Today is Monday; 30th of the Iranian month of Bahman 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 2nd of the Islamic month of Jamadi as-Sani 1439 lunar hijri; and February 19, 2018, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1821 solar years ago, on this day in 197 AD, Septimius Severus defeated his former ally Clodius Albinus in the Battle of Lugdunum (modern Lyon in France) – the bloodiest battle between Roman armies that resulted in the death of almost 150,000 soldiers – to emerge as the Roman Emperor, thereby ending the year of five emperors.  A ruthless pagan, Septimius Severus persecuted monotheists, especially the followers of Prophet Jesus (AS), and waged war against Iran’s Parthian Empire, sacking the capital Ctesiphon in 197. Like Trajan a century earlier, he was not much successful. Although he briefly annexed the upper part of Mesopotamia in what are now northern Syria and southern Turkey, he failed to subdue the impregnable fortress of Hatra near Mosul in what was then the Iranian province of Khavaran, despite two lengthy sieges.

1246 lunar years ago, on this day in 193 AH, Haroun ar-Rashid, the 5th caliph of the usurper Abbasid Dynasty, died in Khorasan, in northeastern Iran, and was buried in Tous, in what is now the city of Mashhad, after a tyrannical rule of 23 years, during which he cruelly martyred over 60 descendants of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), including the most noblest of them all, the 7th Infallible Heir, Imam Musa al-Kazem (AS). Haroun was born to Mahdi al-Abbasi in Rayy, which is a suburb of modern Tehran today, and his mother was a Yemeni concubine of dubious character, named Khayzaran. He seized power after the suspicious death of his elder brother Hadi al-Abbasi. He consolidated his rule over the vast realm from North Africa up to the borders of China and India, largely through the administrative abilities of the Iranian Barmakid family, whose head Yahya Barmaki was made prime minister, followed by his sons. The crafty Haroun gradually liquidated the Barmakids and behaved ruthlessly with the followers of the Prophet’s Household and other Muslims who opposed his immoral and illegitimate rule. He died in Khorasan at the age of 45 years while on his way to suppress a rebellion in Kabul, in what is now Afghanistan. Today there is no sign of his rotten grave, while the sprawling golden-domed mausoleum of Imam Reza (AS), the Prophet’s 8th Infallible Heir in Mashhad, beckons millions of pilgrims from all over the world, as testimony to the triumph of the Ahl al-Bayt over the usurper caliphs.

750 lunar years ago, on this day in 689 AH, the Turco-Afghan Khalji Dynasty came to power in the northern subcontinent after the decline of the Mamluk or Slave Dynasty of Turks. It was founded by Jalal od-Din Firuz, who was installed as king by the Turkic, Persian, Arab and Indo-Muslim aristocrats in place of the weak and debauched ruler, Kayqobad. Jalal od-Din was succeeded by his nephew, Ali Gorshasp, who took the title of Ala od-Din and during his 20-year rule, expanded the kingdom to include much of the Deccan (southern India) as well as today’s Pakistan, Bangladesh and eastern parts of Afghanistan. The court language, like that of the previous dynasty, was Persian, and Islam was promoted in India along with scientific achievements, art, and architecture during the 30-year rule. The Khaljis, who repelled several Mongol invasions, were replaced by the Tughlaqs, also of Turkic origin.

545 solar years ago, on this day in 1473 AD, Polish astronomer and mathematician, Nicolas Copernicus, was born in Toruri. During his studies in Rome, he came across the Latin translations of Arabic works of Muslim scientists, including those of the Iranian-Islamic genius Abu Rayhan Birouni, who had written about the spherical shape of the earth. Copernicus heavily borrowed from Muslim scientists and is indebted to them for stating for the first time in Europe the orbit of the Earth around the Sun while rotating on its axis. The Christian Church frowned upon his writings and tried to stamp out his writings. He died on May 24, 1543.

419 solar years ago, on this day in 1600 AD, Arequipa, Peru, was destroyed as the Huaynaputina volcano exploded catastrophically in the largest volcanic explosion in South America in historic times. The eruption continued with associated earthquakes into March and devastated the socioeconomic fabric of southern Peru and neighboring Chile and Bolivia. The explosion had effects on climate around the Northern Hemisphere, where 1601 was the coldest year in six centuries, leading to a famine in Russia.

388 solar years ago, on this day in 1630 AD, Shivaji, the Maratha guerilla chieftain of the Bhosle clan who carved out a kingdom in western India, was born. His father Shahji – a general in the service of the Adel-Shahi and Nizam-Shahi Persianate dynasties of the Deccan – was named by his father in honour of the Muslim mystic “Shah Sharif” of Ahmadnagar, whose prayers had granted the hitherto childless Maloji two sons – the second was named Sharifji. Shivaji was not on good terms with his own father, and rebelled against the Adel-Shahi sultanate of Bijapur, whose famous general of eastern Iranian origin, Afzal Khan, he deceitfully slew at Pratapgarh in 1659 during a supposedly unarmed meeting between the two sides for submission to the central authority and end of insurgency. An expert in guerilla warfare, he was invited to Agra by Moghal Emperor Mohammad Aurangzeb, and according to protocol, restrictions were placed on his movements from the mansion where he was lodged. On learning that Aurangzeb was planning to send him and his guerilla forces to the northwestern frontier for the campaign to retake Qandahar (in what is now Afghanistan) from the Safavid Empire of Iran, Shivaji became terrified and fled south without notice. Back in the Deccan, by 1674, he carved out an independent enclave from the declining sultanate of Bijapur and chose Raigarh as his capital, for raiding the territories of the Qutb-Shahis, the Adel-Shahis and the powerful Moghal Empire that brought retaliation from Aurangzeb. The mountainous terrain exhausted Moghal armies and before his death in 1680 at the age or 50, Shivaji had molded the Marathas into a local power. In the areas under his control, he replaced the Persian language with his mother-tongue Marathi for official use. In the next century, the Marathas expanded their power in the north as far as Delhi, Punjab and the borders of Kashmir, bringing them into direct confrontation with the Afghans. Their pillaging and looting had alienated the Sikhs, the Jats, and even fellow Hindu Rajputs, enabling Ahmad Shah Durrani to inflict a crushing defeat on them at the Battle of Panipat in 1761 from which they never recovered and were gradually absorbed by the British.

101 lunar years ago, on this day in 1338 AH, the Iranian religious scholar and literary figure, Mirza Hassan Aqa Tabrizi, passed away. After preliminary studies in his hometown Tabriz, he left for holy Najaf in Iraq for higher studies. He attended the classes of prominent ulema, such as Ayatollah Sheikh Morteza Ansari Dezfuli, Seyyed Hussain Kouh-Kamarei, and Mullah Ali Nahavandi. After attaining the status of Ijtehad, he returned to Tabriz where he taught Islamic sciences for almost 40 years. He was a supporter of the Constitutional Movement, and later opposed the deviations that took place under the Constitutionalists.

67 solar years ago, on this day in 1951 AD, French author and critic, Andre Gide, died at the age of 82. Born in Paris he spent most of his life in North Africa, especially Algeria, which was under French colonial rule. His impressions of the life of the North African Muslims are portrayed in some of his novels. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1947.

66 solar years ago, on this day in 1952 AD the Norwegian writer, Knut Hamsun, died at the age of 93. Born in a poor family in northern Norway, he started writing at the age of 24. During his two visits to the US, he adopted a critical and disgusting view of American society, which he presented in his book, titled: “The Spiritual Life of Modern America”. The publication of the book; “Hunger” marked a turning point in his works. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. Hamsun was against the British and US colonial rule and supported Germany during the two World Wars, even joining the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler. On Germany’s defeat in World War II, he suffered from mental illnesses till his death.

30 solar years ago, on this day in 1988 AD, the US supported repressive Ba'th minority regime of Saddam shot down an Iranian passenger plane in southwestern Iran, in violation of all international rules, resulting in the martyrdom of Hojjat al-Islam Fazlollah Mahallati and 39 other passengers including parliamentary members. Mahallati was the representative of Imam Khomeini in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and had played a leading role both during the struggles against the Shah's despotic regime, and during the 8-year Iraqi imposed war.

21 solar years ago, on this day in 1997 AD, the former Chinese leader and architect of economic and political reforms in his country, Deng Xiaoping, died at the age of 92 after decades of political activities. During his era, China went through major economic and political developments. He guided the closed and socialist economy of China; up to a large extent, toward the market economy through major reforms. In these years, China stepped up its presence in global scenes and adopted a detente policy in its relations with other countries. He resigned from his posts in 1990 due to advanced age and illness, but remained the most prominent Chinese figure till his death.

19 solar years ago, on this day in 1999 AD, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad bin Mohammad Sadeq as-Sadr, was martyred in holy Najaf, Iraq, at the age of 56, along with two of his sons, by the repressive Ba'th minority regime of Saddam. The people of Iraq demonstrated against this act of state terrorism but were brutally suppressed. He was the father of the present leader of the Sadrist faction of Iraq, Hojjat al-Islam, Seyyed Muqtada Sadr. A year earlier, Saddam had martyred two other leading scholars of the Najaf seminary, Ayatollah Gharavi and Ayatollah Borujerdi. Seyyed Mohammad as-Sadr, who was a scion of the famous Lebanese-Iranian family of scholars descended from Ayatollah Sadr od-Din as-Sadr of Jabal Amel, who was settled in Isfahan, wrote several books including: “Al-Islam wa’l-Mithaq al-Alimiyah lil-Huquq al-Insan (Islam and the International Covenant on Human Rights).

17 solar years ago, on this day in 2001 AD, prominent Islamic preacher, Hojjat al-Islam Sheikh Hassan Kafi, passed away at the age of 72. Born in Khorasan, northeastern Iran, after completing religious education in holy Mashhad, he left for Iraq to pursue higher religious studies at the famous seminary of holy Najaf. He was politically active during the oil nationalization movement in Iraq and expressed his opposition to the British-installed and American-backed Pahlavi regime. In 1962, he started delivering sermons from the pulpit in holy Mashhad, which attracted mass attention. When the Shah’s dreaded secret police, SAVAK, stopped his preaching, he moved to Tehran, becoming prayer leader of one of the mosques in the capital. In Tehran, along with his religious preaching, he continued his political activities, as a staunch supporter of the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA). He was jailed several times by the SAVAK and following the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, he continued his preaching, surviving an assassination attempt by the MKO terrorists. He wrote several books on the life of the Prophet of Islam and the Infallible Imams.

15 solar years ago, on this day in 2003 AD, an Iranian military plane carrying 275 personnel crashed in southeastern Iran, resulting in the martyrdom of all on board, including some senior commanders.

11 solar years ago, on this day in 2007 AD, for the first time the translation of the holy Qur’an was published in Tamazight, the language spoken by the 25-to-30 million Berber Muslims of North Africa, who are distributed from the Siwa Oasis in Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean coasts of Mauritania, and from the Niger River to the Mediterranean Sea coasts of Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. The government of Algeria, which printed 6,000 copies of the Tamazight translation of the holy Qur’an, said it came in response to the increasing need of the Berber community that is not familiar with Arabic, in order to fully understand the meanings of God’s Final Revelation to mankind. Although Ibn Tumart, the founder and spiritual leader of the al-Muwahhidin Movement that ruled much of North Africa and Spain in the 12th-13th centuries had sponsored the translation of the holy Qur’an into the Berber language nine centuries ago, no complete Tamazight translation was known. The Berbers, who have not been Arabicized and have long campaigned for more language and cultural rights, have welcomed the Tamazight translation. Tamazight is an Afro-Asiatic language and the Berbers are fair-skinned indigenous inhabitants of North Africa who were called “barbarians’ by the Romans and became Muslims with the advent of Islam. The majority of them gradually became Arabicized and rose to prominent administrative, military and academic posts including presidents and prime ministers in the present age.

7 solar years ago, on this day in 2010 AD, the destroyer “Jamaraan”, the first advanced Iranian warship, was launched. Equipped with guided sea-to-sea and sea-to-air missiles, torpedo launchers, choppers, electronic navigation, and electronic war devices, its length is 94 meters; it has the capacity to carry 1420 tons of cargo; to sail at 56 km per hour; and to carry 140 sailors. “Jamaran” is a multi-purpose warship whose sophisticated devices were manufactured by Iranian experts.

AS/ME