Today is Thursday; 3rd of the Iranian month of Farvardin 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 24th of the Islamic month of Jamadi as-Sani 1438 lunar hijri; and March 23, 2017, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1046 lunar years ago, on this day in 392 AH, the historian, hadith compiler and orator, Ahmad bin Ali bin Sabet, known as Khateeb al-Baghdadi, was born near Baghdad. The son of a preacher of Darzidjan, he studied under his father and other ulema, mastering the various sciences, with special interest in hadith. At the age of 20 he went to Basra to collect hadith. He then travelled east to Iran and made two trips to Naishapur in Khorasan, collecting in his journey more hadith in Rayy and Isfahan. Back in Baghdad, he acquired fame as a preacher and orator, and it is said that teachers and preachers of hadith would usually submit to him what they had collected, before they used them in their lectures or sermons. Originally a follower of the Hanbali School of jurisprudence, he switched to the Shafe'i School – a change that made Hanbalis his bitter enemies and heap accusations against him. This sectarian hostility forced him to leave Baghdad for Syria and settle in Damascus, where he preached for 8 years, and before returning to Baghdad, spent another year in Tyre, in what is now Lebanon. Khateeb al-Baghdadi was a prolific writer and has authored several books, the most famous of which is the voluminous history titled "Tarikh al-Baghdad". He has quoted many of the hadith on the merits of the Prophet's Ahl al-Bayt, especially Imam Ali (AS) and Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA). He died in Baghdad at the age of 73.

894 lunar years ago, on this day in 544 AH, the Islamic scholar, Abu Ja'far Ahmad ibn Ali Baihaqi, passed away. Popularly known as "Bu Ja'farak", he was from Baihaq (Sabzevar, as it is known today) in Khorasan, northeastern Iran. He was an authority on grammar, lexicography and Qur'anic sciences. He authored several books, including "Taj al-Masader" and "al-Muhit fi Lughat-al-Qur'an".

447 lunar years ago, on this day in 941 AH, Baghdad was seized from Iran and annexed to the Ottoman Empire along with most of Iraq by Sultan Suleiman, after Shah Tahmasb I withdrew his troops and did not offer resistance. Suleiman, fresh from his victories in the West that brought under his control extensive territories in south-central Europe, turned towards the east, since like his father, Sultan Selim I, he was in constant fear of Safavid influence in Anatolia and Syria. During his 46-year reign which coincided with the longer 52-year reign of Shah Tahmasp, he launched massive invasions of the Persian Empire three times by giving a sectarian Sunni-Shi'ite colour to his campaigns, but on all three occasions he failed to shatter the resolve of the Iranians, from the Caucasus in the north till the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates in the south, losing on one occasion 30,000 soldiers. In the end the two empires signed a peace treaty. The name Baghdad is Middle Persian and means “God-given”. The city was built as “Madinat as-Salaam” (City of Peace) on the banks of the River Tigris by the Abbasid caliph Mansour Dawaniqi near Ctesiphon or Mada'en, the ancient pre-Islamic capital of the Iranian Parthian and Sassanid Empires, which along with their predecessor, the Achaemenid Empire, exercised control over Iraq for over a thousand years – except for a brief interlude when Alexander of Macedonia overran the Persian Empire. After the advent of Islam, Iranians, now devout Muslims, continued to dominate Iraqi affairs, playing a significant role in the uprising of Mukhtar ibn Abi Obaidah Thaqafi to avenge the martyrdom of Prophet Mohammad's (SAWA) grandson, Imam Husain (AS). During Abbasid times, in addition to viziers and state officials, most of the Islamic scholars and scientists of Baghdad, were Iranians who wrote in Arabic and even perfected Arabic grammar. With the weakening of the Abbasids, Baghdad again became the seat of power of the Iranian Buwaiyhid dynasty, and in later centuries, despite Ottoman control, whenever a strong ruler emerged in Iran, such as Shah Abbas I or Nader Shah, Baghdad and most of Iraq reverted to Iranian control.

365 solar years ago, on this day in 1652 AD, British ships attacked the Dutch Navy as part of the sea battles to put an end to Holland’s superiority in the waters of the North Sea, the English Channel, and the Atlantic Ocean. The attack tipped the colonial rivalry of the two countries in favor of London.

268 solar years ago, on this day in 1749 AD, French mathematician, physicist, and astronomer, Pierre-Simon Laplace, was born. He conducted extensive research on the motion of the moon, planets, meteors, and the ebb and flow of seas. In regard to physics, he discovered the primary laws of electromagnetism and studied the latent heat, resulting from elasticity in objects. He has left behind numerous compilations. He died in 1827.

216 solar years ago, on this day in 1801 AD, Tsar Paul I of Russia was struck with a sword, then strangled, and finally trampled to death inside his bedroom at St. Michael's Castle.

136 solar years ago, on this day in 1881 AD, the German chemist and scientist, Hermann Staudinger, was born. He set the law on large molecular structures and won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in the year 1953. He died the age of 84.

98 solar years ago, on this day in 1919 AD, Benito Mussolini formed the Fascist Party in Italy. Fascism, in general, refers to centralized despotic regimes which rule with an ideology based on racial discrimination and chauvinism by suppressing people and their ideas. Mussolini's hirelings, known as Blackshirts, from the colour of their clothing, unleashed a reign of terror facilitating his rise to power as prime minister in 1922. He next formed an alliance with German Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, and embarked on expansionism resulting in World War II and his eventual defeat.

95 solar years ago, on this day in 1922 AD, Grand Ayatollah Abdul-Karim Haeri Yazdi revived the ancient Islamic seminary of Qom by shifting to this holy city the seminary of Arak, thus laying the foundations for the flowering of Islamic sciences in Iran. Qom, where Hazrat Fatema al-Ma’souma (SA) – the daughter of Imam Musa Kazem (AS), the 7^th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) – rests in peace, has now become the centre of diffusion of the genuine teachings of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt all over the world, attracting students from numerous world countries. Imam Khomeini (RA), as the prominent student of Ayatollah Haeri, transformed Qom into the centre of revolutionary activities against the despotic Pahlavi regime, and made it the religious capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

77 solar years ago, on this day in 1940 AD, The Lahore Resolution, also known as “Qarardad-e Pakistan”, was put forward at the Annual General Convention of the All India Muslim League. This was the first formal step by the Muslims of the Subcontinent for setting up a separate country in the Muslim majority areas of British-ruled India. Seven years later in 1947 the birth of Pakistan took place in the western border provinces, and in East Bengal which is today called Bangladesh, but not all Muslim-majority regions of the Subcontinent could be incorporated in the new country because of geographical difficulties, since many areas such as the United Provinces lay in the heart of India and not on the borders. Moreover, the crafty British left the issue of Muslim-majority Kashmir unresolved as a bone of contention between Pakistan and India.

67 solar years ago, on this day in 1950, the UN World Meteorological Organization was established. It originated from the International Meteorological Organization (IMO), which was founded in 1873. WMO is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and every year the 23^rd of March is marked as World Meteorological Day.

61 solar years ago, on this day in 1956 AD, Pakistan formally became a republic by adopting a new constitution, and with election of the then Governor-General Iskandar Mirza as the president.

57 solar years ago, on this day in 1960 AD, Sa’eed Nursi, Islamic scholar, educationist and pan-Islamic political reformer of Turkey, who was deeply influenced by the thoughts of the famous Iranian pan-Islamic activist, Seyyed Jamal od-Din Assadabadi, passed away at the age of 82. Born in Nurs village in eastern Anatolia to a Kurdish family of Shafe’i persuasion, his knowledge earned him the title “Badi oz-Zamaan” (Wonder of the Age), He wrote the “Risala-e Nour”, a voluminous Qur'anic commentary in response to the provocative newspaper statement of British Secretary for the Colonies, William Gladstone, "so long as the Muslims have the Qur'an, we shall be unable to dominate them. We must either take it from them, or make them lose their love of it.” He said in reply: "I shall prove and demonstrate to the world that the Qur'an is an undying, inextinguishable Sun!" Nursi believed that modern science and logic was the way of the future, and advocated teaching religious sciences in secular schools and modern sciences in religious schools. As a supporter of Ottoman rule, he inspired the faith movement that has played a vital role in the revival of Islam in Turkey. This brought him into conflict with Mustafa Kemal, after the end of monarchic rule and emergence of the laic Turkish Republic where Islam and Islamic culture were brutally suppressed. He was arrested many times between 1930 and 1950, but until his death continued his activities.

32 lunar years ago, on this day in 1406 AH, Ayatollah Morteza Ha’iri Yazdi, passed away at the age of 72 and was laid to rest in Qom in the holy mausoleum of Hazrat Fatema al-Ma’soumah (SA), beside the grave of his esteemed father, Sheikh Abdul-Karim Ha’iri, the Reviver of the Qom seminary. Born in Arak, he moved to Qom in childhood, and after initial studies under his father, learnt jurisprudent and other branches of Islamic sciences from the leading scholars of his time. He then moved to holy Najaf in Iraq, to master various subjects including exegesis of the holy Qur’an and theology. In Iran, he became one of the founders of the Alavi Saving Bank in Qom and a member of Iran’s Constitution's Assembly of Experts following the victory of the Islamic Revolution. He paid special attention to honoring the religious rituals, including the pilgrimage to the holy shrines of the Infallible Imams, and holding mourning ceremonies to rid themselves of commemorating the tragedies befalling the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt.

12 solar years ago, on this day in 2005 AD, the Iranian philosopher and thinker, Allameh Seyyed Jalal od-Din Ashtiyani, passed away after a long bout of illness at the age of 80. He was a product of the Islamic seminary of Qom, where he studied under Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hussain Boroujerdi, Allamah Seyyed Mohammad Hussain Tabatabaei, and the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA). He later on took up residence in the holy city of Mashhad, and spent the rest of his life lecturing at this city’s seminary and university, studying and compiling books. He was highly interested in Islamic philosophy and mysticism and mainly focused on the ideas and thoughts of the famous Gnostic of Islamic Spain, Mohi od-Din Ibn Arabi, and the prominent Iranian philosopher, Mullah Sadra. He has left behind a large number of books, including “Tafsir-e Surah Hamd” or Exegesis of the Opening Chapter of the holy Qur'an.

AS/MG