Today is Sunday; 3rd of the Iranian month of Ordibehesht 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 25th of the Islamic month of Rajab 1438 lunar hijri; and April 23, 2017, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

2495 solar years ago, on this day in 478 BC, the Delian League was founded by Greek city-states, numbering between 150 to 173 under the leadership of Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the mighty Persian Empire after the freak victory in the Battle of Plataea at the end of the Second Persian invasion of Greece by the Iranian Achaemenid Emperor Xerxes, who due to resistance, decided to withdraw after conquering almost all of Greece and destroying Athens. The League's modern name derives from its official meeting place, the island of Delos, where congresses were held in the temple and where the treasury stood until Pericles moved it to Athens in 454 BC. Shortly after its inception, Athens began to use the League's navy for its own purposes. This behaviour frequently led to conflict between Athens and the less powerful members of the League. By 431 BC, Athens' heavy-handed control of the Delian League prompted the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. The League was dissolved upon the war's conclusion in 404 BC.

1714 solar years ago, on this day in 303 AD, the devoted Palestinian-Syrian monotheist, Jirjis, known to the West as Saint George, attained martyrdom at the hands of the Roman Emperor Diocletian for refusing to worship the idols of the Roman pantheon. Almighty Allah had chosen Jirjis to preach monotheism in parts of Syria. He was noted for his bravery, and regarded Jesus as a Prophet of God, refusing to believe in the perverted concept of trinity forged by Paul the Jew, the founder of Christianity. Jirjis was also a firm believer in the coming of the last and greatest of divine messengers, Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), and has nothing to do with myths spun around him by the medieval Europeans. In some supplications to God Almighty, as bequeathed by the Imams of the Ahl al-Bayt, the name of Jirjis is mentioned. His shrine and the adjoining mosque near Mosul in Iraq was desecrated and blown through explosives by Takfiri terrorists, supported by the US, Saudi Arabia, the Zionist entity, and Turkey.

1255 lunar years ago, on this day in 183 AH, Imam Musa al-Kazem (AS), the 7^th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), attained martyrdom at the age of 55 in the prison of Baghdad, three days after being served poisoned dates by the jailor Sindi bin Shahak on the orders of Haroun Rashid, the 5^th self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime. His period of Imamate was 35 years, during which, as the son and successor of Imam Ja'far as-Sadeq (AS), he guided the seekers of truth in those days of Abbasid tyranny. He groomed a large number of scholars who spread the teachings of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt in different lands, before passing the mantle of divinely-decreed leadership to his son and successor, Imam Reza (AS). We extend our heartfelt condolences to all listeners on this doleful day, and later in our programme will present you a special feature on the life and times of the 7^th Imam, the "Bab al-Hawa'ej" (Gateway of Needs), whose sprawling shrine in Kazemain, north of Baghdad attracts pilgrims from all over the world.

1177 lunar years ago, on this day in 261 AH, the Iranian Sunni scholar and compiler of hadith, Abul-Hussain Muslim ibn Hajjaj al-Qushayri Nayshapuri, the author of “Sahih Muslim”, passed away at the age of 55 years in his hometown Nayshapur in Khorasan, northeastern Iran. He was a student of the other famous Iranian Sunni Muslim hadith compiler, Mohammad bin Ismael Bukhari, and among his students was the third famous Iranian Sunni Muslim compiler of hadith, Mohammad bin Eisa Tirmizi. After travelling throughout Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Iraq and Syria, he settled down in his hometown Nayshapur where he first met Bukhari, with whom he would have a lifelong friendship. Of the thousands of hadith he has collected in his "Sahih", 2000 are common with Bukhari's "Sahih". There are many hadith in “Sahih Muslim” on the merits of the Ahl al-Bayt including the unrivalled position of Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS) compared to the companions of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). He has mentioned that the term Ahl al-Bayt as referred to by God Almighty in ayah 33 of Surah Ahazab exclusively pertains to Imam Ali (AS), Hazrat Fatema (SA), Imam Hasan (AS) and Imam Husain (AS) and does not include the Prophet’s wives.

959 lunar years ago, on this day in 479 AH, Sultan Mo'iz od-Din Ahmad Sanjar, the last great ruler of the Iran-based Seljuq Empire that included Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and parts of Turkey and Central Asia, was born. As son of Malik Shah I, he ruled for 36 years, initially as sultan of Khorasan until he gained the rest of the territory upon the death of his brother Mohammad I. His capital was Nayshapur, and in addition to internal revolts, he faced external invasions from beyond the River Jaxartes in Central Asia, especially from the Sultan of Kashghar in what is now China, and the Qara Khitai Turks against whom he suffered a devastating defeat near Samarqand and lost all territory east of the Jaxartes. Oghuz Turks from Khuttal and Tukharistan captured Sanjar and held him prisoner for three years. A year after release he died in the Khorasani city of Merv which is presently in Turkmenistan and was buried there.

817 solar years ago, on this day in 1200 AD, Chinese philosopher Zhu Xi or Chu His, died at the age of 69. He lived during the Song dynasty as the most influential rationalist Neo-Confucian. His contributions to Chinese philosophy including his assigning special significance to the Analects, the Mencius, the Great Learning, and emphasis on the investigation of things that formed the basis of Chinese bureaucracy and government for over 700 years. He has been called the second most influential thinker in Chinese history, after Confucius. He termed Buddhist principles to be darkening and deluding the original mind as well as destroying human relations.

608 lunar years ago, on this day in 830 AH, the famous mystic and Arabic-Persian poet, Shah Ne’matullah Vali, passed away in Mahan, Kerman, at the age of 105. He was laid to rest in the same town where a shrine built by his devotee, Ahmad Shah of the Bahmani kingdom of Iranian origin of the Deccan (southern India), stands as a site of pilgrimage. Born in Aleppo, Syria, he traced his descent from Imam Musa al-Kazem (AS), the 7^th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). Ne’matullah travelled widely through the Muslim world, learning the philosophies of many masters. He studied the works of the great Spanish Gnostic philosopher, Sheikh Mohy od-Din Ibn Arabi. In Mecca, he met Abdullah Yafe’i and became his disciple, studying for seven years. Spiritually transformed, he was set out on a second round of travels. Ne’matullah took up temporary residence near Samarqand, along the Central Asian Silk Road, where he met the fearsome Turkic conqueror, Amir Timur, but in order to avoid conflict with the worldly ruler, soon left for Kerman. From here, his fame spread far and wide, throughout Iran and the Subcontinent, winning him thousands of adherents. He was invited to the Deccan by Ahmad Shah Bahmani, but citing old age, sent his grandson, who was warmly welcomed in the capital Bidar. Ne’matullah has left behind treatises and a bulky divan of Persian poetry that contains prophecies on the end of monarchy in Iran, emergence of rule of the deputy of the Imam of the Age, the eventual reappearance of the Prophet’s 12th and Last Successor, Imam Mahdi (AS), and establishment of the global government of peace, prosperity and justice. On his death, his son and spiritual successor, Shah Khalilullah shifted the headquarters of the Ne’matullahi Sufi Order from Mahan to Bidar in the Deccan, and over a century later on the rise of the Safavids in Iran, the Order openly declared adherence to the School of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt. In 1194 AH, after over three-and-a-half centuries in the Deccan, during the reign of Nizam Ali Khan of the Asaf-Jahi Dynasty, the Ne’matullahi Order was relocated to Shiraz, Iran, by Reza Ali Shah Deccani in the last decade of the Zand Dynasty. Around 80 years ago, with the passing away in Mashhad of the religious scholar Shahsavar Ali Shah (lineal and spiritual heir of Shah Ne’matullah) and the subsequent Gowharshad massacre by the British agent Reza Khan Pahlavi, his son, the religious scholar Shah Abbas Mansouri, migrated to Haiderabad Deccan where he lived till the end of his life (well after the victory of the Islamic Revolution), while his brothers returned to Iran. A deviant group claiming to be the Ne’matullahi Order which colonial agents set up in Gonabad during the Pahlavi regime and which has now shifted to the US, has no connection with the teachings of Shah Ne’matullah Vali and has been denounced by his lineal and spiritual descendants.

546 lunar years ago, on this day 892 AH, Shah Ismael I, the Founder of the Safavid dynasty, was born in Ardebil, northwestern Iran. His father Haidar was head of the Safaviyya Sufi order established by his venerable ancestor Safi od-Din Ardebeli. His mother, Martha, was daughter of the Aq Qoyonlu king, Uzun Hasan by his Greek wife Theodora, known as Despina Khatoun – daughter of King John IV of Trebizond. Ismail was only one year old when his father was martyred in what is now Daghestan, and at the age of 7 he succeeded his elder brother Sultan Ali, who was also martyred. He went into hiding along with his loyal followers before emerging at the age of 12 to set up rule in Azarbaijan. Soon he was joined by thousands of devotees of the Safavid order and gradually took control of all of today's Iran, as well as Iraq, the Caucasus, parts of Anatolia, Central Asia, and western Afghanistan. During his 24-year rule, he declared as state religion the School of the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). To Shah Ismail and his successors, who ruled for 235 years, goes the credit of giving Iran its present religious, cultural, lingual and national identity and unity. Shah Ismail wielded spiritual influence outside Iran as well in Iraq, Syria, Anatolia (modern Turkey), the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Deccan Plateau of India. The Timurid prince, Babar, who later founded the Moghal Empire in northern India, regarded him as his suzerain, and so did the Deccan Sultanates of Yusuf Adel Shah of Bijapur and Sultan Qoli Qotb Shah of Golconda.

401 solar years ago, on this day in the year 1564 AD, the English poet, playwright, and author, William Shakespeare, died. He started his activities by acting and catapulted to fame in acting, and writing plays. He adopted the classical style and his works are mainly a blend of tragedies and comedies. His most important works include Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet, although there are so many theories that the village-born Shakespeare was actually used a front man by certain aristocratic academicians for publication of their views and works, since political risks prevented them from disclosing their names. He died at the age of 52.

167 solar years ago, on this day in 1850 AD, English poet, William Wordsworth, died at the age of 80. He was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 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. It was posthumously titled and published, prior to which it was generally known as the poem "To Coleridge". Wordsworth was Britain's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death seven years later.

159 solar years ago, on this day in 1858 AD, the physicist, mathematician, and presenter of Quantum Theory in Physics, Max Planck, was born in Germany. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1918, and was one of the staunch opponents of Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler. He conducted extensive studies on theoretical physics, thermodynamics, heat, radiation and light, writing books in these fields. Planck's Quantum Theory revolutionized understanding of atomic and subatomic processes.

152 solar years ago, on this day in 1865 AD, Ali-Agha Shikhlinski, the Azeri general who was in the service of Russia, was born on April, 23 in the village of Kazakhly of Kazakh Uyezd in the Russian occupied parts of the Iranian land of Azarbaijan. He was descended from a noble Iranian family dating back to 1537 during the reign of Emperor Shah Tahmasb Safavi. His mother Shah Yemen Khanum was a grandchild of a famous poet Molla Vali Vidadi. After graduating from the Tiflis military academy he served as lieutenant-general of the Russian imperial army, and fought in the First World War. Earlier, during the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, as artillery commander, he distinguished himself during the siege of Port Arthur when, despite being severely wounded in his leg, he personally aimed the guns which had lost their gun crews and repulsed attacks of superior Japanese forces. Shikhlinski published a number of works on artillery, including the book titled “Use of Field Artillery in a Battle”, and invented an original target-finding device, which was called “Shiklinski Triangle”. After the October revolution by the communists, he resigned from his post and moved to Tiflis in Georgia, where he was charged with formation of the Muslim corps supported by the Ottoman Army of Islam in the Battle of Baku against the Soviet army. In January 1919, the government of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic appointed him a deputy defence minister. After the Red Army’s invasion of Azerbaijan and establishment of the Soviet regime, Shikhlinski was arrested 1922 and released two months later. He resigned from military service in 1929 and died in Baku in 1943 at the age of 78.

38 solar years ago, on this day in 1979 AD, Sepahbod (General) Mohammad Vali Qarani was martyred at the age of 66 by the terrorist grouplet Forqan, within months of being appointed Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces. He joined the army during the days of the Pahlavi regime and earned steady promotion for his dedicated service to the country. He was, however, shocked by rampant corruption and immorality prevailing among the military. In 1957, he was accused of plotting a coup and was imprisoned. He was released, but again imprisoned in 1963 on charges of close contacts with the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA), during the 15^th of Khordad (June 5, 1963) uprising. For the next 15 years he was in prison and was released on the eve of the victory of the Islamic Revolution. Following the establishment of the Islamic Republic he was appointed to the highest ranking military post, but was martyred in a few months by the enemies of Iran and Islam.   

23 solar years ago, on this day in 1993 AD, Eritreans voted for independence from Ethiopia in a United Nations-monitored referendum. The capital is Asmara. Eritrea is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast. The northeast and east of the country has an extensive coastline on the Red Sea, directly across from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The Dahlak Archipelago and several of the Hanish Islands are part of Eritrea. Its size is approximately 117,600 km with an estimated population of 6 million, of whom more than 60 percent are Muslims. It was occupied by the British in the 19th century and then by the Italians, after whose defeat in World War 2, it was seized by Ethiopia. The people are Semitic and of the many languages spoken in Eritrea today, Tigrinya and Arabic are the two predominant languages for official purposes. English and Italian are also widely understood.

22 solar years ago, on this day in 1995 AD, the World Book and Copyright Day was initiated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), to promote reading, publishing and copyright. The 23^rd of April is the anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare and several other prominent authors.

20 solar years ago, on this day in 1997 AD, Ayatollah Mirza Ali Gharavi Alyari Tabrizi, passed away in his hometown Tabriz at the age of 96 and was laid to rest in the holy shrine of Hazrat Ma’soumah (peace upon her) in Qom. A product of the seminary of holy Najaf in Iraq, he attained ijtehad and was an expert in jurisprudence, ethics, theology, gnosis, and philosophy. On his return to Iran, he taught for 65 years at the Tabriz seminary and wrote several books, including a commentary in 15 volumes on “al-Orwat-al-Wosqa”.

7 seven solar years ago, on this day in 2010 AD, Takfiri terrorists backed by
Saudi Arabia, the US and Israel, carried out a series of bomb blasts in Baghdad, martyring 72 Shi’a Muslims, of whom 25 achieved martyrdom near the office of an Iraqi religious scholar strongly opposed to the US occupying forces. Two years earlier on this same date, Takfiri terrorists had martyred 88 Shi’a Muslims in Baghdad and Muqdadiya, including pilgrims from Iran.

6 solar years ago, on this day in 2011 AD, the repressive Aal-e Khalifa minority regime of the Persian Gulf island state of Bahrain, demolished 16 mosques and several hussainiyahs, over the past two months in a bid to crush the popular uprising of the long-suppressed Shi’a Muslim majority.

Ordibehesht 3^rd is marked in Iran as National Day for the celebrated Islamic scholar and scientist of the Safavid era, Baha od-Din Mohammad al-Ameli, popularly known as Sheikh Baha’i. Born in Ba’lbak in the Jabal Amel region of what is now Lebanon, he came to Iran as a child with his father and grew into an expert in jurisprudence, theology, hadith, and Arabic and Persian literature, as well as astronomy, medicine, mathematics, and architecture. He was appointed Sheikh ol-Islam by Shah Abbas the Great and besides writing over a hundred books and treatises on various topics, he designed the famous Naqsh-e Jahan Square and the Grand Shah Abbas Mosque of Isfahan (Imam Mosque). His treatise on mathematics was in use as a textbook until the end of the 19^th century. He was among the teachers of the famous philosopher, Mullah Sadra. Sheikh Baha’i passed away at the age of 77 in Isfahan, and according to his will, his body was taken to Mashhad and buried in the premises of the holy shrine of Imam Reza (AS), the 8^th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).

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