Today is Tuesday; 1st of the Iranian month of Esfand 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 3rd of the Islamic month of Jamadi as-Sani 1439 lunar hijri; and February 20, 2018, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1428 lunar years ago, on this day in 11 AH, Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA), the venerable daughter of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), was tragically martyred, leaving behind in a state of mourning her bereaved husband, Imam Ali (AS), and four little children – sons Imam Hasan (AS) and Imam Husain (AS); and daughters Hazrat Zainab (SA) and Hazrat Omm Kolsoum (SA). She was the daughter of the Mother of True Believers, Omm al-Momineen Hazrat Khadijah (SA). Hazrat Fatema (SA), is regarded as the noblest ever lady of all times, even surpassing in merits the Virgin Mary (SA), the mother of Prophet Jesus (AS). God Almighty has vouchsafed her spotless purity in the holy Qur’an. She remains a model-par-excellence for all virtuous women, and her progeny, the Saadaat, plural of Seyyed, has today spread around the world and is held in esteem by all Muslims. We extend our heartfelt condolences on her tragic martyrdom, which was the result of the hurling upon her of the burning door of her house by a roguish group of her father’s companions, who had seized her patrimony of the orchard of Fadak, and had usurped the political rule of the Islamic state from her husband, Imam Ali (AS), the Prophet’s divinely-decreed heir.

758 solar years ago, on this day in 1258 AD, Musta’sim-Billah, the 37th and last self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime, was wrapped in a carpet and trampled to death under the feet of horses on the orders of the Mongol conqueror Hulagu Khan, ten days after the sack of Baghdad. The incompetent Musta’sim, whose 16-year rule was confined to Iraq and some eastern parts of Syria, had neither raised an army to defend Baghdad nor did he attempt to negotiate with Hulagu, to whom two years earlier he had supplied troops to conquer the Ismaili Nizari stronghold of Alamout (150 km west of modern Tehran). The contemporary Italian traveler, Marco Polo, reports in his “Travels” that upon finding the caliph's great stores of treasure which could have been spent for the defence of the realm, Hulagu locked him in his treasure room without food or water for a while, telling him: “Eat of your treasure as much as you want, since you are so fond of it.” The curtain thus came down on 508 solar years of the Abbasid caliphate founded by Abu’l-Abbas as-Saffah on defeating the Omayyads in 750 AD by hijacking the sentiments of the Arab and Iranian masses for the Ahl al-Bayt, thereby depriving once again the progeny of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) of their political right to rule the Islamic realm.

341 solar years ago, on this day in 1677 AD, France defeated the Spanish in the Caribbean Sea and took control of Haiti, which it ruled for 130 years. In 1804, a major uprising of the black people enslaved in the Americas by the Europeans, took place in Haiti, which emerged as the first independent country in Latin America.

166 lunar years ago, on this day in 1273 AH, the scholar Mir Seyyed Hassan Modarres Isfahani, passed away at the age of 63. Born in Isfahan he studied under prominent ulema, mastering theology, jurisprudence, and other sciences. Later his own classes in Isfahan attracted students from all over Iran. He wrote several books, including a commentary on “Shafaa”, the philosophical work of the Iranian-Islamic genius, Abu Ali Sina.

152 solar years ago, on this day in 1866 AD, France defeated Mexican freedom fighters and crowned its Austrian client, Prince Maximilian, as king of Mexico. Five years later, the Mexicans rallied under former President, Benito Juarez, to reinstate him on ousting Maximilian.

90 solar years ago, on this day in 1928 AD, Britain granted  'protectorate' status  to Jordan – a state it had created in 1920 by the river of the same name, by dividing the historical land of “Shaam” (Greater Syria) in collaboration with France on the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War 1. Britain installed as king of Jordan, Abdullah, a son of their agent Sharif Hussain of Hejaz, for his services to London during World War 1 against the Turks. Faisal, another son of Sharif Hussain, was placed as king in Damascus, but when driven out by the French four months later, was installed in Baghdad as king in 1921 against the wishes of the Iraqi people after Britain crushed the popular uprising led by Ayatollah Mirza Taqi Shirazi and Ayatollah Kashef al-Gheta. In the mid-1920s when Sharif Hussain lost Hejaz, including the religious cities of Mecca and Medina and the commercial centres of Jeddah and Ta'ef, to another British agent, Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud and his Wahhabi brigands from Najd, Britain bestowed upon the new strongman in 1932 an artificial entity called Saudi Arabia. Though Britain granted independence to Jordan in 1946, it continued to dictate orders before handing it over to the US which today exercises hegemony over this land. Jordan, like several other Arab states of West Asia, has no historical roots and almost 80 percent of its population is made up of Palestinians. It is part of the historical land of “Shaam” which was carved up by Britain and France into Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine – where in 1948 the British planted Israel after illegally settling on this Muslim land, hundreds of thousands of European Jews. Demonstrations frequently rock the Jordanian capital, Amman, and other cities, calling for reforms and scrapping of the monarchy due to its subservience to the US and its treasonous ties with Israel.

71 solar years ago, on this day in 1947 AD, Britain agreed to grant independence to the Subcontinent August, but after partitioning it into India, West Pakistan, and East Pakistan (which in 1971 became Bangladesh), while deliberately leaving Muslim-majority Kashmir as a bone of contention. The fate of Haiderabad-Deccan which was a Muslim kingdom and the largest of the subcontinent's semi-independent states (nearly the size of France) was left by Britain in limbo despite the fact that its ruler, Nizam ul-Mulk Asef Jah VII, had generously helped Britain in both the World Wars with tens of millions of pounds-sterling in addition to troops. Landlocked Haiderabad-Deccan, which for a year functioned as an independent sovereign state with membership in the UN, was forced to surrender to India in September 1948 following a week-long war. It is worth noting that the British had entered Muslim-ruled India as traders in the 17th century. With weakening of the Moghal Empire, they treacherously seized in mid-18^th century the province of Bengal (today's Bangladesh and the Indian state of Bengal) from its Muslim rulers of Iranian origin – Siraj od-Dowla, Mir Ja'far, Mir Qassem – and thereupon gradually expanded their influence by taking control of the Subcontinent through wars and imposed treaties. In 1856 they annexed the Shi’ite Muslim kingdom of Awadh and deposed Wajed Ali Shah to end the 134-year rule of the Naishapuri Dynasty of Iranian origin. In 1857, when both the Muslims and Hindus rose against British rule in northern India, they were crushed, Delhi was stormed, and the nominal Moghal ruler, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was imprisoned and exiled to Burma. India was subsequently declared a part of the British Empire with Queen Victoria as Empress of India. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, because of the struggles of the Indian people against colonialism under the leadership of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the Ali Brothers, Jawaharlal Nehru, etc, the British were forced to agree to independence. India despite being a non-Muslim country has the world's largest population of Muslims of around 250 million.

58 solar years ago, on this day in 1960 AD, British archaeologist Charles Leonard Woolley, whose excavation of the ancient Sumerian city of Ur in modern Iraq greatly advanced knowledge of Mesopotamian civilization, died. His discovery enabled scholars to trace the history of the city from its final days during the 4th century BC back to its prehistoric beginnings (c. 4000 BC). His finds revealed much about the art, architecture, literature, religion, and administration in this "cradle of civilization." In royal tombs dating from about 2700 BC, he uncovered the practice of the sacrificial burial of a deceased king's personal retinue. He discovered tombs of great material wealth, gold and silver jewelry, large paintings of ancient Mesopotamian culture at its zenith, and other furnishings. The most extravagant tomb of Queen Pu-Abi was untouched by the hands of looters through the millennia, with many well-preserved items, including a cylindrical seal bearing her name in Sumerian. His widely read book “Ur of the Chaldees: A record of Seven Years of Excavation (1922-29)”, describes his findings in a manner both informative to specialists and laymen.

55 lunar years ago, on this day in 1384 AH, Iranian writer and translator, Dr. Mohammad Ibrahim Ayati, passed away at the age of 51 in what was claimed to be a road accident. Born near Birjand in Khorasan, he studied in holy Mashhad under such scholars as Adib Naishapuri, Shaikh Hashem Qazvini, and Shaikh Mojtaba Qazvini. He then taught and preached in his hometown, before enrolling at Tehran University to obtain PhD in philosophy. He then taught at the same university. As a conscious religious scholar, aware of the political conditions of the time, he became a close assistant of two of the prominent ulema of the era – Ayatollah Seyyed Mahmoud Taleqani, and Ayatollah Morteza Motahhari. Dr. Ayati, who edited the journal “Goftar”, wrote valuable works, such as “A Probe into the History of Ashura”, and “History of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA)”. He also edited an exegesis of the holy Qur’ann by Sharif Lahiji, in addition to translating several books into Persian.   

40 lunar years ago, on this day in 1399 AH, the great contemporary Iranian Islamic thinker, Ayatollah Morteza Motahhari, was martyred at the age of 61 by the Forqan terrorist outfit. Born in Fariman in Khorasan, northeastern Iran, at the age of 12 years he enrolled at the Islamic seminary in holy Mashhad, and later left for holy Qom for higher studies. In Qom, he attended the classes of such prominent ulema, as Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hussain Boroujerdi, Allamah Seyyed Mohammad Hussain Tabatabaei, and the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA). Along with his studies he became an activist of the Islamic Revolution Movement, as one of the close allies of Imam Khomeini. As of the year 1955, Ayatollah Motahhari started lecturing at the Faculty of Theology of Tehran University for 23 years and groomed numerous students. He had a profound understanding of the social, political, and cultural topics of importance of the contemporary era. This brilliant Islamic thinker changed thoughts and attitudes by focusing on the dynamism of Islam for salvage of mankind in accordance with the progress in scientific and other fields. His speeches, articles, and books in different domains elaborate on Islamic topics and have been translated into different languages, including English, such as “Rights of Women in Islam”, “Anecdotes of Pious Men”, “Epic of Imam Husain (AS)”, “A Journey through Nahj al-Balagha”, “A Journey through the Conduct of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA)”, “Divine Justice”, “Islam and Iran: A Historical Study of Mutual Services,”  “Future of the Islamic Revolution”, and “A Critique of Marxism”.

38 solar years ago, on this day in 1980 AD, as per a decree of the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA), the Council of Guardians was formed to act as a supervisory body to oversee whether the laws passed by the parliament are in conformity with the Islamic shari'a and the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This 12-member council is made up of six leading jurisprudents nominated by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution and six judicial experts nominated by the Judiciary Chief. The members have to win the confidence of the parliament. The Council of Guardians plays a unique role in overseeing the presidential, parliamentary and other elections, and to determine whether or not the candidates have the required qualifications and eligibility. It is a superb example of popular religious rule in Iran in line with the aspirations of the people.

27 solar years ago, on this day in 1991 AD, Iranian researcher and writer, Hojjat al-Islam Mostafa Zamani died at the age of 58. He was imprisoned by the Shah's regime several times for his revolutionary activities. On establishment of Islamic Republic, in addition to teaching at academic centres, he wrote some 50 books in order to revive Islamic ideology amongst the young generation. His famous work is "Ibrahim Bot-Shikan ya Qahreman-e Towhid" (Abraham the Iconoclast or Champion of Monotheism).

21 solar years ago, on this day in 1997 AD, a terrorist attack on Iran’s Cultural Centre in Multan, Pakistan, by Saudi-funded Takfiri terrorists of the Lashkar-e Jhangvi outfit, resulted in the martyrdom of 8 persons, including its director, Seyyed Mohammad Ali Rahimi, career diplomat who had served with distinction earlier in India, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. Pakistan said the terrorists overpowered the guards at the gate, burst into the building and after spraying the staff with machinegun fire fled the scene. Iran strongly denounced it as another case of negligence by the Pakistani security department, which seven years earlier, had failed to arrest, prosecute and punish the murderers of the Iranian consul-general in Lahore, Sadeq Ganji.

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.

AS/ME