Today is Monday; 13th of the Iranian month of Shahrivar 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 13th of the Islamic month of Zil-Hijjah 1438 lunar hijri; and September 4, 2017, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1439 lunar years ago, on this day in the year preceding the hijrah, or the historical migration to Medina of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), the Second Pledge of Aqaba took place, when a group of Muslims from Medina and other places came to Mecca to reaffirm their allegiance to Islam. This was follow up to the First Pledge of Aqaba that had ended the long feud between the Ows and Khazraj tribes, through the mediation of the Prophet, thus winning fresh adherents to Islam. After the Second Pledge of Aqaba, the people of Medina invited the Prophet to come to their city. The Prophet's migration, on divine command, a year later, was a turning point in human history and opened a new chapter in the spread of Islam.

1218 solar years ago, on this day in 799 AD (according to the solar Gregorian calendar), Imam Musa al-Kazem (AS), the 7th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) was martyred through food poisoning in Baghdad in the prison of the Abbasid tyrant, Haroun Rasheed, at the age of 55. The Islamic date of his martyrdom is 25th Rajab, 183 AH. Imam Kazem (AS), as the son and successor of Imam Ja'far Sadeq (AS) and the father of Imam Reza (AS), needs no introduction. He held aloft the torch of the true teachings of his ancestor, the Prophet, in those days of Abbasid tyranny for 35 long years, suffering several rounds of imprisonment but nonetheless grooming a large number of disciples in the genuine principles of Islam. His sprawling golden-domed mausoleum today majestically stands out as the largest shrine in the Iraqi capital, as he continues to rule over the hearts of not just the people of Baghdad but of the faithful throughout the world, while there is no trace of the grave holding the rotten bones of Haroun, the hero of Arabian Nights revelries.

1062 lunar years ago, on this day in 376 AH, the Muslim mathematician Ali ibn Ahmad Antaki, passed away. He was born in the Syrian city of Antakya (formerly Antioch and under Turkey’s occupation since 1937), and later took up residence in Baghdad to learn sciences. Among the books written by him is "al-Mawazin al-Aadadiyah".

1044 solar years ago, on this day in 973 AD, the prominent Iranian Islamic scientist, Abu Rayhan Mohammad Ibn Ahmad al-Berouni, was born in Kath in the Iranian land of Khwarezm, a region adjoining the Aral Sea and presently in the central Asian republic of Uzbekistan. He was a multisided genius and wrote prolifically on history, geography, astronomy, mathematics, mineralogy, and various other topics. He authored over 180 books. His work on geometry, arithmetic, trigonometry, and algebra, is titled "at-Tafhim" in which he has calculated the weight of objects. Berouni, who was a follower of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt, has written about the spherical shape of the Earth and its revolving on its axis as it orbits round the Sun, several centuries before the Europeans were to discover these facts. He was conversant in Arabic, Persian, Greek and Sanskrit, and after visiting India and spending several months in the company of its sages, he wrote the valuable book, “Tahqiq ma lil-Hind”. Among his valuable compilations, mention could be made of “Kitab at-Tafhim li-Awa’il Sina‘at at-Tanjim” (The Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astronomy), and “Asaar al-Baqiyah an-il-Qoroun al-Khaliya” (The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries), which is a comparative study of calendars of different cultures and civilizations, interlaced with mathematical, astronomical, and historical information. He also wrote the “Qanoun al-Mas'oudi”, an extensive encyclopedia on astronomy, geography, and engineering. He passed away at the age of 77 in Ghazni (present day Afghanistan), where he was affiliated to the court of the Turkic conqueror, Sultan Mahmoud and his son, Sultan Mas’oud.

954 solar years ago, on this day in 1063 AD, Toghril Beg, the Turkic warlord who rose to power in Central Asia, Iran, Iraq, Anatolia, and parts of Syria, died at the age of 73 in Rayy, now a suburb of modern Tehran, where his tower-shaped tomb still stands. He, along with his elder brother, Chaghri Beg, rose to prominence in the service of the Khaqan of the Qara-Khanid Dynasty of Bukhara that had replaced the Iranian Samanid Dynasty in Central Asia. He then united the Turkoman warriors of the Eurasian Steppes into a confederacy of tribes that traced ancestry to an ancestor, named Seljuq, and after defeating the Qara-Khanids, vanquished the Ghaznavids of Khorasan and Afghanistan, before conquering eastern Iran. He established the Seljuq Sultanate after conquering the Iranian Plateau and Anatolia (modern eastern Turkey). The Abbasid caliph of Baghdad secretly invited him to Iraq to replace the Iranian Buwaihid Shi’ite Dynasty. Tughril marched upon Baghdad in 1055, and to the chagrin of the caliph, relegated the Abbasids to figureheads by taking command of the caliphate's armies in military offensives against the Byzantine Empire and the Syrian territories of the Fatemid Ismaili Shi’a dynasty of Egypt and North Africa. In 1058, he lost Baghdad to the Fatemids but recaptured it two years later. On his death the childless Toghril, who had forcibly married the Abbasid caliph’s daughter, was succeeded after a brief struggle between the two sons of his deceased brother, Chaghri, by his surviving nephew Alp Arsalan, perhaps the greatest ruler of the Seljuq Dynasty.

271 solar years ago, on this day in 1746 AD, The Treaty of Kerden was signed between the Ottoman Empire and Nader Shah Afshar of Iran, reaffirming the border drawn in the Treaty of Zuhab and allowing Iranian pilgrims to visit the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in the Hijaz, which was under Turkish occupation.

236 solar years ago, on this day in 1781 AD, Los Angeles, today the 2nd largest US city, was founded as “El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora La Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula” (The Village of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of Porziuncola River). It was set up near an Amerindian Chumash village in the California region of what was then called New Spain – comprising of Mexico, southern states of the US, Florida and all Spanish-speaking countries till Panama – by a group of forty-four settlers, of whom 26 were of African ancestry and the rest Europeans, Mestizo and Mulatto. In 1821 Mexico seceded from New Spain and was almost attacked by an expansionist US, which by 1847 occupied large territories including Alta or Upper California, which was home to 300,000 Amerindians, or one-third of all indigenous people throughout North and South America. The Europeans began to decimate the native population, while the non-native population of California was not more than 8,000. The US, as part of its hegemonic and genocidal policies has obliterated almost all native Amerindians, who today account for a mere 1.7 percent of the 38 million population of California.

192 solar years ago, on this day in 1825 AD, Zoroastrian intellectual, Dadabhai Naorozji, known as the Grand Old Man of India, was born in Bombay (Mumbai). Of Iranian origin, he was an educator, a cotton trader, and a political and social leader, who was the first Asian to become a British MP, and was a founding father of the Indian National Congress. An ordained priest, in 1851, he founded in India an organisation to restore the Zoroastrian religion to what he considered its original purity and simplicity. In 1854, he launched a fortnightly publication “Rast Goftar” (Truth Teller), to clarify Zoroastrian concepts. In 1855, he was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at the Elphinstone College in Bombay. He travelled to London, established the cotton trading Dadabhai Naorozji & Co in 1859 and later became professor of Gujarati at University College, London. He was elected to the House of Commons as a Liberal Party member between 1892 and 1895. He refused to take the oath on the Bible as he was not a Christian, but was allowed to take the oath of office in the Name of God on his copy of “Khordeh Avesta”. In his political campaign and duties as an MP, he was assisted by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the future Muslim nationalist and founder of Pakistan, who was then a student in London. Naorozji set up the association to counter the theory that Europeans were intellectually superior to Asians, and his book “Poverty and Un-British Rule in India” brought attention to the draining of India's wealth into Britain. He estimated a 200–300 million pounds loss of revenue to Britain that is not returned. He described this as “vampirism”, with money being a metaphor for blood, which humanised India, and he called Britain's actions as “monstrous”. Naorozji returned to India, and was re-elected president of the Indian National Congress in 1906. He died in Bombay on 30 June 1917, at the age of 91. Books written by him include: “The Manners and Customs of the Parsees (Zoroastrians)” and “The European and Asiatic races”.

135 solar years ago, on this day in 1882 AD, Thomas Edison flipped the switch to the first commercial electrical power plant in history, lighting one square mile of lower Manhattan. This is considered as the day that began the electrical age.

109 solar years ago, on this day in 1908 AD, Afro-American novelist and poet, Richard Wright, was born near Natchez in Missouri. He wrote about the abuses of blacks in white-dominated American society, and how brutally the US treats people of African origin, whose ancestors were kidnapped from Africa and forced into slavery in the New World. His best known work is “Native Son” (1940). His other works include: “Uncle Tom's Children” (1938), “12 Million Black Voices: A Folk History of the Negro in the United States” (1941), “Black Boy” (1945), and “White Man Listen”. Wright died in self-exile in France in 1960.

102 lunar years ago, on this day in 1356 AH, the Islamic scholar and revolutionary, Ayatollah Mirza Mohammad Taqi Golshan Ha’eri Shirazi, passed away in the holy city of Karbala in Iraq at the age of 80 during the height of the struggle against British domination of the country, and is believed to have been martyred through poisoning by colonialist agents. Born in Shiraz, he migrated to Iraq as a 12-year old, with his father and after studies at the Najaf seminary reached the status of Ijtihad. He was one of the best students of Ayatollah Mirza Mohammad Hassan Shirazi, who issued the famous fatwa against tobacco consumption in order to save Iranian economy against exploitation by the British colonialists. Mirza Mohammad Taqi Shirazi opposed British meddling in the affairs of Iraq and mobilized the Iraqi people in the southern parts of the country to inflict a military defeat on the British occupation army. He authored several books.

49 lunar years ago, on this day in 1389 AH Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Mohammad Mohsin, popular as Aqa Bozorg Tehrani, passed away in the holy city of Najaf, Iraq, at the age of 96. His father Haji Ali was active in the tobacco boycott campaign of 1891 and later wrote a book on the history of the movement to thwart British exploitation of Iran’s economy, thanks to the historic fatwa of Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi. After preliminary education in his hometown Tehran, at the age of 26 Mohammad Mohsin migrated for higher studies to Najaf, and spent the rest of his life in Iraq, with the exception of four brief return visits to Iran and two short journeys to Syria, Egypt, and the Hejaz – for the Hajj pilgrimage. Among his teachers were Akhund Mullah Mohammad Kazem Ḵhorasani, Seyyed Mohammad Kazem Yazdi, Sheikh ash-Shari’a Isfahani and Mohaddith Mirza Hussain Noori. In turn he groomed several outstanding ulema including Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hussaini Sistani – the current marja’ in Najaf. At the age of 40, he went to Samarra to join the circle of the revolutionary scholar Mirza Mohammad-Taqi Golshan Shirazi. During his 24-year stay in this city, before returning to Najaf, he conceived, and began to execute, the plan of a comprehensive bibliographical survey of all classes of literature produced by Shi’a Muslim authors. His original intention was to refute a statement by the Christian Arab litterateur, Jorji Zaydan, belittling the Shi’a contribution to Arabic literature. However, the masterpiece that Aqa Bozorg produced in almost 30 volumes, titled “az-Zari’a ila Tasaneef ash-Shi’a”, became a major contribution to Islamic scholarship. In this encyclopedic work, the titles of all books written by Shi’a authors are listed alphabetically, together with a brief indication of authorship and content, as well as place and date of publication in the case of printed works, and location in the case of manuscripts. He also compiled a biographical encyclopedia of Shi’a Muslim scholars as a companion to “az-Zari’a”, titled “Tabaqaat A’laam ash-Shi’a”, but each section, pertaining to the scholars of a given century, also has a separate title. Aqa Bozorg Tehrani’s influence was not limited to the admiration elicited by his decades of industrious scholarship. He exchanged numerous “ijaazaat” (licenses of transmission) with the scholars of Hadith, both Shi’a and Sunni, whom he met in the course of his travels – a practice he consciously sought to revive as vital to the cultivation of Islamic scholarship. He was also widely regarded for his piety and asceticism: He regularly led congregational prayer at several mosques in Najaf, and on Tuesday afternoons, used to walk from Najaf to Kufa to pray at Masjid Sahla which was the house of Prophet Idris (Enoch) and will be headquarters of the Prophet’s 12^th and Last Infallible Heir, Imam Mahdi (AS) during his global government of peace, prosperity and justice.

39 solar years ago, on this day in 1978 AD, the first million-strong demonstration of the Iranian people against the Pahlavi Shah's despotic regime started. These rallies started from four districts of the capital Tehran on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr and after performing of the Special Eid Prayer. The demonstrators, who were holding pictures of the Father of Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA) called for independence and freedom and establishment of the Islamic Republic.

39 solar years ago, on this day in 1978 AD, 40-year old Hojjat al-Islam Ali Awsati, a leading activist against the despotism of the British-installed and US-backed Pahlavi Shah, was martyred by the regime’s forces while returning from the Eid al-Fitr Prayer. A staunch follower of the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA), his funeral was attended by a huge rally that vented its anger against the regime.

19 solar years ago, on this day in 1998 AD, American students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Stanford University, founded “Google” as a multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products that include online advertising technologies, search, cloud computing, and software. Since then Google has moved increasingly into the communications field. As a social networking service (Google+), it provides email (Gmail) and each day processes over one billion search requests and about 24 petabytes of user-generated data. “Google.com” is listed as the most visited website in the world, and runs several other Google-owned sites such as YouTube and Blogger. Critics claim that like other social networking systems, Google is a tool of the US government for espionage and data-collecting activities around the world.

6 solar years ago, on this day in 2011 AD, Iran’s first nuclear power plant was connected to the national power grid for a test run. The power plant in the southern port of Bushehr, with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts, was built with Russian help, after the German and French companies breached their contracts under US pressure on the victory of the Islamic Revolution, leaving work half-finished.

Shahrivar 13: is commemorated every year in honour of the great Iranian Islamic scientist, Abu Rayhan Berouni, who flourished a millennium ago, and authored books on a wide variety of topics. As a follower of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt, he determined the shape of the earth as spherical and revolving around the sun – preceding European scholars by almost half-a-millennium.

AS/MG