Today is Friday; 18th of the Iranian month of Esfand 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 20th of the Islamic month of Jamadi as-Sani 1439 lunar hijri; and March 9, 2018, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1447 lunar years ago, on this day, some nine years before Hijra, Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) was blessed with the radiant daughter, Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA), whom God Almighty refers in the holy Qur’an as “Kowsar” or the Perennial Fountain of Abundant Munificence. The birth of this noblest-ever lady, after her brothers had died in infancy, ensured continuation of the blessed progeny of the Almighty’s Last and Greatest Messenger to all mankind. She was the perfect daughter, the perfect wife for the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali and the perfect mother for sons Imam Hasan and Imam Husain, and daughters Hazrat Zainab and Hazrat Omm Kolsoum (peace upon them). Several ayahs in the holy Qur’an refer to the unsurpassed merits of this Most Virtuous Lady, including the Verse of Purity, and the Verse of Mobahela, on whose revelation, she accompanied her father, husband and two small sons to the historical debate with the Christians of Najran that made the truth of Islam triumph. Her birthday is marked as Mother’s Day in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Over the years Muslims in several other countries have begun to hold such gatherings in order to more clearly tread the path of Fatema (SA), the daughter at whose threshold the Prophet used to salute and stand to his feet whenever she entered his presence, so as to give a practical demonstration of the rights and dignity of women in Islam.

1131 solar years ago, on this day in 886 AD, Iranian Islamic astronomer, Abu-Ma'shar Ja'far ibn Mohammad al-Balkhi, passed away in al-Waset, Iraq, at the age of almost a hundred years. Born in the Khorasani city of Balkh (presently in Afghanistan) he spent most of his life in Iraq, especially in Baghdad. He used ancient sources written in Pahlavi, Arabic, Sanskrit, Syriac, and Greek. He believed that all sciences have a divine origin, and the signs of God’s revelation are observed in every science. He has left behind a large number of books; the most important of which include “al-Mudkhal al-Kabir”. Known to Europe by his Latinized name “Albumasar”, he wrote several manuals on astrology that profoundly influenced Muslim intellectual history and, through Latin translations, that of Europe. Some of his works that were used by Roger Bacon and others are: "Kitab ad‐Dalalaat ala'l‐Ittesalaat wa‐Qiranaat al‐Kawakeb" (Book of Indications of the Planetary Conjunctions), and "Kitab al‐Milal wa'l-Duwal" (Book on Nations and Dynasties).

564 solar years ago, on this day in 1454 AD, Italian astronomer, navigator and cartographer, Amerigo Vespucci, whose name the Europeans gave to the new landmass discovered by Christopher Columbus as “America”, was born in Florence. He served the Portuguese and then the Spanish. He demonstrated that Brazil and the so-called West Indies did not represent Asia's eastern outskirts as conjectured, but instead constituted an entirely separate landmass unknown to Europeans – although the Muslims had known this great landmass and travelled it. He is reportedly the first recorded European who landed on what came to be called America.

161 solar years ago, on this day in 1847 AD, as part of its expansionist policies, the US launched a large-scale amphibious assault on Mexico and besieged the port city of Veracruz. The 20-day siege ended with the surrender of the city. What are now the southern and southwestern states of the US are occupied Mexican lands.

121 solar years ago, on this day in 1897 AD, pan-Islamist thinker and pioneer of the anti-colonial struggles of Muslim lands, Seyyed Jamal od-Din Asadabadi, attained martyrdom in Istanbul at the age of 59 on being poisoned on orders of the Ottoman Sultan, Abdul-Hamid II. Born in Asadabad near Hamedan in west Iran, he honed his skills in religion, philosophy, astronomy, and history. He was well-versed in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, English, French, and Russian. He strove for Islamic solidarity and was a staunch opponent of colonialists in Islamic lands. At the age of 17, he started his travels, first studying theology in Iraq, and then visiting India at a crucial period in its history, a year after the British overthrew Wajed Ali Shah of the Naishapuri kingdom of Iranian origin of Awadh, and then in 1857 brutally crushed the uprising by massacring Muslims and exiling to Burma the last king of the Timurid Moghal dynasty, Bahador Shah Zafar. The young Jamal od-Din was profoundly affected by events and lived for several years in the Muslim state of Haiderabad-Deccan under patronage of its prime minister, Salaar Jung Mokhtar ol-Mulk. Here he countered through pamphlets and treatises the “naturist” views of the pro-British Sir Seyyed Ahmad Khan, the founder of the Anglo-Mohammadan College that later became Aligarh Muslim University. These were later published in book form for the first time in Haiderabad in 1881 under the title “Haqiqat-e Madhhab-e Naychari wa Bayan-e Hal-e Naychariyan” (Truth about the Neichari Sect and an Explanation of the Necharis). After a brief detention in Calcutta, he had to leave India under pressure from the British, and after performing the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, he returned to Iran. A few years later in 1866 he left for Afghanistan to serve as advisor to Amir Dost Mohammad Khan. On being expelled from Kabul by the next ruler, Sher Ali Khan, he went to Egypt in 1871, where until his expulsion in 1879, he won several admirers and students – such as Shaikh Mohammad Abduh, who wrote a commentary on the Nahj al-Balagha (Collection of Imam Ali’s [AS] sermons, letters and maxims). Forced to leave Egypt, he went to Istanbul, from where he travelled around Europe, visiting Paris, London, Munich, Moscow and St. Petersburg. From France in 1884, he published the daily “al-Orwat al-Wosqa” and from Britain “Zia al-Khafeqin” to awaken the Muslims. He was invited back to Iran by Nasser od-Din Shah Qajar to serve as political advisor, but soon fell out with the autocratic king and took refuge in the holy shrine of Seyyed Abdul-Azim al-Hassani, before being expelled seven months later in 1891 to Iraq. He informed the marja’ of the times, Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi of the ruin brought on Iranian economy by the granting of the tobacco concession to the British. The Ayatollah’s fatwa against tobacco consumption saved Iran. In 1892, he was invited to Istanbul by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Hamid. Here he was visited by several of his disciples including Mirza Reza Kirmani, who in 1896 assassinated Nasser od-Din Shah. Jamal od-Din Asadabadi eventually fell out with the Ottoman Sultan and was poisoned to death. His reformist and pan-Islamist ideas were opposed by colonial powers and the repressive Muslim regimes. Among his works is “ar-Radd ala ad-Dahriyyiin” (Refutation of the Materialists), in answer to Darwin's absurd theory of evolution titled “On the Origin of Species”. Seyyed Jamal od-Din Asadabadi, who at times called himself ‘Afghani’ in order to conceal his Iranian and Shi’a Muslim identity, profoundly impacted many thinkers of his age and the next generations. Among these were the Persian-Urdu poet Mohammad Iqbal Lahori, Mohammad Ali Jinnah (Founder of Pakistan), and Indian Muslim educationist, Abu’l Kalaam Azad. In Egypt, he deeply impacted Mohammad Abduh, Rashid Redha, Ali Abdur-Razeq, Qasim Amin, Lutfi as-Sayyid and Osman Amin, while in Turkey: Namik Kemal, Said Nursi and Mohammad Akef  Ersoy. The Constitutional Movement that triumphed in Iran in 1905 was also influenced by him. 

119 lunar years ago, on this day in 1320 AH, the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA) was born in the city of Khomein, on the auspicious birth anniversary of his blessed ancestress, Prophet Mohammad’s (SAWA) daughter, Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA). From childhood he was immersed in the study of Islamic sciences, and at the same time was aware and conscious of the political developments around in those days of Iran’s subservience to the British and the Russians. When he entered manhood, and was already a scholar of repute in hadith, philosophy and other subjects, he saw the British replace the Qajarid dynasty with an illiterate soldier named Reza Khan, who assumed the surname Pahlavi and unleashed oppression on the people and the ulema through his anti-Islamic policies. Reza Khan forcibly unveiled Iranian women, and banned men from wearing the traditional Iranian dress by imposing upon them European style of clothing. In 1941, Seyyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini saw the British replace Reza Khan with his son, Mohammad Reza on the Peacock Throne, and this new self-styled king was even more submissive to his masters. In the early 1950s, the oil nationalization movement took shape and the Shah fled but was restored to power in the August 1953 CIA coup by the Americans, his new masters. In 1963, the Imam openly spoke against the anti-Islamic policies of the corrupt Pahlavi regime, for which he was imprisoned and then exiled – initially to Turkey and thereafter to Iraq, where he spent 14 years in holy Najaf, beside the shrine of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS), grooming a large number of scholars. His guidelines generated the Islamic Revolution, and in February 1979, after a brief three-month stay in Paris, he returned to Iran to found the Islamic Republic. He thus delivered the country, not just from domestic despotism but foreign hegemony. It was his astute guidance that saved Islamic Iran from the intricate plots of the Great Satan (the US) including the 8-year war imposed by the American stooge Saddam. Imam Khomeini, who led the worldwide Islamic revival, was a prominent Mujtahid and a Gnostic of the highest order, who wrote several books. His concept of “Wilayat-e Faqih” or Governance of the Supreme Jurist in the absence of the Infallible Imam is indeed unique and the keys to the steadfastness and success of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the face of heavy odds. His speeches and messages are gathered in the 21-volume “Sahifa-e Noor” or Scripture of Light. He also has a diwan of Persian poetry.

84 solar years ago, on this day in 1934 AD, Russian Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin who became the first recorded human being to travel into outer space, was born in the Soviet Union. He performed the first manned orbital flight in Vostok 3KA-2 (Vostok 1). In 1968, he was killed in an air accident.

73 solar years ago, on this day in 1945 AD, Bombing of Tokyo by the United States Army Air Forces began, one of the most destructive bombing raids in history. A total of 334 US B-29 Super-Fortresses attacked Tokyo with 120,000 fire bombs, devastating the city and killing over a hundred thousand men, women, and children.

50 solar years ago, on this day in 1968 AD, the Moro National Liberation Front started its armed struggles against the despotic regime of President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines – a US stooge who killed thousands of Muslim Filipinos. After the dismissal of Marcos in 1986, and following negotiations with the government, a ceasefire was agreed and a peace treaty signed, but not fully implemented. Finally, in 1996, a new agreement was inked between Moro National Liberation Front and the government, according to which the Muslims in Mindanao region attained autonomy.

26 solar years ago, on this day in 1992 AD, Menachem Begin, one of the founders of the illegal Zionist (Israel), died at the age of 79. He was from Belarus and had no connection to Palestine or to the ancient Israelites. He illegally entered British-ruled Palestine and set up the terrorist outfit Irgun. He played a leading role in the massacre of innocent Muslim men, women and children, and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of others in 1948, at the illegal birth of Israel. He was so ruthless and bloodthirsty that even his own colleague, David Ben-Gurion, used to call him a second Hitler. After holding ministerial posts in several Zionist cabinets, he was appointed as premier in 1977. Following the cold-blooded slaughter of over 5,000 Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila Camps of Lebanon in 1982 by his henchman, Ariel Sharon, he was forced to step down from his post, before melancholia and death overtook him.

7 solar year ago, on this day in 2011 AD, the Iranian bibliographer and Iranologist, Dr. Iraj Afshar, passed away at the age of 86. Born in the central city of Yazd, he studied law at Tehran University. His PhD thesis was on “Minorities in Iran”. In 1952, he launched the cultural magazine “Farhang-e Iran Zamin”. In addition to lecturing, he carried out extensive research on Iranology and bibliography, as is evident by his writing of at least 2000 articles. He also published 300 books on Iran’s culture, history, and literature.

6 solar years ago, on this day in 2012 AD, Simin Daneshvar, the wife of the famous Iranian writer, Jalal Aal-e Ahmad, died at the age of 91 years in Tehran. She was an academic, novelist, fiction writer and translator, largely regarded as the first major Iranian woman novelist. In 1948, her collection of Persian short stories was the first by an Iranian woman to be published. “Daneshvar's Playhouse”, a collection of five stories and two autobiographical pieces, is the first volume of translated stories by an Iranian woman author. Her husband Jalal Aal-e Ahmad had a profound influence on her writing, and she wrote the book "The Dawn of Jalal" in memory of her husband, the author of the famous book “Gharbzadegi” (Westoxication). Daneshvar was also a very good translator, and of her translations mention could be made of "The Cherry Orchard" by Anton Chekhov and "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

6 solar years ago, on this day in 2012 AD, tens of thousands of Bahraini people flooded a major highway in one of the largest protest rallies against the repressive British-American backed Aal-e Khalifa minority regime, which mercilessly attacked the peaceful demonstrators with tear gas and fire arms. The popular uprising in the Persian Gulf island state has continued despite the imprisoning, torture, and murder of innocent men, women, and children, in addition to desecration of mosques, Hussainiyahs and even copies of the holy Qur’an by the regime forces, in collaboration with the Saudi occupation forces.

AS/ME