Today is Friday; 18th of the Iranian month of Farvardin 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 9th of the Islamic month of Rajab 1438 lunar hijri; and April 7, 2017, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1566 solar years ago, on this day in 451 AD, Attila the Hun sacked the town of Metz in northeastern France and attacked other French cities and towns, massacring people and plundering their properties. Of Turkic-Mongoloid origin, he was known as the scourge of God to both the Western and Eastern Roman Empires because of his barbaric nature, and during his 19-year rule, he spread the nomadic Hunnic Empire from the Ural River to the Rhine River and from the Danube River to the Baltic Sea. Following the devastating defeat he suffered in Armenia in 441 AD at the hands of Yazdegerd II, the Sassanid Emperor of Iran, Atilla never ventured again near the borders of the Persian Empire, and invaded the Eastern Roman Empire, the success of which emboldened him to invade the West. He crossed the Danube twice and plundered the Balkans, but was unable to take Constantinople (modern Istanbul). He invaded Roman Gaul (modern France), crossing the Rhine in 451 and marching as far as what is now Orleans. He subsequently invaded Italy and devastated its northern provinces but was unable to take Rome. He planned for further campaigns against the Romans but died in 453.

1093 solar years ago, on this day in 924 AD, Berengar I of Italy, died at the age of 79, nine years after being crowned the Holy Roman Emperor by Pope John X following the Battle of Garigliano in southern Italy against the FatemidIsmaili Shi’ite Muslim Caliphate of North Africa, which from its colony of Sicily held sway over southern Italian principalities. Berengar had been king of several northern Italian principalities since 887, and was backed by the papacy in view of the existential threat to Rome and the catholic sect of Christianity by the growing power of the Muslims in Europe.

517 lunar years ago, on this day in 921 AH, the Iranian historian and poet, Zain-ol-Abedin Ali bin Abdul-Momin, popular as Abdi Bek Navidi Shirazi, was born in Shiraz. His main book is a history of the Safavid Dynasty titled "Takmilat al-Akhbar", in which he has chronicled events beginning from the emergence of the Safavids till the year 978 AH.His main poetical works are three Khamsas, composed in imitation of the celebrated Nizami Ganjavi. Each Khamsa comprises five independent versified narratives. Of these, “Sahifat-al-Ikhlas”, mostly a descriptive account of the palaces, gardens, and artists of Qazvin (the then capital of the Safavids) is of special interest. His Divan of Persian poetry was published for the first time in Lucknow, India, in 1267 AH (1851). Among his other works, mention could be made of a versified book titled “Jam-e Jamshid”.

512 lunar years ago, on this day in 930 AH, the young 10-year old Shah Tahmasp I was crowned as the second Safavid Emperor of Iran, a week after the death of his father and founder of the Dynasty, Shah Ismael I. His reign of 54-years is the longest of any Muslim king of Iran, and was marked by foreign threats, primarily from the Ottomans in the west and the Uzbeks in the northeast. Upon adulthood, he was able to reassert his power and consolidate the dynasty against internal and external enemies. Although he lost Iraq and parts of Anatolia to the Ottoman invaders, his pious nature made him avoid unnecessary shedding of Muslim blood. As a result, after thwarting Ottoman designs in the Caucasus, Shah Tahmasp concluded the Treaty of Amasya, with Sultan Sulaiman, resulting in a peace that lasted 30 years and led to the development of Iran. He continued his father’s policy of enlightening the people with the teachings of the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (blessings of God upon him and his progeny). He assembled at his court in Qazvin leading ulema from all over Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, and Lebanon. As a descendant of the Prophet and head of the Safavid spiritual order tracing to Safi od-Din Ardebili, he was acknowledged as suzerain by the Shi’ite Muslim sultanates of the Deccan (or Southern India). Shah Tahmasp is also known for the reception he gave to the fugitive Mughal Emperor Humayun of Hindustan (or Northern Subcontinent) when the latter fled the seizure of power by the Afghan warlord, Sher Shah Suri. Humayun, whose father Babar, was a protégé of Shah Ismail Safavi, was treated as a royal guest, and besides military aid to recover his kingdom, was accompanied by a large retinue of Iranian noblemen, soldiers, and artists, which signaled an important development in Indo-Iranian relations, in all fields, such as art, architecture, language and literature. One of Shah Tahmasp's more lasting achievements was his encouragement of the Persian carpet industry on a national scale. He was an enthusiastic patron of the arts with a particular interest in the Persian miniature, especially book illustration. He had been trained in drawing himself, and had some talent. The most famous example of such work is the “Shahnama-e Shah Tahmaspi”, containing 250 miniatures by the leading court artists of the era.

475 lunar years ago, on this day in 963 AH, Ezzeddin Seyyed Hussein, the prominent Imami scholar, was martyred through poisoning at the age of 57 in the city of Sidon in what is now Lebanon. Born in the Jabal Amel region, he mastered the sciences of the day, and had attained higher degrees of Gnosticism.

296 solar years ago, on this day in 1721 AD, Russian Emperor, Peter the Great, attacked Sweden, and after defeating it, imposed the Treaty of Nystad, according to which Finland and parts of Sweden were occupied by Russia.

247 solar years ago, on this day in 1770 AD, prominent English poet, William Wordsworth, was born in Lake District, England. In 1798, along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, he helped launched the Romantic Age in English literature with the joint publication of “Lyrical Ballads”. Wordsworth's magnum opus is generally considered to be “The Prelude”, a semi-autobiographical poem of his early years which he revised and expanded a number of times. Wordsworth was Britain's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death seven years later.

228 solar years ago, on this day in 1789 AD, Selim III became the 29^th Ottoman sultan and 20^th self-styled Turkish caliph on the heartbroken death of his uncle, Abdul-Hamid I and successor of his father, Mustafa III, following a 15-year reign – four months after the disastrous defeat of the Turks by the combined Russian-Austrian armies and the fall of Ochakov in what is now Ukraine to Russia, which massacred all its 20,000 Muslim inhabitants. Born in 1762 to the Georgian concubine Agnesa, who on conversion to Islam was given the name Mehr-e Shah (Sun of the King), on ascending the throne Selim III embarked on plans to modernize the Empire, including the army in view of the disastrous wars with Austria and Russia. His most ambitious military project was creation of an entirely new infantry corps fully trained and equipped according to the latest European standards. The unit, called the “Nzam-e Jedid” (the new order) was opposed by the Janissari Corps, who constantly rose in revolt, and in 1807 finally induced the Sheikh ul-Islam to grant a fatwa against the reforms. He was dethroned after a reign of 18 years, and replaced by his cousin Mustafa IV. A year and 2 months later he was killed in the harem when new reached the new sultan that a large led by Alamdar Pasha was approaching Istanbul to reinstate him on the throne. Selim III carried on personal correspondence with Louis XVI, and was distressed by the setting up of the republic in France. On July 1, 1798, when Napoleon Bonaparte’s French forces landed in Egypt, he declared war on France. In alliance with Russia and Britain, the Turks were in periodic conflict with the French on both land and sea until March 1801. Selim’s assistance was sought by Fath Ali Khan Tipu Sultan of the independent Muslim Sultanate of Mysore in the Deccan (southern India) during the Third Anglo-Mysore War. The British appealed to him to tell Tipu Sultan to halt the war against the colonialists, prompting the Ottoman Sultan to write a letter to the Sultan of Mysore, criticizing the French, and offering to act as intermediary between him and the British. Tipu Sultan wrote twice to Selim III, rejecting his advice, and began to consolidate his relations with France, as result of which Napoleon invaded Ottoman Egypt in 1798, causing a furor in Constantinople. Immediately, the British unilaterally broke the truce and launched the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War to defeat and kill Tipu Sultan during the Siege of Seringapatam in 1799.

206 solar years ago, on this day in 1811 AD, Albanian philosopher, astronomer, mathematician, and religious teacher, Hassan Tahsini, was born in the village of Ninat, Konispol, Albania in the Ottoman Empire, to religious scholar, Osman Efendi. After formal education he worked as tutor to the sons of Khayrullah Efendi, Minister of Education of the Ottoman Empire, who later appointed him to the staff of the Ottoman school of Paris, where Tahsini taught Turkish and religious sciences, while also being the imam of the Ottoman embassy and a student of mathematics and natural sciences at the University of Paris. He was influenced by Iran’s pan-Islamic activist, Seyyed Jamal od-Din Asadabadi. In 1870 he became the first rector of the newly established Istanbul University, where he gave lectures on physics, astronomy and psychology.The court mullahs considered Tahsini's scientific experiments as witchcraft, declared him a heretic through a fatwa, dismissed him from the university, and disallowed him to give lectures. The university was also closed for a period because Seyyed Jamal od-Din supported Tahsini. Tahsini wrote the first Turkish language treatise on psychology and the first Turkish language book on modern astronomy. His other works in Turkish include a translation from the French of Constantin François de Chassebœuf's “Loi Naturelle”. Along with Sami Frasheri, one of the most important figures of the Albanian National Awakening, Tahsini developed a unique alphabet of the Albanian language, which according to him was devised in such way that each letter required the least hand movements to be written. Tahsini, who passed away in Istanbul in 1881was leading member of the “Central Committee for Defending Albanian Rights”, set up in 1877 in the Ottoman capital.

130 lunar years ago, on this day in 1308 AH, the prominent source of emulation, Ayatollah Shaikh Mohammad Hassan Aal-e Yasin, passed away at the age of 88 in his hometown, Kazemayn, where he was head of the seminary. He studied in the seminary of holy Najaf under such famous scholars, as Shaikh Mohammad Hassan Najafi – author of “Jawaher al-Kalaam” – and became Marja’ after the passing away of the celebrated Ayatollah Shaikh Morteza Ansari Dezfuli. Despite mastery over various branches of Islamic sciences, he wrote mainly on jurisprudence. His works include “Asraar-al-Faqaha”.

128 solar years ago, on this day in 1889 AD, the acclaimed Latin American poetess and author, Gabriela Mistral, was born in Chile. Admiration of the important status of mothers and their sentiment is evident in her poems. She was the first Latin American poetess to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in (1945).

95 solar years ago, on this day in 1922 AD, German Islamologist, Annemarie Schimmel, was born in Erfurt, Germany in a cultured family. She developed a keen interest in orientalism and obtained her PhD in Islamic studies from Berlin University at the age of 19. The title of her thesis was “The Position of the Caliph and the Qadhi in Late Medieval Egypt”. Interested in Islamic mysticism, she mastered several languages, and was fluent in English, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, and Bengali. She wrote extensively on Islamic culture and became internationally renowned, as an authority on classical Persian poets such as the Iranians Mowlana Jalal od-Din Rumi, Khwajah Hafez Shirazi, and Sheikh Sa’di.In 1954 she was appointed Professor of the History of Religion at Ankara University, where she spent five years immersing herself in the culture and the mystical tradition of that country. She became a professor at the US Harvard University in 1967 and the same year she inaugurated the Indo-Muslim studies program at Harvard, where she remained for the next twenty-five years till 1992. Professor Schimmel received honorary degrees and prizes on several occasions from various countries. She authored over fifty books, in addition to hundreds of articles. Books written by her include “And Muhammad Is His Messenger: The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety”, “Islam and the Wonders of Creation: The Animal Kingdom”, “A Dance of Sparks: Imagery of Fire in Ghalib's Poetry”, “A Two-Coloured Brocade: The Imagery of Persian Poetry”, “Gabriel's Wing: Study into the Religious Ideas of Sir Muhammad Iqbal”, “I Am Wind, You Are Fire: The Life and Work of Rumi”, “Im Reich der Grossmoguls: Geschichte, Kunst, Kultur” (“The Empire of the Great Mughals: History, Art, and Culture”), “Classical Urdu Literature: From the Beginning to Iqbal”, “Islamic Literatures of India”, “Make a Shield from Wisdom: Selected Verses from Nasir-e Khosrow's Divan”, and “Pain and Grace: A Study of Two Mystical Writers of Eighteenth-Century Muslim India”. She died in 2003in Bonn at the age of 81.

80 solar years ago, on this day in 1937 AD, Italy launched a massive attack to occupy Albania. Some 10,000 Italian soldiers, backed by 400 planes, defeated the Albanian army in a five-day battle.

71 solar years ago, on this day in 1946 AD, Syria's independence from France was formally recognized. Greater Syria or Bilaad ash-Shaam, which for four centuries had been occupied by the Ottoman Turks, was seized by the Allied powers of Britain and France in 1917 during World War I. The victors divided Syria between them, with the British creating Jordan and Palestine, and the French creating present-day Syria and Lebanon. Following independence from colonial rule, Syria went through instability for 24 years with frequent coups, counter-coups and overthrow of military and civilian governments that saw the rise and fall of more than a dozen regimes. The situation was stabilized and progress became possible, only with the coming to power in 1970 of President Hafez al-Assad, who during his 30-year rule made Syria a strong bulwark of resistance against the designs of the West and the illegal Zionist entity. He was succeeded in 2000 by his son, Dr. Bashshar al-Assad, who for the past 14 years has ably led the country, although at present he is facing an insurrection and state-sponsored terrorism incited by the US, Britain, France, Israel, Turkey and Arab reactionary states, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

70 solar years ago,on this day in 1947 AD, the American inventor and scientist, Henry Ford, died at the age of 84. He was born in a poor family and made watches, while working as a mechanic. Later he built a major empire in auto industry. Ford is also considered as one of the car inventors.

69 solar years ago, on this day in 1948 AD, the World Health Organization (WHO) was founded by the UN. In 1948, the First World Health Assembly called for the creation of a "World Health Day" to mark the founding of the World Health Organization. Since 1950, World Health Day has been celebrated on the 7th of April annually.

53 solar years ago, on this day in 1964 AD, following mass protests throughout Iran, the Father of Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA) was freed from detention by the British-installed and US-backed Pahlavi regime. He was detained by the regime, following his historic speech on the eve of June 4, 1963 against the anti-Islamic and anti-national policies of the Shah.

37 solar years ago, on this day in 1980 AD, the United States of America unilaterally severed relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, a year and two months after the resounding triumph of the Islamic Revolution which threw into the dustbin of history the British-installed and American-backed despotic Pahalavi regime. The US has never ceased its hostility towards Iran, and in its vain bid to undermine the popular Islamic system of government, has resorted to various plots including the 8-year war during the 1980s through Saddam, and the current illegal economic sanctions. The pretext for the US to sever ties was takeover of its embassy in Tehran by revolutionary students who resented its turning into a den of spies in violation of diplomatic norms. Imam Khomeini (RA) called this US measure as the only good thing Washington has done to the Iranian people, because diplomatic ties were misused for decades to oppress Iran and plunder its resources. The US has continued to plot against Islamic Iran in all spheres – political, economic, military, cultural, scientific etc. – but has failed to succeed, thanks to the Iranian nation's resolve to attain self-sufficiency in different fields.

22 solar years ago, on this day in 1995 AD, during the First Chechen War, Russian paramilitary troops began a massacre of Muslim civilians in Samashki, Chechnya. The Russians were repulsed with great loss, but in 1999 launched another war to finally occupy the oil-rich Caucasian republic of Chechnya. It is worth noting that Chechnya, along with Daghestan, the present day Republic of Azerbaijan, Armenia and eastern Georgia, was part of successive Iranian empires for the past two millenniums, before being occupied by the Russians, as per the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Gulistan imposed in 1813 on the Qajarid Dynasty.

11 solar years ago, on this day in 2006 AD, Takfiri terrorists backed by the US and Saudi Arabia, blew through remote control bags of explosives they had handed to unsuspecting persons at the famous al-Buratha Mosque in northern Baghdad, martyring over a hundred Shi’a Muslims worshippers, and wounding many others.

AS/ME