of 41 during the Battle of Mutah that occurred in what is now Jordan, between the army of Islamic defenders and forces of the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire, led by Theodore and made up of Arab tribes including pagans and Christians. The expedition was occasioned by the treacherous killing of the Prophet’s emissary to the governor of Bosra ash-Shaam in Syria, Hareth bin Umair, by Sharjil bin Amr Ghassani, the local Arab tribal leader. The Prophet was distressed and on God’s commandment mobilized an army under command of Ja’far, the elder brother of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS). When the battle ensued, Ja’far, who had recently returned to Arabia from long years of exile in Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia), mounted a red horse, raised the banner of Islam, and fought till his wounds forced him to dismount. Having hamstrung his horse, he fought on foot, receiving some fifty wounds, mostly in the face, till he achieved martyrdom after losing both of his hands. Zayd bin Haretha then took command and fought bravely till he also achieved martyrdom. Abdullah bin Rawaha now took charge and achieved martyrdom as well. At this crucial juncture, when the Muslims, though outnumbered by the Byzantines, were holding their ground, Khaled bin Waleed, who had recently claimed to have accepted Islam after two decades of openly bitter opposition to the Prophet, seized the banner and instead of confronting the Byzantines, ordered retreat, all the way back to Medina. When this defeated force reached Medina, the Prophet was dismayed at Khaled’s cowardice. The retreating Muslims found the doors of their houses shut in their faces by their families, who jeered at them, saying: What prevented you from being martyred like Ja’far and the others. It is interesting to note that while the battle was in progress in faraway Mutah, God enabled the Prophet to see what was transpiring on the battlefield. The Prophet then went to the house of Ja’far, seated his elder son Abdullah on his lap and stroked his head. The mother, Asma bint Umais, observed the Prophet’s manner and wept bitterly since she understood her children were now orphans. The Prophet, with tears in his eyes, declared that Ja’far who like the rest of the monotheist Hashemite Clan had since childhood neither bowed before idols nor indulged in any sin, was granted two wings with which to fly wherever he pleases among the angels of Paradise. That is the reason he became famous as Ja’far at-Tayyar, or Ja’far the Flyer.

1383 solar years ago, on this day in 634 AD, the Battle of Dathin near Gaza in Palestine resulted in the victory of Muslims over Byzantine or the Eastern Roman Empire and became very famous in the literature of the period. The victory was celebrated by the local Jews, who had been a persecuted minority in the Byzantine Christian Empire. Byzantine commander, Sergius was killed in the encounter. The Muslims were led by Abu Umamah al-Bahili, a companion of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), who later was with the forces of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS), in the War of Siffin against the Syrian rebel, Mu’awiyah ibn Abu Sufyan.

1057 solar years ago, on this day in 960 AD, with the coronation of Zhao Kuangyin as Emperor Taizu, the Song Dynasty started its rule over China that would last more than three centuries. A distinguished military general, Taizu came to power by staging a coup to force the young Emperor Gong of the Zhou Dynasty to abdicate. During his reign, he conquered the states of Southern Tang, Later Shu, Southern Han and Jingnan, thus reunifying most of China proper and effectively ending the tumultuous Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The Song Dynasty was the first in world history to nationally issue banknotes or true paper money, the first to use gunpowder, and the first to discern the true north by use of compass. The Spanish-Sicilian Muslim geographer Seyyed Mohammad al-Idrisi al-Hassani wrote in 1154 of the prowess of Chinese merchant ships in the Indian Ocean and of their voyages that brought iron, swords, silk, velvet, porcelain, and various textiles to places such as Yemen, the Indus River, and the Euphrates in modern-day Iraq. Foreigners, in turn, had an impact on the Chinese economy. For example, many West Asian and Central Asian Muslims went to China to trade, becoming a preeminent force in the import and export industry, while some were even appointed as officers supervising economic affairs. Many Persian Manicheans also lived in China during the Song era.

1024 lunar years ago, on this day in 414 AH the famous Iranian-Islamic mathematician and astronomer, Abu Sa’eed Ahmad ibn Mohammad ibn Abdul-Jalil as-Sijzi, passed away at the age of 77. He was from Sistan which in those days was also called Sijistan, hence his epithet as-Sijzi. He had a deep knowledge of literature which he used to his advantage. He dedicated his astronomical work to Azod od-Dowla the ruler of the Buwaiyhid kingdom of Iran and Iraq. He also dedicated another of his works to the ruler of Balkh in Greater Khorasan. He also worked in Shiraz making astronomical observations from 969 to 970. He also did a lot of geometry work. Abu RayhanBirouni wrote that Sijzi believed in a heliocentric system in which the Earth was moving and that he invented an astrolabe called the "Zuraqi” based on this idea. As a mathematician, Sijzi made a special study of the intersections of conic sections and circles. He replaced the old kinematical trisection of an angle by a purely geometric solution (intersection of a circle and an equilateral hyperbola).

744 lunar years ago, on this day in 694AH, Gaykhatu, the fifth ruler of the Iran-based Ilkhanid Dynasty was killed after a 4-year reign, and was succeeded by Baydu a grandson of the founder Hulaku Khan. Gaykhatu, who was strangled by bowstring so as to avoid bloodshed, had been placed on the throne by on the murder of his brother, Arghun. Gaykhatu was a noted dissolute who was addicted to wine, women, and sodomy. He had originally been governor of Seljuq Anatolia. Shortly after his ascension, the princess Kokotchin had arrived from the court of Khaqan Kublai Khan of China, escorted by Marco Polo, as bride for Arghun, who however died before she reached Iran. Gaykhatu decreed that the princess be married to his nephew and future Ilkhan, Ghazaan. Gaykhatu is known to have drained the public treasury in an extravagant way. Among his beneficiaries were the Nestorian Christians, who praise him abundantly for his gifts to the Church. A year after his taking power, he had sent a message to the Egyptian Mamluk Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil, threatening to conquer the whole of the Levant if he was not allowed to live in Aleppo. Al-Ashraf replied: "It seems the khan has the same ideas as me. I too hope to bring back Baghdad to the fold of Islam as previously. We will see which of us two will be quicker".

A year before his death, Gaykhatu wanted to replenish his treasury emptied by royal extravagance and a great cattle plague. In response, his vizier Ahmad al-Khalidi, in order to placate the masses, proposed the introduction of a recent Chinese invention called Chao (or paper money). Gaykhatu agreed and called for Kublai Khan's ambassador Bolad in Tabriz. After the ambassador showed how the system worked, Gaykhatu printed banknotes which imitated the Chinese ones so closely that they even had Chinese words printed on them. The Islamic testimony of faith was printed on the banknotes as well. The plan was to get Iranians to use only paper money, and allow Gaykhatu to control the treasury. The experiment was a complete failure, as the people and merchants refused to accept the banknotes. Soon, bazaar riots broke out, economic activities came to a standstill, and as the Persian historian Rashid od-din speaks even of "'the ruin of Basra' which ensued upon the emission of the new money". Gaykhatu had no choice but to withdraw the use of paper money.

501 lunar years ago, on this day in 937 AH, Emperor Zaheer od-Din Babar, the founder of the Moghal Empire of the northern Subcontinent, died in his capital Kabul, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Naseer od-din Humayun, to the throne of Delhi. Born in Andijan in the Ferghana Valley in what is now Uzbekistan, he was the son of the local ruler, Omar Sheikh (a great-grandson of Amir Timur), while on his mother’s side, he was grandson of Yunus Khan, the ruler of Moghulistan, and thus a direct descendent of the fearsome Genghis Khan. Like the rest of the Timurids, Babar had embraced Persian language and culture, although his mother tongue was Chaghatai Turkic. In his obsession to take control of Samarqand he lost Ferghana as well, on being defeated by Obaidullah Khan Shaibani, the ruler of the Uzbeks, who were newcomers to the region and were fast displacing the local Tajiks (or Persian speakers) and Timurids. He accepted Shah Ismail I, the founder of the Safavid Dynasty of Iran, as suzerain, after rejecting demands from the Ottoman Sultan to acknowledge him as overlord. This alliance enabled him to chalk out an independent kingdom in Kabul, which he used as a base to recapture Samarqand with Safavid help, but soon lost it for the third time. Later with his combined Tajik and Turkic military, he conquered the northern parts of the Subcontinent by defeating the Afghan king, Ibrahim Lodhi of Delhi, at the Battle of Panipat in 1526 AD, and the next year routed the huge Rajput-Afghan joint army of Rana Sanga. He was a poet in both Persian and his Turkic, and was a devotee of the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).

490 lunar years ago, on this day in 948 AH, the Iranian mathematician, Ghiyas od-Din Mansour, passed away and was laid to rest in the city of Shiraz. He learned rational and traditional sciences under his father and other Ulema. Upon the order of the Safavid Emperor, Shah Ismail, he was charged with repairing the Maragheh Observatory and was appointed as the prime minister in the era of the next Safavid ruler, Shah Tahmasb. He resigned from this post, and spent the rest of his life grooming students, and compiling books. His most important works include "Hojjat al-Kalaam” and "al-Haqa’eq”.

228 solar years ago, on this day in 1789 AD, George Washington, the Commander-in-Chief of the American army during the 8-year long war of independence from British rule, was elected as the first President of the United States of America. He was one of the Founding Fathers of the US and presided over the drafting of the constitution. He served for president for two 4-year terms.

118 solar years ago, on this day in 1899 AD, the Battle of Manila, the first and largest battle between the Philippines and the US invasion forces, was fought and ended the following day in the massacre of the Filipino people. Hardly a year after Filipino revolutionaries had proclaimed the country as Republic under President Emilio Aguinaldo to end over three centuries of rule by Spain, the US intervened on the claim that it had bought Philippines from Spain for 20,000 dollars as per the 1898 Treaty. During World War 2 Japan seized the Philippines and massacred over a million people in the course of five years. In 1945, the US reoccupied it and was forced to grant independence the next year, but has continued to control the successive governments by basing thousands of troops, against the will of the Filipino people. Some 20 percent of the Filipinos are Muslim, mainly concentrated in the Sulu archipelago of the south, which was an independent sultanate before the Spaniards occupied the Philippines and forcibly Christianized the people at a time when Islam was fast spreading.

72 solar years ago, on this day in 1945 AD, following setbacks suffered by German forces in World War II, the Yalta Conference was held in the Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea, attended by Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and US President Franklin Roosevelt. The goal was to study the latest political and military state of the warring parties and determine the fate of territories occupied by Allied Forces. At the conference, the decision was made about terms of unconditional submission to be imposed on Germany, with the US, Britain, and the Soviet Union each occupying a part of Germany. France was also invited to seize a part of Germany as the 4th member state of the supervisory committee. Other decisions taken at Yalta included Germany’s disarmament; prosecution of war criminals and receipt of war reparations from Germany. Three months after the Yalta Conference, World War II ended with Germany’s submission in May, 1945.

69 solar years ago, on this day in 1948 AD, Sri Lanka gained independence from British rule. Located off the southern coast of India and known as Ceylon, this emerald-shaped island was first occupied by the Portuguese and later by the Dutch, before the British seized it in 1798. In 1931, the British were forced to grant the right to vote to the people followed by establishment of the parliament and the executive council. In 1972, Sri Lanka officially became a republic. It is interesting to note that in Islamic texts Sri Lanka is called “Sarendib” and is the location of the descent to earth of the Father of the human race, Adam, after he fell to the temptations of the Satan to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree. There are huge footprints in stone attributed to Adam on the 2,243 meter-high Adam's Peak of a conical mountain located in central Sri Lanka. Incidentally the 30-km long chain of islands separating the Gulf of Mannar from the Palk Strait is called Adam's Bridge. Geological evidence suggests that these islands were a land connection between India and Sri Lanka, and the route was used by Adam to cross into the Subcontinent, from where, via the Iranian Plateau, he travelled towards the Arabian Peninsula to find his long separated wife, Eve.

38 solar years ago, on this day in 1979 AD, officers of the Iranian air force, came to the residence of the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA) in Tehran to swear allegiance to him five days after his historic return to Iran from 15 years of exile. The Imam welcomed them and issued orders for forming of a provisional government, defining its duties and instructing that a nationwide referendum be held to determine the form of the post-revolutionary system of government as well as voting for the new parliament. The remnants of the fugitive Shah's army tried to create chaos over the next days but were overcome by the people's power and finally on February 11 the Islamic Revolution triumphed.

23 solar years ago, on this day in 1994 AD, prominent Iranian journalist and translator, Ali Akbar Kasmai, passed away at the age of 73. After graduation from Tehran University he left for Egypt to pursue journalism, and his acquaintance with famous journalists like Taha Hussain, Abbas Aqqad and Towfiq al-Hakim, greatly benefitted his natural flair for writing and journalism. He mastered the Arabic and French languages, and on return to Iran, involved himself in the media, serving for fifty years as Editor of the Persian newspaper “Ettela’at”. He was a prolific writer and translated several books.

One solar year ago, on this day in 2016 AD, Raghib Mustafa Ghalwash, a famous reciter of the holy Qur’an passed away in his homeland Egypt at the age of 79. Born in Tanta, he held his first public recitation at the age of 14. He soon acquired national and international fame through his regular recitations in Cairo’s famous Ras al-Imam Husain Mosque. He had also visited the Islamic Republic of Iran, and had fond memories of the Iranian people, whom he greatly admired.

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