Today is Thursday; 2nd of the Iranian month of Azar 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 4th of the Islamic month of Rabi al-Awwal 1439 lunar hijri; and November 23, 2017, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1916 solar years ago, on this day in the year 101 AD, present day Romania was occupied by the Roman Empire. This land was ruled by the Romans until its conquest by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Meanwhile, parts of Romania were also occupied by Austria for a while till the year 1877, in which Romania emerged as independent. Romania covers an area of 237500 sq km. Its capital is Bucharest.

1439 lunar years ago, on the eve of this day, Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), who had sought refuge in the Cave of Thaur on the outskirts of Mecca from the evil of the Arab infidels, during his historic migration, as per God's commandments, continued his journey towards Yathreb, which would eventually become famous as “Medinat-an-Nabi” (City of the Prophet), or simply Medina. The Almighty had saved His Last Messenger from the plot of the polytheists to murder him, by commanding him to instruct his dear cousin, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS) to sleep on his bed, so that he could migrate undetected. The selfless act of Imam Ali (AS) in risking his life and limbs brought divine rewards in the form of revelation of ayah 207 of Surah al-Baqarah. With the Prophet's arrival in Medina, Islam entered the decisive phase of its universal mission to enlighten all mankind.

843 solar years ago, on this day in 1174 AD, the Kurdish adventurer, Salah od-Din Ayyubi, entered Damascus, six months after the death of his former benefactor Noor od-Din Zangi, removed his young son, and declared himself Sultan of Syria and Egypt. He had seized Egypt three years earlier after resorting to deceit, treachery, and bloodshed, to overthrow the Fatemid Shi’a Muslim caliphate.

796 solar years ago, on this day in 1221 AD, King Alfonso X of Castile was born in the occupied Islamic city of Toledo in Spain, and succeeded his father, Ferdinand III to the throne in 1252. During his 32-year rule, although he was successful against Portugal, and occupied the Muslim regions of Murcia and Cadiz, he suffered shattering defeats at the hands of Spanish Muslims when he tried to invade the Nasirid emirate of Granada. Twice his armies were defeated, especially in the Battle of Ecija in 1275, and he lost his sons in combat. The important work undertaken by him was the study and translation of Arabic scientific books into the Castilian and Latin languages, in order to acquire knowledge from Muslims and break out from the dark ages into which the Christian Church had plunged Europe.

769 solar years ago, on this day in 1248 AD, the Islamic city of al-Ishbiliya in southern Spain was occupied by European Christian mercenaries of King Ferdinand III of Castile and renamed Seville, marking the end of over five centuries of glorious Islamic culture. Until 1228, twenty years before its fall, it had served as the capital of the last great Spanish Muslim dynasty, the al-Muwahhedun. The city, which produced leading Spanish Muslim scholars and scientists, contains specimens of Islamic art. 

506 solar years ago, on this day in 1511 AD, Sultan Mahmoud Shah I of Gujarat, western India, died after a reign of 43 years. Popularly known as Begadha, for conquering two cities named Junagadh and Pavagadh, he was the most prominent sultan of Gujarat, and the great-grandson of Ahmad Shah I, the founder of the Muzaffarid dynasty and of the city of Ahmadabad. He contacted the Ottoman Empire and the Mamluk Sultan of Cairo to form a naval alliance against Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, and it was during his reign the famous Battle of Diu took place against the European marauders. Sultan Begadha undertook great many public works in his kingdom, and built a magnificent Jama Mosque in Champaner, which ranks amongst the finest architectural edifices in Gujarat. It is an imposing structure on a high plinth with two tall minarets 30 m tall, 172 pillars and seven mihrabs. Topped with a central dome, the balconies and carved entrance gates have fine lattice work in stone.

464 solar years ago, on this day in 1553 AD, Italian physician and botanist, Prospero Alpini, was born in Marostica, in the Republic of Venice. He served for a time in the army of the state of Milan, studied medicine in Padua, and then took up the study of botany. To increase his plant knowledge he travelled to Egypt in 1580 as physician at the Venetian consulate in Cairo. During his 3-year stay in Egypt, he seems to have benefitted from the botanical works of the early Islamic scientists. He was taught by the local Muslims the sexual difference of plants which was later adopted by the Europeans as the foundation of the Linnaean taxonomy system. He was also taught and observed how the female date-trees or palms do not bear fruit unless the branches of the male and female plants are mixed together; or, as is generally done, unless the dust found in the male sheath or male flowers is sprinkled over the female flowers. On his return, he resided for some time in Genoa, and later served as professor of botany at Padua. His best-known works “De Medicina Egyptiorum” and “De Plantis Aegypti liber” (published in his native Venice in 1591 & 1592) are said to contain the first account of the coffee plant published in Europe. The same work introduced the banana and baobab to Europeans from the Muslim world. Another of his famous works “De Plantis Exoticis” was published in 1629 after his death. The genus Alpinia, belonging to the order “Zingiberaceae” (Ginger Family), was named after him by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. He died in Padua at the age of 64.

373 solar years ago, on this day in 1644 AD, English poet, scholar, and polemical author, John Milton, published “Areopagitica”, a pamphlet decrying censorship. “Areopagitica” is among history's most influential and impassioned philosophical defences of the principle of a right to freedom of speech and expression. Many of its expressed principles form the basis for modern justifications of that right.

352 solar years ago, on this day in 1665 AD, Charles II of England commissioned Abraham Shipman to formally take over Mumbai (Bombay) from the Portuguese, following orders issued earlier on August 16 by the King of Portugal, Alfonso VI, to his viceroy in India to cede the seven-island archipelago as part of the dowry of his sister, Catherine of Braganza, who was married to the English monarch in 1661. Known as Heptanesia (Cluster of Seven Islands) to the Greek geographer Ptolemy in 150 CE, the islands were ruled by successive indigenous dynasties before becoming part of the Khalji Sultanate of Delhi and subsequently the Muzaffaird Sultanate of Gujarat. From 1429 onwards, the islands were a source of contention between Gujarat and the Bahmani Sultanate of Iranian origin of the Deccan. In 1535 they were given to Portuguese, and following the British takeover were the target of constant raids by the Abyssinian Muslim admirals of the Mughals and then the Marathas. By 1845, the seven islands coalesced into a single landmass by the Hornby Vellard Project via large scale land reclamation. On 16 April 1853 India's first passenger railway line was established in Bombay. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 transformed Bombay into one of the largest seaports on the Arabian Sea. Today, it is the commercial capital of India and has evolved into a global financial hub, in addition to being the seat of the thriving Bollywood film industry. It has a population of 14 million of which 25 percent are Muslims. It is also home to the largest population of Zoroastrians in the world, numbering about 80,000, who are known as Parsi and whose ancestors had migrated from Iran. Mumbai is also home to hundreds of thousands of Muslims of Iranian origin, including Yazdis who came last century and run restaurants.

284 solar years ago, on this day in 1733 AD, start of the so-called “Slave Insurrection” on St. John (presently US-controlled Virgin Islands) in what was then the Danish West Indies. Some 150 Africans from Akwamu (in present-day Ghana), who had been kidnapped and enslaved in the New World, revolted against the owners and managers of plantations. Lasting several months into August 1734, the rebellion was one of the earliest and longest of the so-called slave revolts in the Americas. The Africans captured the fort in Coral Bay and took control of most of the island. They intended to resume crop production under their own control, but the white planters regained control by the end of May 1734, after defeating them with the help of several hundred better-armed French and Swiss troops sent in April from Martinique, a French colony. The militia hunted down Africans and crushed them in 1734.

253 lunar years ago, on this day in 1186 AH, the scholar Sheikh Yousuf al-Bahrani of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf passed away in the holy city of Karbala, in Iraq. The Omani invasion of Bahrain forced him and his family to flee, first to Qatif on the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, thence to Mecca and then Iran, before he eventually settled in Karbala. He is the author of the famous biographical work of leading scholars titled "Lu'lu' al-Bahrain" (Pearl of Bahrain), the last chapter of which is his autobiography. In Iran, impressed by the scholarly atmosphere, he decided to reside in the town of Fasa, near Shiraz in Fars Province. It was here that he wrote his other famous work, "al-Hada'eq an-Nazerah" in several volumes on hadith and the unrivalled merits of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) and the Infallible Imams. A follower of the Usuli school in his youth, he later adopted Akhbari ideas, but accepted the validity of the Friday Prayer during the occultation of the Imam of the Age, and did not go so far as to say that no ayah of the holy Qur'an could be understood without interpretation of the Infallible Imams. He sought to bridge the gap between the two. He authored a total of 32 works including "Anees al-Musafer wa Jalees al-Khawater".

144 solar years ago, on this day in 1873 AD, Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, was occupied by French forces, following the loss of Tonkin to the European invaders, who used to refer to Vietnam as Annam. The French troops suffered a humiliating defeat in 1954 and before withdrawing from Vietnam mischievously involved the meddling Americans in the unwanted war that continued to devastate this southeastern Asian country, until the disgraceful exit of the US forces in 1975.

102 solar years ago, on this day in 1915 AD, following the advance of Russian troops

toward Qazvin during World War I that led to the dissolving of the parliament and mass migration of officials, ulema and the elite from Tehran to Qom, the National Defence Committee was formed in this holy city to preserve Iran’s independence and issue fatwa for Jihad. When the Russians occupied Saveh and advanced upon Qom, the National Defence Committee moved south to Isfahan and thence to Kermanshah where it set up the provisional government. The Russians and the British joined forces to fight the independence-seekers, who were forced to shift their headquarters to Qasr-e Shirin and to Mosul in Iraq and finally to Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. After end of World War I, and restoration of Iran’s independence, the National Defence Committee was dissolved.

80 solar years ago, on this day in 1937 AD, Indian physicist and plant physiologist, Jagadish Chandra Bose, died at the age of 78. Born near Dhaka in what is now Bangladesh, he investigated the properties of very short radio waves, wireless telegraphy, and radiation-induced fatigue in inorganic materials. His physiological work involved comparative measurements of the responses of plants exposed to stress. His invention of highly sensitive instruments for the detection of minute responses by living organisms to external stimuli enabled him to anticipate the parallelism between animal and plant tissues. A crater on the moon has been named in his honour.

41 solar years ago, on this day in 1976 AD, French author, Andre Malraux, died in his hometown Paris at the age of 75. During his youth, he traveled to French Indochina, where he helped freedom-fighters struggling for independence from colonialist rule. This French author also defended the Republicans during Spain’s civil war, and was twice imprisoned by Nazi forces in World War II but on both occasions he managed to break out of jail. He later served as France’s minister of culture. He was against war and bloodshed and defended the freedom of human societies. He interpreted arts as a rebellion against death and destruction. He has left behind a large number of books including “Mankind’s Hope”.

27 solar years ago, on this day in 1990 AD, Iranian musician, Mahdi Khaledi, died at the age of 71. He was highly talented in music and taught new methods for playing the violin, which are currently put to use by the musicians.

18 solar years ago, on this day in 1999 AD, the Iranian researcher and translator, Dr. Mohammad Hassan Lotfi Tabrizi passed away at the age of 80. Born in Tabriz, he graduated from Tehran University and took his PhD from Germany. An expert in English, German and French languages, after a career as attorney, he spent the rest of his life in translating into Persian the works of western scholars on Plato, Socrates, and the Renaissance in medieval Europe.

One solar year ago, on this day in 2016 AD, Iranian eulogist, Saleem Mo’azzen-Zadeh, passed away at the age of 80 in his hometown Ardabil. Born in a religious family, he was blessed with a good voice like his father and brothers. From a young age he displayed his vocal talents in recitation of elegies and eulogies at religious gatherings, the recitation of the holy Qur’an as well as “Azan” or the call to prayer. For over six decades he served the cause of Islam, and used to say his wonderful voice is dedicated to Imam Husain (AS), and cannot be used for any frivolous purpose.  

AS/ME