Today is Wednesday; 3rd of the Iranian month of Aban 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 5th of the Islamic month of Safar 1439 lunar hijri; and October 25, 2017, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1378 lunar years ago, on this day in 61 AH, Hazrat Ruqayya (SA), the 4-year old daughter of the Martyr of Karbala, Imam Husain (AS), succumbed to her torture and sufferings and attained martyrdom in Damascus. The youngest child of the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), she was very much attached to her father, whose heartrending martyrdom and the mounting of his severed head on a lance, the thirsty little girl watched with horror. Her wailing knew no bounds and the orphan, despite her tender age, was bound by the Omayyad hordes with rope along with her elder sisters, Hazrat Fatema and Hazrat Sakina, as well as her aunts, Hazrat Zainab and Hazrat Omm Kulthum (peace upon them), and dragged to the court of the tyrannical governor of Kufa, Obaidollah ibn Ziyad, who taunted the noble captives and poured salt on their wounds by playing with the severed head of the Imam. On the way to the Syrian capital, Ruqayyah (SA) suffered the pains of the arduous journey on foot, often through hot desert terrain, during which she was subjected to scolding and whipping by the Omayyad ruffians. In Damascus, she was mocked in front of the whole court by the Godless Yazid as he blasphemously hit with his cane the head of her father that was placed in a tray. The Prophet’s family was confined to the ruins of a dilapidated edifice, where her wailing in the night disturbed the tyrant’s sleep and forced him to send the head of Imam Husain (AS) in a bid to calm her down. At the sight of her father’s head, little Ruqayya (SA) rushed and took it in her lap, and placing her own head upon it, recounted the pains, sufferings, and tortures she had endured for the past 25 days since the fateful day of Ashura (Moharram 10). She became motionless as her soul flew to the heavens. Her brother, Imam Zain al-Abedin (AS) laid her to rest in the ruins, which today is a magnificent mausoleum visited by pilgrims from all over the world.

1177 solar years ago, on this day in 840 AD, the Iranian adventurer, Ya’qoub Ibn Layth Saffar, founder of the short-lived Saffarid Dynasty, was born in Sistan in the small town of Karnin (Qarnin), located east of Zaranj and west of Bast, in what is now Afghanistan. A coppersmith by profession, he led an ascetic life and gradually started gathering fighting men around him in Sistan in the town of Zaranj, which is currently in Afghanistan, to annihilate the “khwarej” (renegades) in the region. This earned him fame, and he soon brought the whole of Sistan under his control. He turned to the east and after taking Bast, captured Kabul, before turning west to seize Herat from the fellow Iranian dynasty of Tahirids, who ruled Khorasan. In 868 he set out for Kerman, and wrested Shiraz from the control of the Abbasids, but continued to call himself a vassal of the caliph. In 869, he returned to Zaranj, his capital, and in 871, during the caliphate of Mo’tamid, he again descended on Shiraz and advanced towards Khuzestan. The caliph was able to prevent him from invading Iraq by appointing him the Abbasid governor of Balkh, Fars, Kerman, Sistan and Sind. In 873, Yaqoub bin Layth brought all of Khorasan under his control by seizing its capital, Neishabour, from where he marched to Gorgan and Tabarestan (present-day Mazandaran) and then as far as Chalous, before withdrawing to Rayy after collecting taxes of the Caspian region. This brought him offers from Caliph Mo’tamid of the governorship of Khorasan, Tabaristan, Gorgan, Rayy, and also the position of security-chief in Baghdad. Proud of his victories, Yaqoub bin Layth rejected the offer and invaded Khuzestan, but at Dayr al-Aqoul, some seventy km from Baghdad, he was defeated by the Abbasid forces and returned to Khuzestan, to prepare for another attack, when he died. There are conflicting reports about Yaqoub’s religious beliefs, with claims that he had Ismaili Shi’ite tendencies. He died in Jondi Shapour in Khuzestan at the age of 39, due to severe stomachache, and was succeeded by his brother Amr.

888 lunar years ago, on this day in 551 AH, the theologian, physician, astronomer, and mathematician, Kamal od-Din Ibn Yunus, was born in Mosul, in Iraq. A prominent scientist of his era, in addition to Islamic knowledge, he was an expert on other religions, to the extent that Jews and Christians referred to him for explanation of passages of the Torah and the Evangel. He was also well versed in literature and was a poet. He was a student of the Iranian astronomer, Sharaf od-Din Muzaffar ibn Mohammad Tusi, and in turn taught mathematics and astronomy to the celebrated Iranian Islamic genius, Khwajah Naseer od-Din Tusi. Ibn Yunus died at the age of 88.  He authored several books including "Asraar as-Sultaniyyah" on astronomy.

870 solar years ago, on this day in 1147 AD, Seljuq Turks led by Masoud I completely annihilated a 200,000-strong invading force of German crusaders led by Conrad III at the Battle of Dorylaeum in what is now southwestern Turkey. The crusade miserably failed and Conrad fled to the army led by Louis VII of France.

870 solar years ago, on this day in 1147 AD, after a siege of four months, crusader hordes led by Afonso Henriques occupied the Muslim city of Lisbon, which is now the capital of Portugal. The occupiers forcibly converted several Muslims to Christianity, while the majority who refused to be converted fled to other parts of the Islamic world, primarily Muslim Spain and North Africa. All mosques were either destroyed or converted into churches. As a result of the end of over four centuries of Muslim rule, spoken Arabic gradually lost its place in the everyday life of the city and disappeared altogether. Lisbon was liberated on 6 August 711 by Muslims from the occupation of Vandals. The Muslims built many mosques and houses, rebuilt the city wall and established administrative control, while permitting the diverse population (Muladi, Mozarabs, Berbers, Arabs, Jews, Zanj and Saqaliba) to maintain their socio-cultural lifestyles. Mozarabic was the native language spoken by most of the Christian population although Arabic was widely known as spoken by all religious communities. The Muslim influence is still visible present in the Alfama district, an old quarter of Lisbon that survived the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. Many place-names are derived from Arabic words and the Alfama (oldest existing district of Lisbon) was derived from the Arabic "al-hamma".

617 solar years ago, on this day in 1400 AD, English poet, Geoffrey Chaucer, died at the age of 57. He composed his magnum opus “The Canterbury Tales” in the colloquial language of the ordinary English masses, rather than the church language Latin or the court language French, thus paving the way for emergence of English as the official language of the people of England.

602 solar years ago, on this day in 1415 AD, during the Hundred Years' War, Henry V of England and his lightly-armoured infantry and archers defeated the heavily-armoured French cavalry in the Battle of Agincourt. The French had outnumbered Henry’s troops, but Welsh longbows turned the tide of the battle.

553 lunar years ago, on this day in 886 AH, Mahmoud Gawan, the able Grand Vizier of the Bahmani kingdom of Iranian origin of the Deccan in south India, was unjustly executed at the age of 73 by Mohammad Shah II, after being falsely accused of treason by his rivals at the court. Born in the Caspian Sea Province of Gilan in northern Iran, Mahmoud Gawan was a man of letters and a successful merchant plying the lucrative route from the Persian Gulf port of Gombroun (presently Bandar Abbas) to the Konkan coast of India with cargos of silken fabrics, pearls, Arabian horses, etc, for the Bahmani capital of Bidar – where Persian culture was prevalent and where earlier the elders of the Ne’matollahi Sufi order of Kerman (adhering to the path of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt) were settled. On one such visit at the age of 42, he was given the title of “Malik-ut-Tujjar” (Chief of Traders) by Feroze Shah and offered a post. He stayed in India, and in the reigns of the subsequent kings, he steadily rose in the administrative hierarchy because of his efficient management, earning the titles “Wakeel os-Saltanah” and “Khwaja-e Jahan” or Prime Minister – a post that he held for almost two decades, during which he carried out many reforms, strengthened the military, increased the revenues through proper utilization of the agricultural lands, and eradicated corruption. As a patron of arts and literature, he was in correspondence with the political elite and literati of the other parts of the Persianate World, ranging from Central Asia to the Ottoman Sultanate and the Subcontinent. He authored several books such as “Riyaz al-Insha” and built a magnificent college in Bidar, where scholars from Iran, Iraq, and Arabia used to teach. This aroused the jealousy of his rivals, who by bribing his servants obtained Gawan's seal, affixed it on a blank paper and forged a letter inviting the Rajah of Orissa to attack the Bahmani Kingdom. The letter was shown to the king in a drunken state and he promptly summoned Gawan and executed him. The end of this scholar statesman brought about the decline of the kingdom, which in the next two decades splintered into five independent sultanates.

306 solar years ago, on this day in 1711 AD, the first traces of ruins of the two Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, in Italy, were accidentally discovered by a farmer. Pompeii was built in the early years of 6th century BC, and was a burgeoning port until the 1st century AD. It was notorious for its promiscuous and lewd way of life, and its destruction is viewed as a divine wrath. These two cities were buried under the lava and ashes of the volcano, Mount Vesuvius, in 79 AD. Following the discovery of these cities, archeologists launched wide-scale explorations and have managed to dig out a large number of monuments.

217 solar years ago, on this day in 1800 AD, British historian and politician, Thomas Babington Macaulay, was born in Leicestershire in a Scottish highlander family. He studied laws, worked as an attorney, before turning to politics. He became a member of parliament, and after resigning was sent to India as Secretary to the Board of Control. An expert of the English language, during his 4-year tenure in British-ruled India from 1834 to 1838, he made English compulsory and discouraged the use of Persian which for centuries had been the court and official language of the Subcontinent, besides being the strategic cultural and religious link of the Muslims of South Asia with Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia. He was scornful of the wisdom of the east, including the rich Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit heritage of India. He made English the medium of education in order to create Anglicised Indians, detached from their native culture and serving the interests of their colonial masters. Till this day in Indian culture, the term “Macaulay's Children” is used to refer to people born of Indian ancestry who adopt western culture as a lifestyle, or display attitudes influenced by the colonisers. On his return to Britain, Macaulay was elected to the parliament and later appointed war minister. He died at the age of 59.

184 solar years ago, on this day in 1833 AD, the brave Iranian crown prince, Abbas Mirza, died at the age of 44 in holy Mashhad, while restoring order in Khorasan Province. Son of Fath-Ali Shah, the second king of the Qajarid dynasty, he developed a reputation as a military commander during wars with expansionist Russia and the Ottoman Empire. He was intelligent, possessed literary taste, and modernized the Iranian army. At the same time he was noteworthy for the comparative simplicity of his life. As commander of the Iranian forces, his aid was solicited by both England and Napoleon, anxious to checkmate one another in the East. Abbas Mirza defended Iran against Russian attacks, but the French failed to provide him assistance, and the court in Tehran was also slow in realizing the situation on the borders, as a result of which he was defeated in the Battle of Aslanduz in 1813. Iran was forced to sign the Treaty of Golestan, ceding large parts in the Caucasus including present-day Georgia, Daghestan, and most of the Republic of Azerbaijan. In 1821 when the Ottomans attacked Iran, Abbas Mirza defeated them in the Battle of Erzurum, and through the Treaty of 1823, ensured Iran’s sovereignty. His second war with Russia, which began in 1826 with initial success, ended in 1828 with a string of costly defeats after which Iran was forced to cede nearly all of its Armenian territories as well as Nakhchivan, as per the Treaty of Turkmanchay. In 1834 when Fath-Ali Shah died, Abbas Mirza’s eldest son, Mohammed Mirza, was crowned the king of Iran.

136 solar years ago, on this day in 1881 AD, Spanish painter, Pablo Picasso, was born. He founded the Cubism style, which swiftly spread among French painters. He has created a large number of paintings in his peculiar style. The painting “Avinion Maidens” marks the start of the Cubism movement. His Cubist masterpiece is called Guernica. In this painting, Picasso has depicted his fright in the wake of bombardment of the city of Guernica amid Spain’s civil war. Picasso died in April, 1973.

100 solar years ago, on this day in 1917 AD, during the struggles of the Russian people against the despotic rule of the Czars, communists seized power by manipulating events. Seven decades later communism collapsed and resulted in the disintegration of the USSR.

94 solar years ago, on this day in 1923 AD, British colonialists forced the weak Qajarid king of Iran, Ahmad Shah to appoint the unlettered defence minister Reza Khan as prime minister, after the latter had threatened and forced the legal prime minister, Moshir od-Dowlah to resign. Two years later, when Ahmad Shah was touring Europe, the British formally installed Reza Khan as king of Iran, under the surname of Pahlavi, thus starting a bleak period in Iranian history, when people’s freedoms were curtailed, their culture distorted, their religious aspirations suppressed, and their dress changed. In 1941, the British replaced Reza Khan with his son, Mohammad Reza on the Peacock Throne. In 1979, the Pahlavi regime was thrown into the dustbin of history by the triumph of the Islamic Revolution.

91 solar years ago, on this day in 1926 AD, famous Pakistani painter, Ismail Gulgeez, was born in Peshawar in an Ismaili Shi’a Muslim family. A graduate of Aligarh University and an engineer by profession, as a self-taught artist, he won the topmost awards of Pakistan. Influenced by Islamic calligraphy, he painted some very excellent works that brought him international fame. Gulgeez, his wife Zarrin, and a maid, were victims of sectarian terrorism, and were found dead in their house on December 19, 2007, with hands tied behind their back and mouths gagged with cloth.

67 lunar years ago, on this day in 1372 AH, the religious scholar, Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Ma’soumi, passed away in the city of Behbahan, in southern Iran at the age of 84. He was a product of the famous Islamic seminary of the holy city of Najaf in Iraq, where he reached the status of ijtehad. His works strongly defend the tenets of Islam and the interests of Muslims. He authored several books, including “Sharh-e Lum’a”, and “Nejat al-Ebaad”.

25 solar years ago, on this day in 1992 AD, Iranian poet, satirist, and translator, Abu'l-Qassem Halat, passed away. He started writing poems at the age of 16. He was a master of satires, and was fluent in Persian, English, French, and Arabic. He translated in verse the sayings of Prophet Mohammad and of Imam Ali (peace upon them). He titled these works "The Light of Insight", and "The Blossoms of Wisdom". His poems includes odes and quatrains that contain ethical admonitions.

17 solar years ago, on this day in 2000 AD, Iranian poet, Fereydoon Moshiri, passed away at the age of 74 in his hometown Tehran. Born in a literary family, he learned poetry from his mother, who was a poet herself. Because of his father’s job, the family moved to the holy city of Mashhad, where he finished his junior high school. Since childhood he became familiar with the works of prominent Persian poets and memorized most of their poems. Moshiri started composing poems as a teenager, and his first published poem titled "Our Tomorrow" drew the attention of men of letters. Soon he published the collection titled “Thirsty for Typhoon”. This was followed by other publications and his poems were printed in different art and literary journals.

8 solar years ago, on this day in 2009 AD, two deadly bomb blasts triggered by terrorists backed by Saudi Arabia, near the Ministry of Justice and the Baghdad Provincial Council, resulted in the martyrdom of around 200 men, women, and children, and injury to almost a thousand others. Among those martyred were 35 employees of the Ministry of Justice and at least 25 staff members of the Baghdad Provincial Council, as well as some 30 children aboard a school bus which was blown apart, along with the driver and others. The blasts took place very close to where car bombers, also backed by Saudi Arabia, martyred over 120 people at the Foreign and Finance Ministries two months earlier. In March 2010, security forces nabbed the cowardly perpetrator of the bomb blasts, Munaf Abdur-Rahim ar-Rawi, who admitted masterminding many other Baghdad bombings on instructions from Saudi Arabia. His capture also led to the death in shootout of al-Qa’eda terrorist leaders Abu Ayub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi.

AS/ME