Today is Saturday; 29th of the Iranian month of Esfand 1394 solar hijri; corresponding to 9th of the Islamic month of Jamadi as-Sani 1437 lunar hijri; and March 19, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1781 solar years ago, on this day in 235 AD, Roman Emperor Alexander Severus, who suffered a series of disastrous defeats in the Levant and Armenia at the hands of the rising power of the Sassanid Dynasty of Iran, was assassinated, along with his mother Julia Mamaea, by legionaries near modern Mainz in Europe.

737 solar years ago, on this day in 1279 AD, a Mongolian victory at the Battle of Yamen ended the Song Dynasty in China, and established the Yuan Dynasty that lasted till 1368. Its greatest ruler was Kublai Khan, a grandson of the fearsome Mongol marauder Chengiz Khan.

610 solar years ago, on this day in 1406 AD, the Muslim historian and historiographer, Abdur-Rahman ibn Mohammad Ibn Khaldun, passed away in Cairo at the age of 74. Born in Tunis into an affluent Spanish Arab family that had settled in North Africa because of Christian onslaughts, he is regarded as one of the forerunners of modern historiography, sociology, and economics. He travelled widely around Egypt, North Africa and Spain, where the Muslim ruler of the emirate of Granada sent him on a mission to the Christian King of Castile, Pedro the Cruel. He returned to Egypt, whose Mamluk sultan sent him to negotiate with the fearsome Turkic conqueror, Amir Timur, during the siege of Damascus. In his autobiography, Ibn Khaldun has mentioned his discussions with Timur, who asked him in detail about North Africa and Spain. Among his many works is a voluminous universal history, but his fame rests on the detailed "Muqaddemah" or Introduction, which is considered a unique work in itself.

500 lunar years ago, on this day in 937 AH, corresponding to 1531 AD, the Ottoman fleet defeated the Portuguese fleet composed of 190 warships and 210 ships carrying 26,000 soldiers in a naval battle near Diu Island, 250 km north of Bombay. Diu Island, which belonged to the Sultan of Gujarat, was liberated from Portuguese occupation and handed over to him by the Ottoman Admiral, Mustafa Bayram. It is worth recalling that because of the Portuguese raids on the western coasts of India, the Sultans of Bijapur and Gujarat had sought cooperation with the Mamluks of Egypt and the Ottomans, resulting in the First Battle of Chaul in 1509 which the Muslims won because of their greater fire power. Thereafter the two sides fought a series of seesaw naval battles for almost the next fifty years, during which both were exhausted, with the Ottomans withdrawing from the Indian Ocean. The “Mirat-e Sikandari”, a Persian history of the Indian Muslim Kingdom of Gujarat details some of these battles. Among the heroes of these battles were Amir Hussain al-Kurdi of Egypt and Malik Ayyaz, a Russian convert to Islam in the service of the Sultan of Gujarat.

367 solar years ago, on this day in 1649 AD, the prominent Hanafi jurist of Syria, Abdul-Ghani al-Nabulsi, was born in Damascus. A prolific writer who wrote several books, he was a member of both the Qaderiyya and Naqshbandi Sufi orders. Once, after visiting the shrine of Prophet Mohammad’s (SAWA) granddaughter, Hazrat Zainab (SA) on the outskirts of Damascus, he expressed doubts on whether this was actually the holy site at which the Heroine of Karbala had been laid to rest. No sooner did he leave the place he fell from his mount and broke his leg. He realized his error and in that very condition of pain he dragged himself towards the blessed tomb in a state of repentance with the following rhymed phrases on his lips:

      “Zainab bint Haider, ma’dan al-‘ilm wa’l-huda,

      ‘Indaha Bab Hitta, fa adkhulu al-baab sujjada.

      “(Zainab the daughter of Haider, the Mine of Knowledge and Guidance,

       Her threshold is Door of Repentance, so enter it [head bowed] in prostration.)”

At that very moment Shaikh Abdul-Ghani Nabulsi felt his broken leg miraculously cured and he stood up relieved of pain as if nothing had happened to him. Among his books is “Shifa as-Sadr fî Fadha'il Laylat-an-Nisf min Sha'ban wa Laylat-al-Qadr” (Curing the heart on the Virtues of the Night of 15th Sha'ban and the Night of Qadr). He passed away at the ripe age of 90 and was buried in Damascus.

277 solar years ago, on this day in 1739 AD, the defeated, captured, and subsequently released Moghal Emperor, Mohammad Shah, entered Delhi, followed the next day by the victor of the Battle of Karnal, Iran’s Nader Shah Afshar. A few days later an insurrection broke out in the city and led to the killing of several Iranian soldiers by miscreants, prompting Nader Shah to order a bloody massacre that was stopped when the sagacious Moghal Vizier, Qamar od-Din Khan Nizam ul-Mulk Asef Jah (founder of the Asef Jahi Dynasty of Haiderabad-Deccan) intervened and urged the Iranian monarch to stop the senseless bloodletting. Nader Shah returned to Iran with considerable booty including the famous Peacock Throne, the Koh-e Noor Diamond and the Tent of Pearls.

139 solar years ago, on this day in 1876 AD, British archaeologist, John Hubert Marshall, who was director general of the Indian Archaeological Survey (1902-31), was born in Chester, England. He began excavations in British India that revealed Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, the two largest cities of the previously unknown Indus Valley Civilization, which he firmly believed was comparable in every way with the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia. His aim was to bring to life Indian culture in the past by uncovering all possible details of her cities, tools, ornaments, laws and customs. In the 1920's, Marshall excavated Taxila, Vaisali, Nalanda, Rajagriha and Sarnath; enacted the Ancient Monuments Act (1904), built up a library, re-organised publications and recruited Indians to high positions in the Survey.

133 solar years ago, on this day in 1883 AD, the English chemist, Norman Haworth, was born. He conducted extensive scientific research about hydrocarbons and succeeded in presentation of a new design for the molecular structure of sugar, which was named after him. He conducted major studies on Vitamin C, whose molecular structure is similar to sugar, and prepared its industrial type, naming it Ascorbic Acid. Due to these studies and discoveries, he won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1937. He passed away in the year 1950.

116 solar years ago, on this day in 1900 AD, the French physicist and chemist, Frederic Joliot, was born in Paris. Following the completion of his academic studies, he worked as the assistant of the physicist and discoverer of radium, Marie Curie. He married to Marie Curie’s daughter Irene, and with the assistance of his wife managed to find out the makeup of the new radioactive materials.

72 solar years ago, on this day in 1944 AD, Palestinian Christian activist, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, who in a revolutionary style execution shot dead US presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy, in Los Angeles, was born in Bayt al-Moqaddas. A staunch opponent of the illegal Zionist entity, he had decided to shoot Kennedy for pledging to send 50 advanced bombers to the illegal entity called Israel, in order to further terrorize and kill Palestinians, on becoming president. Sirhan had moved to the US after a life in refugee camps on usurpation of his homeland by illegal Zionist migrants from Europe. He is serving a life sentence in the US, and his supporters defend his killing of Kennedy as a justified act in support of his occupied homeland.

60 lunar years ago, on this day in 1377 AH, the prominent Islamic scholar, Ayatollah Seyyed Abdul-Hussein Sharaf od-Din Ameli, passed away in Lebanon at the age of 87. He was born of Lebanese parents in the Iraqi holy city of Kazemain. On completion of his studies in holy Najaf he returned to Jabal Amel in Lebanon and in addition to Islamic welfare and academic activities, campaigned against French colonial rule. He was forced to seek refuge in Egypt, where he came into contact with Shaikh Saleem al-Bishri the Dean of Egypt’s famous seat of Islamic learning, al-Azhar (founded by the Fatemid Shi’ite Dynasty in honour of the Prophet’s Infallible Daughter, Hazrat Zahra (SA) – hence “Azhar”). The two had a lively discussion on key issues of faith, especially the prime position in Islam of the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). On the return to Lebanon of Seyyed Sharaf od-Din, the discussion continued in the form of exchange of letters, and in the end Shaikh Bishri admitted the truthfulness of the school of Ahl al-Bayt. The result is the excellent book titled “al-Muraja’at”, which has been translated into major world languages, including English as The Right Path. The Dean of al-Azhar, as a gesture of Islamic solidarity, issued the historic fatwa of endorsing Ja’fari or Shi’ite Fiqh, as one of the five jurisprudential schools of Islam.

29 solar years ago, on this day in 1987 AD, the last member of the generation of modern physics founders, Louis de Broglie, died at the age of 95. He catapulted to fame with presentation of the theory about the particle-wave nature of light. With the presentation of this theory, major accomplishments were made in the science of physics. He managed to win the Nobel Prize for Physics in the year 1929.