Today is Sunday; 31st of the Iranian month of Ordibehesht 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 24th of the Islamic month of Sha’ban 1438 lunar hijri; and May 21, 2017, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

2444 solar years ago, on this day in 427 BC, the prominent Greek philosopher, Plato, was born in Athens. His works include the “Republic”, “Laws”, and the dialogues “Critias” and “Timaeus”. He was the student of the famous philsoper Socrates and was influenced by Pythagoras as well. In turn, Plato was the teacher of the equally famous Aristotle, and founded the Academy in Athens for teaching philosophy and sciences. He rejected democracy, saying that only a few persons are fit to rule, making it clear that instead of rhetoric and persuasion, reason and wisdom should govern. As Plato puts it: “Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophise, that is, until political power and philosophy entirely coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils,... nor, I think, will the human race.” During the early Islamic era, Iranian and Arab scholars translated much of Plato’s works from Greek and Syriac into Arabic and wrote commentaries and interpretations on them, as well as on the works of Aristotle and other ancient philosophers. These works of Plato were later translated from Arabic into Latin and as such influenced European medieval scholastic philosophers. Plato died in Athens in 347 BC at the age of 80.

1139 solar years ago, on this day in 878 AD, the ancient city of Syracuse, on the island of Sicily, off the southern coast of Italy, was captured by the Muslim sultan of Sicily. The first Muslims to land in Sicily were forces of the Aghlabid dynasty of Ifriqiyya or what is now western Libya, Tunis and Algeria, in 827 AD, when the island was part of Byzantine or the Eastern Roman Empire. During the two centuries of Muslim rule, the capital of the Emirate of Sicily was moved from Syracuse to Palermo. Islamic architecture dominated the cities, and the Muslims, including the Ismaili Shi’ite Fatemid dynasty, developed agriculture and built extensive irrigation channels. Islamic Sicily had a flourishing cultural and artistic life: several Arab poets, including Ibn Hamdis, the most important Sicilian poet of the 12th century, lived in Syracuse. The Fatemid general, Jowhar as-Saqali, who conquered Egypt, was originally a Christian from Sicily. Among the governors appointed by the Fatemids to rule the island and propagate the school of the Ahl al-Bayt, was Hassan al-Kalbi whose army landed in southern Italy and defeated the Holy Roman Emperor near Crotone in Calabria.

614 solar years ago, on this day in 1403 AD, Henry III of the region of Castile in Spain, as part of the Christian policy to split the ranks of Muslims, who were advancing into southwestern Europe and still controlled southern Spain, sent Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo as ambassador to Samarqand to the court of Amir Timur to discuss the possibility of an alliance against the Ottoman Empire. Clavijo, who travelled through the Byzantine capital Constantinople to Armenia, Iran, and finally Central Asia, was granted a long-sought audience by Timur in a great orchard with a palace therein, which he calls the paradise garden of Iranian tradition. He gives a detailed description of court life including trained elephants and the tent-pavilions of jewel-and pearl-encrusted silks. The Castilian embassy spent several months in Samarqand, during which time Clavijo attended celebrations for Timur's recent victory at Ankara in July 1402, over the Ottoman sultan, Bayezid I, who was captured and brought to Central Asia as captive, much to the relief of the Christians of Europe. Although the fearsome Timur did not sign any treaty with the Christians, the vast majority of his victims were the millions of fellow Muslims his armies slaughtered from Eurasia to West Asia and from Iran to the Subcontinent.

520 solar years ago, on this day in 1497 AD, the Sunni Muslim jurist, Mohammad ibn Mohammad at-Tarabulsi al-Hattab ar-Ru’yani, was born in Mecca in a family of scholars of the Maliki school of jurisprudents from Tripoli, present day Libya, which was of Andalusian or Spanish Muslim origin. His book “Mawaheb al-Jalil” is considered as one of the thorough commentaries of Maliki law. Another of his famous works is “Qurrat al-Ayn”, which expounds on the “al-Waraqaat” of the Iranian Shafe’i jurist and theologian, Ziya od-Din Abdul-Malik Juwayni, known as Imam al-Haramayn because of his 4-year stay in Hijaz. Al-Hattab returned to Tripoli with his father and before his death there at the age of 50 years, his study circles became so popular that many North African Sufis preferred to attend his classes.

378 solar years ago, on this day in 1639 AD, Italian philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet, Tommaso Campanella died at the age of 71. He spent 27 years imprisoned in Naples (1599-1626) for leading a conspiracy against the Spanish rule. During his detention, he wrote his most important works: “The Monarchy of Spain” (1600), “Political Aphorisms” (1601), “Atheism Conquered” (1605–1607), “Metaphysica” (1609–1623), “Theologia” (1613–1624), and his most famous work, “The City of the Sun”. He defended the astronomer Galileo Galilei against the Christian Church in his first trial with his work “The Defense of Galileo” (1616).

329 solar years ago, on this day in 1688 AD, English poet, Alexander Pope, was born in London. He is best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of the works of the ancient Greek scholar Homer. He is the second-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations after William Shakespeare.   His “Essay on Criticism” contains the line: “A little learning is a dangerous thing...”

217 lunar years ago, on this day in 1221 AH, the Ottoman state issued a decree confirming the Albanian general, Mohammed Ali Pasha, as governor of Egypt, a few years after his successful ending of the political and administrative crisis in the Land of the Nile. Later, following the sacrilegious Wahhabi attack on the shrine of Imam Husain (AS) in Karbala, Iraq, and the desecration of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina by Godless elements from the Najd, the Ottoman Sultan tasked Mohammad Ali to end the sedition. He successfully accomplished the mission by restoring order to the Hijaz and sending his sons to pursue the Wahhabis right into their heartland Najd, where he ordered the destruction of their capital, Diriyya, and sent the Wahhabi chieftain, Abdullah ibn Saud, in chains to Istanbul for execution for his unpardonable crimes. The dynasty founded by Mohammad Ali was known as “Khedive” from the old Persian word for prince or ruler and ruled Egypt for over a century and a half, till its overthrow in 1952 by Colonel Jamal Abdun-Nasser.

153 solar years ago, on this day 1864 AD, Russia declared an end to its Circassian War in the Caucasus by forcing into exile almost the entire population of the Muslim Cherkes. The day is designated as the Circassian Day of Mourning. More than 1.5 million Circassian Muslims were expelled — 90% of the total population at the time. Most of them perished en route, victims of disease, hunger, and exhaustion. They were dispersed all over the world. Some traveled 3000 km on foot or on ox carts. Some roamed for 25 years before settling down. Today over 4 million Circassians live outside their homeland in over 40 countries across the world.

146 solar years ago, on this day in 1871 AD, French troops invaded the Paris Commune and engaged its residents in street fighting. By the close of what is known as "Bloody Week" in the history of France, some 20,000 communards were killed and 38,000 arrested.

126 lunar years ago, on this day in 1312 AH, the Source of Emulation, Grand Ayatolllah Mirza Mohammad Hassan Shirazi, passed away at the age of 82 in Samarra, Iraq. He was born in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz and after completion of preliminary studies, left for the Najaf Seminary in Iraq, where he studied under the celebrated Ayatollah Sheikh Morteza Ansari Dezfuli. The name of Mirza Shirazi brings to mind the famous fatwa or edict he issued for boycott of Tobacco which forced the Qajarid king, Nasser od-Din Shah, to cancel the monopoly over tobacco production in Iran that he had granted to the British Talbot Company.

96 solar years ago, on this day in 1921 AD, the prominent Russian physicist and nuclear scientist, Andrei Sakharov, was born. He played a major role in the development of hydrogen bomb by the Soviet Union. His article on progress, peaceful co-existence and freedom of thought in the year 1968 angered Soviet officials. He was also an advocate of nuclear disarmament and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. Due to the opposition to the policies of the USSR and role as a civil rights activist, he was exiled to Gorky. His exile ended in 1986 by the then communist party chief, Mikhail Gorbachev, and in the spring of 1989, a year after Gorbachev became president, Sakharov was elected to the new parliament, the All-Union Congress of People's Deputies. He died in December the same year.

35 solar years ago, on this day in 1982 AD, the US imposed economic sanctions on Iran, as part of its futile efforts to ruin the Islamic Republic’s economy, and if possible overthrow the Islamic system of government, following the failure at the warfronts of American stooge Saddam of the repressive Ba’th minority regime of Baghdad. The Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (God bless him), brushed aside the US sanctions and called it a blessing in disguise for Iran to become independent of big powers in various economic and industrial fields.

26 solar years ago, on this day in 1991 AD, former Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a female suicide bomber near Madras. The son of late Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi and maternal grandson of India's first premier, Jawaharlal Nehru, he was a pilot by profession before entering politics, and being propelled to the country's top executive post on the assassination of his mother by Sikh extremists, believed to be backed by the US. Rajiv, who was again the top contender for the prime minister's post, was killed on the eve of the general elections by a Tamil terrorist from Sri Lanka, believed to be backed by the US.

23 solar years ago, on this day in 1994 AD, Zionist commandos infiltrated Lebanon’s eastern mountains and kidnapped Mustafa Dirani, the local Shi’a Muslim leader of the “Believer's Resistance”. In 2000 Dirani sued Israel with charges of torture and immoral acts, Dirani was released in Jan 2004, as part of a complex prisoner exchange between the illegal Zionist entity and Lebanon’s legendry anti-terrorism movement, the Hezbollah.

19 solar years ago, on this day in 1998 AD, General Mohammad Suharto, after ruling Indonesia with an iron fist for 33 years, was forced to resign. He had seized power in a coup staged against the pioneer of Indonesia’s independence and elected president of the country, Ahmed Sukarno. During Suharto’s autocratic rule, political freedoms were intensely restricted, although in the 1980s and 1990s the country made headways in economy. In the wake of grinding economic crisis in East Asia in the year 1997, student unrests were fueled and the economic demands of people turned political, with calls for the dismissal of Suharto. Finally the economic corruption of Suharto and his family brought him down.

15 solar years ago, on this day since 2002, UNESCO has been marking the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. The day provides an opportunity to deepen understanding of the values of cultural diversity and to learn to live together better.

11 solar years ago, on this day in 2006 AD, following a referendum, Montenegro declared its independence from Serbia. From 1499 till the second part of the 19th century, it was part of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, and after World War became part of the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia. Following disintegration of Yugoslavia, and the break out of the Kosovo crisis in late 1990s, Montenegro severed its political and economic ties with Serbia. Finally, in 2003, the two countries agreed to form The Serbia-Montenegro Federation, before going their separate way by holding the referendum of 2006. Montenegro covers an area of almost 14,000 sq km. It is situated in Balkan Peninsula and lies on the coastlines of Adriatic Sea. It shares borders with Serbia, Bosnia, and Albania. Some 30 percent of its citizens are Muslims.

8 solar years ago, on this day in 2009 AD, the Islamic Republic of Iran test-fired a new advanced solid-fuel Sejjil-2 surface-to-surface missile with a range of around 2,000 kilometers, as part of its legitimate efforts to upgrade its defensive capabilities against any would-be aggressors.

7 solar years ago, on this day in 2010 AD, takfiri terrorists backed by Saudi Arabia and the US blew up a car bomb at an open-air market in Khalis, a Shi’a Muslim town northeast of Baghdad, leaving over 30 people martyred.

AS/ME