Today is Saturday; 14th of the Iranian month of Esfand 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 5th of the Islamic month of Jamadi as-Sani 1438 lunar hijri; and March 4, 2017, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1392 solar years ago, on this day in 625 AD, as per the Gregorian calendar, Imam Hasan Mojtaba (AS), the eldest grandson and 2nd Infallible Successor to Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), was born in Medina – on the 15th of Ramadhan 3 AH. His name "Hasan", which means the "Most Excellent" was chosen by the Prophet on the commandment of God and is the Arabic equivalent of "Shabar" the name in Hebrew of the first born son of Aaron, the brother and vicegerent of Prophet Moses (AS). Imam Hasan (AS), along with his younger brother, Imam Husain (AS), was hailed by the Prophet as Twin Leaders of the Youths of Paradise. The two brothers along with their parents, Imam Ali (AS) and Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA), were covered by the Prophet under his cloak as the Ahl al-Bayt on revelation of the Verse of Purity (holy Qur’an 33:33), and this immaculate group also accompanied the Prophet to the decisive debate of Mubahela with the Christians of Najran on revelation of ayah 61 of Surah Nisa in order to prove the truth of Islam. Six months after succeeding to the caliphate, following his father’s martyrdom, Imam Hasan (AS), in view of the widespread sedition and hypocrisy in the society, agreed to relinquish political rule to the charlatan Mu’awiya ibn Abu Sufyan in order to unmask him in his true heathen colours. Thus, his prudence and foresight saved Islam from the disaster of civil war, at a time when the Byzantine Empire was waiting for weakening of Muslim ranks to attack and occupy Syria and Bayt al-Moqaddas.

1033 lunar years ago, on this day in 404 AH, Baha od-Dowla Daylami, the Iranian Buwaiyhid ruler of Iraq and parts of Iran and Oman, died in Arrajan near Behbahan in southwestern Iran after a reign of 24 years and was succeeded by his son Sultan od-Dowla. He was the third son of the greatest ruler of the dynasty, Adhud od-Dowla, and assumed power on the death of his eldest brother, Sharaf od-Dowla. Another brother, Samsam od-Dowla, prevented him from gaining all of the eldest brother's possessions by taking control of Fars, Kerman and Khuzestan. The brothers, when threatened by their granduncle Fakhr od-Dowla, the ruler of northern Iran, who invaded Khuzestan, made peace, and Samsam od-Dowla recognizing Baha od-Dowla as the ruler of Iraq and Khuzestan, himself kept Arrajan, Fars and Kerman. Both took the title of "king". A couple of years later Baha od-Dowla assumed the title of Shahanshah or emperor and invaded his brother's territory but was defeated by the latter who regained Khuzestan and took control of the Buwaiyhid territories in Oman across the Persian Gulf, by recognizing granduncle Fakhr od-Dowla as the senior Amir. Six years later, Fakhr od-Dowla died and the next year Samsam od-Dowla was killed. Baha od-Dowla now took the opportunity to assert his authority in Fars and after taking Shiraz he did not return to Baghdad but spent the rest of his life in Iran, during which he gained indirect control over northern Iran as well. His last years saw the beginning of the decline of the dynasty, with the Ziyarids of Gorgan and Tabaristan permanently asserting their independence while the Ghaznavid Turks kept putting pressure on Khorasan. The Buwaiyhid confederation, after 110 years of valuable service to Islam and Muslims by patronizing religious scholars and scientists; building public places like hospitals, schools, libraries, bridges, and dams; and renovating the shrines of the Infallible Imams in Najaf, Karbala, Kazemayn and Samarra; was overthrown by Turkic Seljuq invaders from Central Asia, who restored the Abbasid caliphate.

1010 lunar years ago, on this day in 428 AH, the poet and scholar, Abu'l-Hassan Mahyar Daylami Ibn Marzawaiyh, passed away. A descendant of the pre-Islamic Sassanid Emperor, Anoushirvan, he was born as a Zoroastrian, who under the guidance of the great scholar, Seyyed Razi, embraced the truth of Islam. Mahyar Daylami avidly learned religious sciences and techniques of poetry under Seyyed Razi, the compiler of the famous book “Nahj al-Balagha” – the collection of the sermons, letters, and aphorisms of Imam Ali (AS). He soon became a prominent Arabic poet. He looked at the world through the prism of an ascetic and in his poetry he has expressed gratitude to the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), for guiding him towards Islam. He also expresses devotion to Imam Ali (AS) for transforming the sensibilities of the Iranian people. He has lamented the martyrdom of Imam Husain (AS) and castigated the enemies of the Ahl al-Bayt. Among his books, mention could be made of a 4-volume Diwan.

865 solar years ago, on this day in 1152 AD, Duke Frederick III of Swabia was elected king of the Germans. In 1155, he became king of Italy as well and was crowned ‘Roman Emperor’ by Pope Adrian IV. Called Barbarossa for his red beard, he was of brutal nature and during the siege of the Italian city of Crema, he barbarically hurtled prisoners, including children at the wall, forcing the city to surrender. The siege was marked by several episodes of brutality against fellow Christians by the Germans, who hung Cremaschi prisoners to siege machines, resulting in bloody manslaughter. Barbarossa, who on the instructions of Pope Urban III had assembled a huge anti-Muslim army of crusaders in alliance with the kings of France and England, and marched overland towards Syria through the Byzantine Empire; miserably drowned in River Saleph (Goksu Nehri) in what is now Turkey. In 1190 AD, he and his horse were struck by divine wrath and swept away to a terrible death that aborted the 3rd European crusade against Muslims. His leaderless army lost heart and fled, while many Christian knights, afraid of the prospect of fighting Muslims, committed suicide.

824 solar years ago, on this day in 1193 AD, Salah od-Din Yusuf bin Ayyoub, the first Kurdish sultan of Egypt and Syria, died in Damascus at the age of 56. Born in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, his fame mainly rests on his mobilization of Kurds, Turks, Arabs, Iranians and Egyptians to liberate the Islamic city of Bayt al-Moqaddas from 88 years of occupation by European Crusader invaders. Known in the Western world as Saladin, he rose from obscure origins to serve as assistant to his uncle, Asad od-Din Shirkuh (Persian for Mountain Lion), who was in the service of the Turkic Zengid Dynasty of Syria. Sent to Fatemid Egypt in 1163 with his uncle by Noor od-Din Zengi, he climbed the ranks of the Ismaili Shi’ite government as a result of his military successes against Crusader assaults. When Shirkuh died in 1169, the caliph al-Adeed made the mistake of appointing Salah od-Din vizier. He now began to undermine Fatemid rule and following al-Adeed's death in 1171 he seized power and abolished the two-and-a-half century rule of the Fatemid caliphate. Salah od-Din savagely persecuted the followers of the Ahl al-Bayt, burned libraries, and imposed the Sunni creed on the Egyptians. In the following years, he led forays against the Crusaders in Palestine, ordered the conquest of Yemen and staved off pro-Fatemid uprisings in Egypt. Soon after the death of his former master, Noor od-Din in 1174, he attacked Syria, took Damascus, forcibly married Zengi’s widow, and by mid-1175 had conquered Hama and Homs. A few years later he seized Aleppo, although he was unable to capture Mosul from the Zengids. Another blot on Salah od-Din’s character was his forcing of his son, Malik az-Zaher, the governor of Aleppo, to kill the famous Iranian Islamic philosopher Shahab od-Din Yahya Sohrewardi – the proponent of the Illuminist Philosophy (al-Hikmat al-Ishraaq).

818 lunar years ago, on this day in 620 AH, the Hanbali juriconsult, Abdullah Ibn Ahmad Ibn Qudamah al-Maqdisi, died in Damascus at the age of 78. Born in Jammain in Palestine, he received the first phase of his education in Damascus where he studied the Qur'an and hadith. He then travelled to Baghdad to study under the Iranian Hanbali mystic Sheikh Abdul-Qadir Gilani, who initiated him into the Sufi order. Another of his teachers in Iraq was the Iranian Sunni scholar Abu’l-Fazl Tousi. He authored many treatises including one of the most celebrated encyclopaedic books on Hanbali jurisprudence titled “al-Mughni”. Ibn Qudamah had accompanied the Kurdish general, Salah od-Din Ayyoubi, in his expedition to liberate the Islamic city of Bayt al-Moqaddas from the Crusaders of Europe.

791 lunar years ago, on this day in 647 AH, the prominent religious scholar and poet, Taqi od-Din Ḥassan bin Ali bin Dawoud al-Hilli was born in the city of Hilla in Iraq. He studied under such great scholars as Muhaqqiq Hilli, Seyyed Jamal od-din Ahmad ibn Tawous al-Hilli, and the latter’s son, Seyyed Abdul-Karim bin Ahmad ibn Tawous. He mastered Arabic literature, jurisprudence, hadith and ‘rijal’ or critical evaluation of biographical accounts. He was also an accomplished poet. In turn, he was the teacher such great scholars as the Iranian polymath Khwajah Naseer od-Din Tusi, Yahya bin Sa’eed al-Hilli, and Yusuf bin Mutahhar al-Hilli – father of the famous Allamah Hilli. He wrote several books and composed many poems. His best-known work is “Kitab ar-Rijal”. Among his poetical works is “Manhaj al-Qawim fi Taslim at-Taqdim”, which narrates in verse the debates in Baghdad among scholars of different sects concerning the most competent caliph after Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). Ibn Dawoud was known as "Sultan al-Ulama wa’l-Bulagha"(King of Scholars and Orators) as well as "Taj al-Muhaddithin wa’l-Fuqaha" (Crown of Scholars of Hadiths and Jurisprudence).

779 solar years ago, on this day in 1238 AD, the Battle of the Sit River was fought in the northern part of the present-day Yaroslavl Oblast of Russia between the Mongol army of Batu Khan and the Russians under Yuri II of Vladimir-Suzdal during the Mongol invasion of Rus. After the Mongols sacked his capital of Vladimir, Yuri fled across the Volga northward, to Yaroslavl, where he hastily mustered an army. He and his brothers then turned back toward Vladimir in hopes of relieving the city before the Mongols took it, but was attacked by the Mongol force under Burundai and fled. He was overtaken on the Sit River and killed there along with his nephew, Prince Vsevolod of Yaroslavl. The battle marked the end of unified resistance to the Mongols and inaugurated two centuries of the Mongol domination of modern day-Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

766 lunar years ago, on this day in 672 AH, the renowned Persian mystical poet, Mowlana Jalal od-Din Mohammad Balkhi, known as Mowlavi and Roumi, passed away at the age of 67 in Konya, in what is now Turkey. He was born in Balkh in eastern Khorasan, which part is now in present day Afghanistan. The Mongol invasion forced his father to migrate to Baghdad in Iraq, from where Mowlavi went to Damascus in Syria, before settling in Konya in Anatolia, which was once part of the Eastern Roman Empire, hence his epithet of Roumi. He became an acclaimed religious scholar. In 642 AH, a meeting with the wandering Iranian Dervish or mystic, Shams-e Tabrizi, completely changed his life. From an accomplished teacher and jurist, he was transformed into an ascetic. He started a spiritual purification and created his eternal works, the masterpiece of Persian mystical poetry, known “Mathnawi Ma'nawi”, which contains over 150,000 rhymed verses. He also compiled his spiritual teacher's poems in what is known as Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi that contains some 35,000 Persian couplets and 2000 quatrains, in addition to 90 Ghazals or lyrics in Persians and 19 quatrains in Arabic, as well as a couple of dozen couplets in mixed Persian and Turkic and 14 couplets in mixed Greek and Persian. The Mathnawi has been translated into English and other major world languages. The translation in English verse was done by Reynold Nicholson, along with explanations, in 8 volumes.

498 solar years ago, on this day in 1519 AD, Hernan Cortes, the notorious Spanish invader and destroyer of the Aztec Amerindian Empire, through deceit and treachery, arrived in Mexico. He took Emperor Cuauhtemoc and several other indigenous nobles as prisoners, forced them to accompany him to Honduras, and while in the Chontal Maya capital of Itzamkanac, treacherously murdered them. He looted the gold and silver of the Aztec people and destroyed flourishing Amerindian cities. Cortes died embittered in Spain at the age of 62.

452 lunar years ago, on this day in 986 AH, the Ottoman Turks seized from Safavid Iran, Tiflis or modern Tbilisi, which is the capital of the present day republic of Georgia in the Caucasus, following the death of the long peaceful reign of Shah Tahmasp I. Several years later, Iran under Shah Abbas the Great, succeeded in liberating most of Georgia by defeating the Ottomans.

248 solar years ago, on this day in 1769 AD, The Founder of the Khedive Dynasty of Egypt, Mohammad Ali Pasha, was born in an Albanian family in Kavala, Greece, which was then the Ottoman province of Yunanistan. He joined the army and rapidly rose through its ranks as a commander. In 1801 he was dispatched to Egypt by the Ottoman Sultan, following the withdrawal of Napoleon Bonaparte and the French forces. In 1805, he proclaimed himself the “Khedive” (Persian for Viceroy or Ruler) of Egypt and Sudan by eliminating all rivals. He transformed Egypt into a regional power. He initiated wide ranging reforms and established for the first time a professional bureaucracy. In the 1820s, he sent the first educational mission of Egyptian students to Europe. This contact resulted in Arabic literary renaissance, known as the “an-Nahdha”. To support the modernization of the industry and the military, he set up several schools in various fields. In 1835, he founded the first indigenous press in the Arab World, the Bulaq Press, which published the official gazette of the government. Bulaq also published rare old Arabic books, as well as Persian and Turkish. He pursued military campaigns, initially on behalf of the Ottoman Sultan, Mahmoud II, in Arabia and Greece (capturing Athens in 1827 before the combined attack of the British-French forced him to retreat). Later he came into open conflict with the Ottoman Empire because of his personal ambitions, which brought Syria under his control for ten years and made him advance as far as Qonya in Anatolia in 1832. He launched the expedition into Hijaz to liberate the holy cities of Mecca and Medina from desert brigands of the Najd led by Abdullah ibn Saud of the heretical Wahhabi cult who had desecrated the holy shrines. After purging the Hijaz of the Wahhabis, Mohammad Ali sent his son, Ibrahim Pasha, in 1812, to completely destroy and root out the Aal-e Saud from Najd. After a two-year campaign, the Aal-e Saud clan was crushed and most of its members captured. The leader, Abdullah Ibn Saud, was sent to Istanbul, and executed for having desecrated the holy shrine of Imam Husain (AS) in Karbala, before his sacrilegious attack on the Hijaz. In short, Mohammad Ali established the dynasty that lasted till the military coup of 1952 and the ouster of King Farouq by General Mohammad Najib and Colonel Jamal Abdun-Nasser. He died in Cairo at the age of 80 after ruling for 45 years as a nominal governor of the Ottoman Empire, but in fact the virtual ruler.

185 solar years ago, on this day in 1832 AD, French Egyptologist, Jean-Francois Champollion, died at the age of 41. He established scientific methods in archaeology and pioneered in deciphering hieroglyphics. He was fluent in several languages including Latin, Greek, Arabic, Syrian, Chaldean, Hebrew, Persian, and Coptic. He succeeded in deciphering the Rosetta Stone, which is a stone slab unearthed in 1799 at Rosetta, near Alexandria, Egypt, with inscriptions in two languages and three scripts – Egyptian and Greek.

177 lunar years ago, on this day in 1261 AH, French forces burned to death the Algerian Muslim tribe of Awlad Rabah along with their animals.

169 solar years ago, on this day in 1848 AD, the uprising of Hungarian freedom-seekers against Austrian domination started. The repressive policies of Austrian Chancellor, Klemens Metternich, led to unrest across the majority of non-German territories of the Austrian Empire, including Hungary. On April 4, 1849, the Hungarians announced independence, but Austria with assistance from Czarist Russia suppressed them and executed their leaders.

160 solar years ago, on this day in 1857 AD, the Treaty of Paris ended the Anglo-Persian War, which the British had imposed on Iran by attacking and occupying Bushehr on the Persian Gulf as well as Khorramshahr, in order to pressure Nasser od-Din Shah Qajar to surrender the city of Herat and its surroundings in Khorasan to their Afghan ally. Herat, the then capital of Khorasan, had been part of Iran from time immemorial till the war broke in 1856 when its rebellious governor declared independence and placed the area under British protection. As per the Treaty of Paris, the weakened government of Iran withdrew from Herat and was forced to drop all claims to this historical Iranian city and most of eastern Khorasan, which is now part of Afghanistan today. The British had launched their sea attacks on Iran from their naval bases in Mumbai by deploying battalions of sepoys (corruption for the Persian word "sipahi" for Indian soldiers), who in February 1856 had been used to overthrow Wajed Ali Shah of the Naishaburi Dynasty of Iranian origin of Awadh in northern India, and would again be mobilized in mid 1857 to crush the uprising of the Indian people against colonial rule and end the Mughal Dynasty of Delhi by exiling to Burma its last ruler, Bahadur Shah Zafar.

25 solar years ago, on this day, in 1991 AD Dr. Ali Shafaie of Iran passed away at the age of 59. A philosopher of repute, he was head of Theological Department of Ferdowsi University in holy Mashhad. He authored the book "Science of Philosophy".

8 solar years ago, on this day in 2009 AD, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC since its establishment in 2002.

6 solar years ago, on this day in 2011 AD, Alenush Terian, hailed as “Mother of Iranian Astronomy”, died in Tehran at the age of 91. Born in an ethnic Armenian Christian family in Tehran, her father was a poet who had translated the epic “Shahnameh” from Persian to Armenian. She graduated in 1947 from the University of Tehran, and began her career in the physics laboratory of the university as chief of laboratory operations. She left for France for higher studies and in 1956 obtained her doctorate in Atmospheric Physics from Sorbonne University of Paris. On return to Iran she became Assistant Professor in thermodynamics at University of Tehran. Later she worked in Solar Physics in the then West Germany for a period of four months, and in 1964 became the first female Professor of Physics in Iran. In 1966, Professor Terian became Member of the Geophysics Committee of University of Tehran. In 1969 she was elected chief of the Solar Physics studies at this university and began to work in the Solar Observatory of which she was one of the founders. Professor Terian retired in 1979. Her 90th birthday celebration was attended by a number of Iranian parliamentarians and over 100 Iranian Armenians.

AS/ME