Today is Thursday; 13th of the Iranian month of Ordibehesht 1397 solar hijri; corresponding to 16th of the Islamic month of Sha’ban 1439 lunar hijri; and May 3, 2018, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

3393 solar years ago, on this day in 1375 BC, the oldest recorded eclipse occurred, according to one plausible interpretation of a date inscribed on a clay tablet retrieved from the ancient city of Ugarit, Syria.

1004 lunar years ago, on this day in 435 AH, Abu Taher Jalal od-Dowla, the Iranian Buwaiyhid ruler of Iraq, passed away at the age of 51 after a 17-year reign. Son of Baha od-Dowla, he was appointed governor of Basra by his elder brother, Sultan od-Dowla, who was the senior Buwaiyhid ruler of both Iraq and Fars. Jalal od-Dowla retained governorship of Basra when his youngest brother, Musharraf od-Dowla, with the help of the Turkic guards seized power in Baghdad and declared himself king of Iraq and later Shahanshah (king of kings). On Musharraf’s death a succession crisis occurred and it took the army more than two years to choose Jalal od-Dowla as successor. He subsequently became involved in a bitter fight with his nephew Abu Kalijar (son of the deceased Sultan od-Dowla), who controlled Fars and Kerman. The two were not always enemies; for example, Jalal od-Dowla provided support to Abu Kalijar when the Ghaznavids invaded Kerman in 1033. Jalal od-Dowla was also forced to deal with problems in his own realm, which consisted of little more than Baghdad and Waset following Abu Kalijar's seizure of Basra. His army was rebellious. A mutiny led by a Turk named Barstoghan occurred and provided Abu Kalijar a chance to invade Iraq. He failed to take Baghdad, but gained his uncle Jalal od-Dowla's allegiance. The latter, supported by the Uqailid amir of Mosul and the Arab Adadid tribe, was soon restored to full power as an independent ruler. Jalal od-Dawla continued his rule in Iraq until his death in 1044, following which Abu Kalijar managed to gain control of Iraq.

851 lunar years ago, on this day in 588 AH, the theologian, exegete of the Holy Qur’an, and hadith scholar, Mohammad Ibn Ali Ibn Shahr Ashoub, passed away at the ripe old age of 99. Born in Mazandaran, northern Iran, in a Sunni Muslim family, he memorized the Holy Qur’an at the age of 8. His scholarly mind made him research and master hadith, and he was permitted by the prominent ulema of his day, such as Zamakhshari, Ghazali, and Khateeb Khwarezmi, to quote hadith. He also wrote beautiful poems in both Arabic and his native Persian. His quest for truth made him turn into a staunch follower of Prophet Mohammad’s (SAWA) Ahl al-Bayt, whose unsurpassed merits he has collected in a 4-volume work titled: “Manaqeb Aal-e Abi Taleb”. Among the several valuable works of this Muslim theologian and hadith scholar, is “Ma’alem al-Ulema”, a biography of prominent scholars.

827 lunar years ago, on this day in 612 AH, the Arabic poet and scholar, Abdullah ibn ad-Dahhan Shafe’i, passed away in Baghdad. He was from the city of Mosul and was an expert in theology, exegesis of the Holy Qur’an, medicine, and astronomy. He wrote beautiful poems. Besides Arabic, he was fluent in Persian, Turkish, Roman, Sanskrit, and Armenian, and whenever his non-Arab students did not understand him, he spoke to them in their own language. He went blind in his last years.

589 solar years ago, on this day in 1429 AD, French national heroine, Jeanne d’Arc, known to the English as Joan of Arc or Maid of Orleans, started her uprising for the liberation of parts of French territory from the occupation of England. She led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the coronation of Charles VII. She was captured by the Burgundians, transferred to the English in exchange for money, put on trial by the pro-English Bishop of Beauvais for charges of insubordination and heterodoxy, and burned at the stake as a heretic in 1431 when she was only 19 years old.

549 solar years ago, on this day in 1469 AD, the Italian historian and philosopher, Niccolo Machiavelli, was born in Florence. Regarded as a founder of modern (unprincipled) political science, he was a diplomat, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic, serving as secretary to the Second Chancery from 1498 to 1512, when the Medici family were out of power. He wrote his political theory titled “The Prince” after the Medici had recovered power and he no longer held a position of responsibility. He believed that there is no harm in acquiring power and maintaining it through any means possible including deceit and oppression, without regard for ethical principles or moral and religious values. Machiavelli died in 1527.

537 solar years ago, on this day in 1481 AD, the largest of three earthquakes struck the small island of Rhodes in the Aegean Sea (off the coast of Turkey) causing an estimated 30,000 casualties. It was then part of the Ottoman Empire.

537 solar years ago, on this day in 1481 AD, the 7th Ottoman Sultan, Mohammad II (known as al-Fateh or the Conqueror), died, after a reign of 32 years and was succeeded by his son, Bayezid II. He transformed the Ottoman state into an empire by conquering Constantinople and ending Byzantine or the Eastern Roman Empire. He set out to revitalize the city, renamed it Islambol (today’s Istanbul) and made it the capital of his empire. The first decree issued by him was security and freedom of the residents who were almost all Christians. Hours later, he rode to the Hagia Sofia to proclaim the Islamic creed, converting the grand cathedral into an imperial mosque. When he stepped into the ruins of the Boukoleon, the Palace of the Caesars, built over a thousand years before by Theodosius II, he recited the famous Persian couplet of the Iranian poet, Shaikh Sa’di: 

"The spider weaves curtains in the palace of the Caesars.  The owl calls watches in the towers of Afrasiyab."          

He built the Grand Bazaar and the Topkapı Palace, which served as the official residence of Ottoman sultans for the next four hundred years. The city, built by Rome's first Christian Emperor, Constantine I, on the coastlines of the Bosporus Strait was thus transformed from a bastion of Christianity into a symbol of Islamic culture. Mohammad II extended Muslim rule as far as the borders of Italy and his death saved Rome from possible subjugation. He initiated administrative reforms and was fluent in several languages, including Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Greek and Latin. He invited famous scholars to his court, including the Iranian polymath, Ala od-Din Ali ibn Mohammad Qushji, who as a disciple of the famous astronomer-king Ulugh Beg, was an astronomer, mathematician and physicist from Samarqand.

503 solar years ago, on this day in 1515 AD, the Portuguese fleet occupied the Iranian Island of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. In the next few years they seized more Iranian islands including Bahrain in 1521. The brutality of the Portuguese occupation forces enraged the people of Iran. Finally, upon establishment of a strong Iranian navy by the Safavid Dynasty, Shah Abbas the Great liberated Bahrain in 1602 and Hormuz in 1622.

381 lunar years ago, on this day in 1048 AH, Ottoman Grand Vizier, Tayyar Mohammed Pasha was killed by a bullet fired by Iranian defenders during the siege of Baghdad. Tayyar was the fourth Ottoman Grand Vizier to be killed in battle. Incidentally, his father Ogar Mustafa Pasha had also lost his life near Baghdad during the Ottoman-Safavid battle over the city, which was won by the Iranians. For over two hundred years the Ottomans and the Safavids fought over Iraq, which exchanged hands many times.

195 lunar years ago, on this day in 1244 AH, famous Urdu/Persian poet of India, Amir Ahmad Meenai, was born in Lucknow. He started writing poems as of the age of 15 years. He had studied logic, law, geography, mathematics, medicine, history, religion, music, philosophy and wrote some 50 books in Urdu and Persian. His works in prose and verse are simple and delicate. He joined the court of Wajed Ali Shah of Oudh, and after the British overthrew the dynasty of Iranian Naishapuri origin, he moved to the court of the Nawab of Rampur, where lived the rest of the life, before travelling to Haiderabad-Deccan in the south where he died at the age of 76. Meenai helped popularise the na’t genre in Urdu poetry and the popularity of his poems in this fields in praise of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) proved to be a trend-setter among other poets. His works “Khayaban-e Aafrinish”, “Noor-e Tajalli” and “Abr-e Tajalli” deal with the birth and life of the Prophet in both poetry and prose. His ghazals and mathnawis were published in two volumes titled “Miraat-ul Ghaib” and “Sanam Khana-e- Ishq”.

164 solar years ago, on this day in 1854 AD, Iranian poet, Mirza Habibollah Qa’ani Shirazi passed away at the age of 46 in Tehran and was laid to rest in the mausoleum of Hazrat Abdul-Azim al-Hassani. Known for his melodious verses, his famous elegy on the Martyr of Karbala, Imam Husain (AS), is still popular in Iran and is inscribed on walls of the holy shrine of Imam Reza (AS) in Mashhad. Considered last of the classical poets, Qa’ani, breaks with the tradition of explanatory poetry and pays tribute to the Prophet’s grandson in the form of question and answer or a dialogue. He was a master of both Arabic and Persian literature, in addition to being familiar with French and English languages. He was also knowledgeable in mathematics, rhetoric, logic and philosophy. He composed over twenty thousand verses, and wrote a book “Parishaan”, in the style of “Golestan” of the famous poet, Sheikh Sa’di of Shiraz.

79 solar years ago, on this day in 1939 AD, the All India Forward Bloc was formed in Calcutta by Subhash Chandra Bose, who had resigned from the presidency of the Indian National Congress on April 29 after being outmaneuvered by Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi. The goal was to liberate India from British rule through armed struggle. In August the same year Bose began publishing a newspaper titled Forward Bloc. On July 2, 1940 he was arrested. In January 1941 he escaped from house arrest, and fled to Germany to meet Adolf Hitler and set up the Free India Centre in Berlin. In August 1942 the British banned the Forward Bloc.

50 solar years ago, on this day in 1968 AD, the French student movement started in Paris. Soon French workers, dissatisfied with their negligible wages, joined the students. The uprising later became political and spread to several European countries. Protesters demanded social reforms in favor of low-income strata and end to US meddling in Europe. The movement fizzled out because of police brutality and deceit of politicians.

49 solar years ago, on this day in 1969 AD, President Zakir Hussain of India died in office at the age of 72. An ethnic Afridi-Pashtun born in Hyderabad Deccan, he was India’s first Muslim president. Earlier he was Vice Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University.

36 solar years ago, on this day in 1983 AD, Algerian foreign minister, Mohammed Seddiq bin Yahya, was killed at the age of 50 during a diplomatic mission to try to end the war imposed by the US on the Islamic Republic of Iran through Saddam, when his plane was shot down by the Ba’thist regime near the Turkey-Iran borders. A veteran of the Algerian independence struggle against France, he had a distinguished career, serving his country as Minister of Information (1967–1971), Minister of Higher Education (1971–1977), Minister of Finance (1977–1979), and Foreign Minister (1979-1982).

25 solar years ago, on this day in 1993 AD, the UN General Assembly declared May 3 as World Press Freedom Day and urged governments to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression as mentioned in Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and marking the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek – a statement of free press principles put together by African newspaper journalists in 1991. UNESCO marks World Press Freedom Day by conferring the Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize on a deserving individual, organization or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to the defence or promotion of press freedom.

7 solar years ago, on this day in 2011 AD, the so-called justice minister of Bahrain’s repressive Aal-e Khalifa minority regime, said 24 doctors and 23 paramedics, who treated injured protesters demanding their birthrights, have been charged with acts against the state and will be tried in a military court. Their prosecution began on June 6. Bahrain is in the grip of a popular uprising which has been brutally quelled by the regime with the help of the invading Saudi Arabian forces – destroying mosques and hussainiyahs, and desecrating copies of the holy Qur’an.

AS/SS