Today is Friday; 21st of the Iranian month of Mehr 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 22nd of the Islamic month of Muharram 1439 lunar hijri; and October 13, 2017, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1085 lunar years ago, on this day in 354 AH, the prominent Muslim scientist and polymath, Abu Ali Hassan Ibn al-Haytham, Latinized by medieval Europe to Alhazen, was born in Basra in the Iraqi province of the Persian Buwayhid Empire. He made vital contributions to the principles of optics, as well as to medicine, physics, astronomy, mathematics, visual perception, ophthalmology, philosophy, and various other sciences, and is the inventor of the telescope. He wrote insightful commentaries on the works of Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Euclid. Ibn al-Haytham was active in both Basra and Baghdad and after visiting Islamic Spain he settled in Fatemid Egypt where he died at the age of 77 in Cairo. He was a follower of the school of the Ahl al-Bayt, and was associated with the famous academy of al-Azhar, which derives its name from the “az-Zahra” (The Radiant), the epithet of Hazrat Fatema (SA), the noble daughter of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). In Egypt he took up the project of controlling the floods of the Nile. He is said to have written over 200 books and treatises, the most famous of which is “Kitab al-Manazer” on Optics that was extensively used by later European scholars such as Roger Bacon and Johannes Keppler. Among his works, mention could be made of the Configuration of the World, On the Form of Eclipse, On the Milky Way, The Model of the Motions of Each of the Seven Planets, and Treatise on the Influence of Melodies on the Souls of Animals. Among his students were Sorkhab, an Iranian scientist from Semnan and Mubashir Ibn Fatek, an Egyptian.

979 lunar years ago, on this day in 460 AH, the famous scholar and Founder of the Islamic Seminary of holy Najaf, Abu Ja'far Mohammad Ibn Hassan Tousi, popular as Shaikh at-Taifa, passed away at the age of 75 and was laid to rest near the shrine of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS), in his home which is now a mosque known as Jame' at-Tusi. Born in 385 AH in Tous in Khorasan, northeastern Iran, after completing studies in his homeland, he left for Baghdad for higher studies at the age of 23 to study under the celebrated scholar Shaikh Mufid, who died five years later in 413 AH. Leadership of Shi'a Muslim scholars then fell to the renowned Sharif Murtaza, who remained in this position for 23 years until his death in 436 AH. During this time Shaikh Tousi was closely associated with Sharif Murtaza, and subsequently succeeded him as head of the community. So impressive was his knowledge that the Abbasid caliph, al-Qader used to attend his lectures. Eleven years later in 447 AH, when the Iranian Buwayhid dynasty was in a state of decline, sectarian riots erupted and his house in the Karkh locality, along with his library that contained some 90,000 books, was burnt down. Since remaining in Baghdad was risky, he moved to holy Najaf and transformed it into the leading centre of Islamic scholarship. He passed away 13 years later and was succeeded by his son Shaikh Hassan Tousi, known as “Mufid-e Thani” (Second Mufid). He authored over 50 books on various topics such as jurisprudence, exegesis of the holy Qur’an, hadith, theology, history and biography of narrators. Of the four authoritative resources of hadith, two were compiled by Shaikh at-Taifah Tusi. These two basic reference books are: “Tahzeeb al-Ahkaam” and “al-Istibsaar”. His exegesis on the holy Qur'an is titled “at-Tibyaan”. On the Lord of the Age, Imam Mahdi (God hasten his reappearance) he wrote the book “al-Ghayba” (Occultation). His another work is “Mukhtasar Akhbar al-Mukhtar” which is concise history of the uprising of Mukhtar ibn Abu Obaydah Thaqafi to avenge the martyrdom of Imam Husain (AS).

787 solar years ago, on this day in 1240 AD, Raziyya Sultana, the only Muslim lady to sit on the throne of Delhi, was captured near Kaithal in Punjab by the local Jats and killed, along with her husband, Altuniya the Turk, after being defeated in battle near Delhi by the forces of her usurper brother, Muiz od-Din Bahram Shah. As the daughter and heir apparent of the third ruler of the Mamluk (slave) Dynasty of northern India, Shams od-Din Iltutmish, she ruled for four years, after being bypassed for six months by the Turkic nobility in favour of her brother, Rukn od-Din Feroz. Even before she became ruler, she was preoccupied with the affairs of state during her father's reign. A shrewd politician, she managed to keep the nobles in check, while enlisting the support of the army and the populace. Her greatest accomplishment on the political front was to manipulate rebel factions into opposing each other. At that point, Raziyya seemed destined to become one of the most powerful rulers of the Delhi Sultanate, but the turbulent Turkic nobles plotted and revolted against her, resulting in her downfall.

647 lunar years ago, on this day in 792 AH, the prominent Iranian Hanafi scholar, Sa'd od-Din Mas'oud ibn Omar Taftazani, passed away in Samarqand at the age of 70 years and was buried in Sarakhs. He was born in the northeastern Iranian town of Taftazaan in Khorasan, in what was then the Sarbederaan Shi’a Muslim state. He traveled to Herat, Khwarezm, Samarqand and Sarakhs to acquire sciences from prominent scholars, and mainly resided in Sarakhs, which presently straddles the Iran-Turkmenistan border. He was active during the reign of fearsome Turkic conqueror, Amir Timur (Tamerlane), who was his patron. Taftazaani was a prolific writer and has left behind a large number of books, mostly in Arabic, on various sciences, such as logic, theology, rhetoric, law, linguistics, etc. He completed “Sharh-e Zanjani” which was his first and one of his most famous works at the age of 16. He also wrote a commentary on the holy Qur'an in Persian and translated into Turkish the poems of the famous Iranian poet, Sa'di Shirazi. His books were taught for centuries in the seminaries of the Ottoman Empire.

299 lunar years ago, on this day in 1140 AH, Shah Sultan Hussain, the 9th and virtually the last powerful ruler of the Safavid Empire, was brutally martyred in detention in Isfahan by the Afghan rebel, Ashraf, a year after he usurped power by killing his cousin Mahmoud Hotaki, who four years earlier had dethroned and imprisoned the Iranian monarch. Nader Qoli Afshar – who would later seize power from Shah Tahmasp II and declare himself Nader Shah – ended Ashraf’s 4-year reign of terror by defeating him and driving him out of Iran. Shah Sultan Hussain (the son and successor of Shah Sulayman Safavi), ruled Iran, the Caucasus and western Afghanistan for 29 years. Groomed by the famous Islamic scholar, Allamah Mohammad Baqer Majlisi, he was a peace-loving monarch of scholarly pursuits, who misread the dangers of the Afghan rebellion and failed to decisively crush it when he had adequate power. As a result he lost his throne and his life, thereby bringing the curtain down on two-and-a-quarter centuries of glorious rule by the Safavids to whom Iran is indebted to this day for its religious identity, national unity, and cultural affinity, although the weak dynasties that followed lost almost half of Iranian territories to the Russians, to the Turks and to the Afghans.

134 solar years ago, on this day in 1882 AD, French author and philosopher, Joseph Arthur Gobineau, died at the age of 66. Born in Paris, he took to writing and journalism following completion of his studies. He served as the French ambassador to Iran and during this period, he learned Persian and Arabic languages as well as the ancient cuneiform scripts. He was unfortunately a racist or more properly a white supremacist, and wrote the highly flawed book: "An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races". The theory of supremacy of the so-called Aryan race was one of the pretexts of the German Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, for waging World War II, and massacring millions of Europeans. Among his other works, mention can be made of "Three Years in Asia", and "A History of Iran".

133 solar years ago, on this day in 1884 AD, Greenwich near London in Britain was adopted as the universal meridian at the International Meridian Conference in Washington, attended by 41 delegates from 25 countries. The resolution fixing the Meridian at Greenwich was passed 22-1 –San Domingo voted against, while France and Brazil abstained. Greenwich lies on the River Thames, is thus the site of an imaginary line indicating 0° longitude that terminates at the North and South poles – 180 degrees on each side. Every place on Earth is measured in terms of its distance east or west from this line – just as the Equator divides the northern and southern hemispheres. The mean solar time at Greenwich is now called Universal Time and was formerly called Greenwich Mean Time. Theoretically, standard time becomes successively one hour earlier at each 15° longitude west of the Greenwich meridian and one hour later at each 15° longitude east.

94 solar years ago, on this day in 1923 AD, Ankara in central Anatolia, replaced Istanbul as the capital of Turkey. Istanbul served as capital of the Ottoman Empire for 470 years, since its capture by Sultan Mohammad Fateh in 1453.

91 solar years ago, on this day in 1926 AD, Iranian poet and literary figure, Mohammad Taqi Shourideh Shirazi passed away at the age of 69 in Shiraz and was laid to rest in the mausoleum of the famous Persian poet, Shaikh Mosleh od-Din Sa’di. At the age of 7 he lost his sight as the result of blister. After his father's death, he was brought up by his maternal uncle and due to his high intelligence, in a short time he established himself as a great poet. In Tehran, the Qajarid ruler, Nasser od-Din greatly admired him and gave him the title “Fasih ol-Molk”. Shourideh returned to Shiraz and stayed there up to the end of his life.

73 solar years ago, on this day in 1944 AD, during World War II, the capital of former Yugoslavia, Belgrade, was liberated from the yoke of Nazi German troops by the Yugoslav patriots, led by Marshal Josef Tito, and with the assistance of Soviet Union's Red Army. This city was occupied by the Germans in 1941.

53 solar years ago, on this day in 1964 AD, the Capitulation Bill was approved by the parliament of the Pahlavi regime, granting US military personnel immunity from trial in Iran's courts on committing any crime. This was an infringement of Iran's national sovereignty and an insult to the Iranian nation. Hence, the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA), rejected it outright and later in a historical speech revealed the sinister dimensions of aspects of this humiliating bill for the Iranian people, while castigating the British-installed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi for his oppression of the people and subservience to the US. This keynote speech led to the detention and exile of the Imam on November 4, 1964.

49 solar years ago, on this day in 1968 AD, contemporary Iranian painter, Hussein Behzad, passed away. He was known as the most important miniaturist painter of contemporary Iran, and should not be confused with Kamal od-Din Behzad the Master-Painter of the Safavid Era. He was an innovative miniaturist painter and revived in modern times this aesthetic Iranian-Islamic art. He adopted new methods in application of colors to depict joy, sorrow and other emotions. Among the valuable works of art which he has left behind, mention can be made of "Eivan-e Mada'en" or the Portal of Anushirvan's Palace in Ctesiphon, near Baghdad, and "Fath-e Babel" or The Conquest of Babylon by Cyrus the Great.

38 solar years ago, on this day in 1979 AD, prominent Iranian mathematician, logician and literary figure, Dr. Gholam-Hussain Mosaheb, passed away at the age of 69. Born in Tehran to physician Mohammad Ali, his grandfather was the famous calligrapher, Mirza Ali Khoshnevis, who composed the thousand-couplet poem, entitled “Alfiyah”, describing the didactic rules of Arabic grammar, rendering these easy to memorize by Arabic students. Mosaheb who studied in Iran, France and England; and received his Ph.d from Cambridge University, was fluent in Persian, Arabic, French and English. He founded the Institute of Mathematics, Teacher Training University and was director of the Institute of Mathematics of Khwarazmi University from 1972-1974.  Earlier in 1938 Mosaheb had edited Omar Khayyam’s famous Algebraic work “al-Jabr wa’l-Moqabela Risala fi’l-Barahin ala Masa’el al-Jabr wa’l-Moqabela” and published it as “Jabr o Moqabela-ye Khayyam” with a brief Persian translation and extensive footnotes and elaborate appendixes and addenda. During the 1950s, when Persian scientific typography was flourishing, Mosaheb invented a left slanted right-to-left font style that he named the Iranic font. This term is still commonly used by typographers in Iran, often as a general term for any left slanted font. In 1955, his “Madkhal-e Manteq-e Soorat” (Introduction to Formal Logic) was the first scholarly writing in mathematical logic to be published in Iran. Mosaheb's most famous work in non-mathematical society is as the author of the 3-volume “Daerat al-Ma’aref-e Farsi” (“Persian Encyclopedia”), written in the Persian language. His methods of organizing and categorizing are still in use. On June 28, 2009 it was announced that the 100th book released by the Society for the Appreciation of Cultural works and Dignitaries had been allocated to the life, scientific and cultural works of Gholam Hussain Mosaheb, which contain many of his published works including an article entitled “The First Trigonometry Book”.

19 solar years ago, on this day in 1998 AD, Iranian researcher, Rajab-Ali Mazloumi, passed away at the age of 71. Born in Naishapur in Khorasan, he studied in holy Mashhad and was an expert in Qur’anic sciences, hadith, history, philosophy, gnosis, Islamic arts, and education. He wrote 90 books and 500 articles on various topics. His books are: “Youth and Religion”, “Ali (AS) the Criterion of Perfection”, “Understanding the Qur’an” and “Meritorious Ladies”.

16 solar years ago, on this day in 2001 AD, Arak Friday Prayer Leader, Ayatollah Shaikh Abu’l-Fazl Khwansari Najafi, passed away at the age of 85. Born in Isfahan, at the age of 20 he left for holy Najaf in Iraq. Because of ill-health he returned to Iran and in holy Qom continued his studies and obtained Ijtehad. He was a firm supporter of the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini.

11 solar years ago, on this day in 2006 AD, Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded won the Nobel Peace Prize for their pioneering use of tiny, seemingly insignificant loans, microcredit, to lift millions out of poverty.  Born in 1940, the controversial Yunus was rated in 2008 in the list of the 'Top 100 Global Thinkers'. He is a member of the advisory board at Shah Jalal University of Science and Technology. In March 2011, the Bangladesh government fired Yunus from his position at Grameen Bank, which is connected with the US, citing legal violations and an age limit on his position. In 2012, he became Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland.

One solar year ago, on this day in 2016 AD, Mohammad Taqi Morovvat, who initiated a new style of recitation of the holy Qur’an, passed away in Tehran at the age of 72. A student of the master reciter, Mullah Mohammad Baqer Fani, he groomed several students in the correct recitation of the heavenly scripture. He visited Egypt to seek the company of the master-reciters of the holy Qur’an.

AS/MG