Today is Friday; 4th of the Iranian month of Esfand 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 6th of the Islamic month of Jamadi as-Sani 1439 lunar hijri; and February 23, 2018, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1715 solar years ago, on this day in 303 AD, Roman Emperor Diocletian ordered the destruction of the newly built Christian church in Nicomedia in what is now Turkey, and the burning of all scriptures. Although he resigned two years later and was no longer the Emperor, the persecution of Trinitarian Christians as well as the monotheistic followers of Prophet Jesus (AS), lasted a total of 8 years, ending in 311 with the death of his successor, Galerius, who was also an obstinate pagan. Diocletian, who ruled for 21 years, also ordered the persecution of Manicheans, as a political ploy, compounding religious dissent with international politics, since followers of this creed amongst the Romans were supported by the Sassanid Empire of Iran, which he had managed to defeat with great difficulty in 299 and imposed the humiliating Peace of Nisbis in northern Mesopotamia and Armenia, on Emperor Narseh. Diocletian ordered that the leading followers of Mani be burnt alive along with their scriptures, while low-status Manicheans must be executed by the blade, and high-status Manicheans must be sent to work in the quarries and mines.

1486 solar years ago, on this day in 532 AD, Emperor Justinian I of Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire ordered the building of a new Christian basilica in Constantinople – the Hagia Sophia, which is Greek for “Holy Wisdom” – shortly after concluding the “Eternal Peace” with Khosrow Anushirvan of the Sassanid Empire of Iran at a cost of 11,000 pounds of gold, following Roman defeats in Syria and what is now Turkey by the Persians. From the date its construction finished in 537 until 1453, this majestic building served as seat of the Greek Orthodox Church, except between 1204 and 1261, when it was converted to a Roman Catholic cathedral under the usurper Latin Empire of the Crusaders. When Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453 and renamed it Islambol (Istanbul), it was added with the mihrab (prayer niche), mimbar (pulpit) and four minarets to serve as an imperial mosque until 1931, when Kamal Ataturk changed it into a museum. The Hagia Sophia served as inspiration for many other Ottoman mosques, such as the Blue Mosque, the Shahzade Mosque, the Suleymaniyeh Mosque, the Rustam Pasha Mosque and the Ali Pasha Mosque. Today Turkish Muslims are calling for restoring this building into the mosque. Justinian I during his 38-year rule conquered the Western Roman Empire also, including North Africa and Spain. He was again involved in a war with Sassanid Persia in Syria and Turkey that lasted 22 years this time, before ending in the “Fifty-Year Peace” at the cost of 500 pounds of gold as annual tribute to the Iranians.

1303 solar years ago, on this day in 715 AD, Walid ibn Abd al-Malik, the 6th self-styled caliph of the usurper Omayyad regime, died in Damascus at the age of 47 after a 10-year reign, during which Arab armies conquered the Iberian Peninsula in the West and penetrated deeper into Central Asia and India, in addition to gaining territory against the Byzantines in Anatolia (modern day Turkey). He gave free rein to the tyrant Hajjaj Thaqafi, his governor of Iraq, to terrorize the people of Khorasan, Sindh and Transoxiana. Walid discouraged the conquered people to become Muslims since this would deprive him of collecting jizya and fill up his coffers. Fearful of the influence of the Persian language in the east and of the Coptic language in Egypt, he forbade the use of any other language except Arabic. In violation of the letter and spirit of the holy Qur’an, he promoted obscene music, singing and dancing. Walid I has earned lasting notoriety for martyring through poison, the Prophet’s great-grandson and 4th Infallible Heir, Imam Zain al-Abedin (AS) – the son of Imam Husain (AS), the Immortal Martyr of Karbala.

1053 lunar years ago, on this day in 386 AD, the Shafe’i Sufi scholar, Mohammad ibn Ali, known popularly as Abu Talib al-Makki, passed away in Baghdad. He was hadith expert and jurist as well, and author of “Quwwat al-Qulub” (The Nourishment of Hearts), a book used by the Iranian Shafe’i scholar, Abu Hamed Ghazali, as a source for some of the chapters of his work “Ihya Uloum ad-Din” (Revival of Islamic Knowledge).

1002 lunar years ago, on this day in 437 AH, the famous Iranian Ismaili Shi'a poet and scholar, Naser Khosrow, who was born in Qobadian in eastern Khorasan, which is now part of modern Tajikistan, started his journey to Fatemid Egypt to meet the Ismaili caliph. During the almost seven years he spent in travel until his return home, he visited different lands, such as Iran, Iraq, Syria, Arabia, and Egypt, and performed the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina four times. He penned his travels in the famous book titled “Safar-Namah” or Travelogue that contains an interesting description of the peoples, their culture, customs, the political and economic conditions, and geographical factors of the lands he visited. He was well versed in astrology, as well as philosophy and interpretation of the holy Qur'an. He had studied Arabic, Turkic, Greek, Sanskrit, Sindhi, and even Hebrew. In separate journeys he also visited Multan and Lahore, and the splendid Ghaznavid court under Sultan Mahmud in what is now Afghanistan. Naser Khosrow has composed some very fine odes in Persian in praise of Imam Ali (AS), the First Infallible Successor of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).

385 solar years ago, on this day in 1633 AD, British naval administrator and Member of Parliament, Samuel Pepys, who is now most famous for the detailed diary of important events he kept for a decade, was born in London. Through hard work and talent for administration, he rose to be Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both King Charles II and subsequently King James II. The detailed private diary Pepys kept from 1660 until 1669 was first published in the 19th century and is one of the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period. It provides a combination of personal revelation and eyewitness accounts of such important events, as the Great Plague of London, the Second Dutch War, and the Great Fire of London. Often regarded as the most celebrated diary, it contains over a million words, and the author’s frankness in writing his own weaknesses, has made historians ascertain the accuracy of his record of daily British life and major events in the 17th century. He died in 1703 at the age of 70.

219 solar years ago, on this day in 1799 AD, the French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte who had occupied Egypt to prevent it from turning into a British colonial base, attacked the Ottoman province of Shaam (made up of present day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine including the illegal entity called Israel). In response, the Ottoman Sultan declared war on France, and though Napoleon had some initial success, the French forces were forced to withdraw from Shaam because of British and Russian support for the Ottoman Turks.

197 solar years ago, on this day in 1821 AD, English poet, John Keats, died of tuberculosis at the young age of 26 in Rome. Born in London, he was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Byron and Percy Shelley. Today his poems and letters are some of the most popular and most analysed in English literature.

150 solar years ago, on this day in 1868 AD, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, the first African-American to earn a doctorate from Harvard University, was born in Barrington, Massachusetts. As a sociologist, he focused on the problem of race for blacks in the US. He became an influential leader of black Americans, presenting an alternative to Booker T. Washington, whose policies Du Bois considered too conservative and too accommodating to whites. Du Bois, believing that blacks could achieve progress only through protest, encouraged Black Nationalism and supported Pan-Africanism. He founded the National Negro Committee which eventually became the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Du Bois also founded the Niagara Movement, served as the NAACP's director of research and editor of its magazine Crisis, and taught and published his philosophy at Atlanta University from 1896-1910. In 1961 he renounced his US citizenship and spent his last remaining years in the West African country of Ghana, where he died in Accra, Ghana at the age of 95 in 1963.

132 solar years ago, on this day in 1886 AD, American chemist, Charles Martin Hall, discovered aluminum. Aluminum is a white and light metal. It is very hard and is lighter than iron. It currently has numerous applications in industrial and non-industrial activities.

74 solar years ago, on this day in 1944 AD, Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, ordered the mass deportation of Caucasian Muslim nations. Chechens and Ingush were deported to Kazakhstan for resisting Soviet rule on the allegations of abetting the Germans. Around a million persons were evicted and loaded onto special railway cars. More than a third of the population died on the way. Also deported were the Karachays, Balkars, and Meskhetian Turks. Stalin, an ethnic Georgian, was an avowed enemy of Muslims despite being an atheist.

48 solar years ago, on this day in 1970 AD, Guyana declared itself a republic, following independence from British rule, four years earlier. Guyana was occupied by the Spanish in late 15th century and seized by Britain in the 17th century. Situated in South America with a coastline on the Atlantic Ocean, Guyana has a population of 10 percent Muslims, while a slight majority of the national population is made up of Guyanese of Indian origin.

38 solar years ago, on this day in 1980 AD, following drafting of the Islamic Republic constitution and setting up of the Majlis (parliament), as per the decree of the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA), Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Husseini Beheshti was elected as the first Chief Justice of Islamic Iran. Ayatollah Beheshti was martyred in a terrorist bomb blast in Tehran by the notorious US-backed MKO terrorist outfit in July 1981 along with 72 senior Iranian officials, including cabinet ministers and parliament members.

22 solar years ago, on this day in 1996 AD, Ba’thist dictator Saddam had his two defecting sons-in-law killed by their own clansmen after luring them back to Iraq on promises of pardon. Minister of Military Industries Lieutenant-General Hussein Kamel al-Majid and his brother former head of the Republican Guards, Saddam Kamel al-Majid, along with their wives – Raghad and Rana – had fled on 7th August 1995 to Jordan, where they disclosed to the CIA and the British MI6, military and chemical weapons secrets. Saddam gave false promises of pardon, but on their return to Iraq on February 20 he ordered them to divorce his daughters, and three days later killed them on charges of treason. The two brothers, as senior members of the repressive Ba’th minority regime, were partners in Saddam’s crimes against the Iraqi people as well as against Iran during the 8-year imposed war. Hussein Kamel al-Majid was in charge of the brutal attack on Karbala in 1991 and the massacre of its people. He openly desecrated the holy shrine of the Prophet’s grandson, Imam Husain (AS), in which he gruesomely hanged countless Iraqi Muslims, boasting all the time that today he was the person in power and the Immortal Martyr of Karbala can do nothing.

8 solar years ago, on this day in 2010 AD, Abdul-Malek Rigi, ringleader of an anti-Iranian US-backed terrorist outfit, was captured by Iranian security personnel in a well-planned operation. Rigi, whose satanic outfit which wrongly styles itself as Jundullah or soldiers of God, was based in Pakistani Balouchistan and had committed several acts of terrorism, killing scores of innocent men women, and children, including Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims. On learning that he had boarded a plane in Dubai for Kyrgyzstan in order to meet senior American officials for planning more acts of terrorism against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Iranian air force waited till the airplane carrying him was in Iranian airspace, before sending its jet fighters to intercept the commercial flight and force it to land at Bandar Abbas airport. Rigi was nabbed, jailed, and tried in a court where he admitted his murderous acts of terrorism that in addition to bomb blasts including kidnapping and cold-blooded killing of his victims. He also confessed to his connections with the US, the illegal Zionist entity Israel, and certain Arab and western regimes, thus belying Washington's claim to fight terrorism. Rigi was executed by hanging on June 20, 2010.

7 solar years ago, on this day in 2011 AD, two Iranian warships entered Egypt's Suez Canal heading for Syria, the first time in three decades that Iran sent military vessels through the strategic waterway to the Mediterranean Sea.

AS/ME