Today is Tuesday; 12th of the Iranian month of Tir 1397 solar hijri, corresponding to 19th of the Islamic month of Shawwal 1439 lunar hijri; and July 3, 2018, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1174 lunar years ago, on this day in 265 AH, the Iranian adventurer, Yaqoub Ibn Layth Saffar, founder of the short-lived Saffarid Dynasty, died in Jondi Shapour in Khuzestan at the age of 39, due to severe stomachache, and was succeeded by his brother Amr. A coppersmith by profession, he led an ascetic life and gradually started gathering fighting men around him in Sistan in the town of Zaranj, which is currently in Afghanistan, to annihilate the “khwarej” (renegades) in the region. This earned him fame, and he soon brought the whole of Sistan under his control. He turned to the east and after taking Bost, captured Kabul, before turning west to seize Herat from the fellow Iranian dynasty of Tahirids, who ruled Khorasan. In 868 he set out for Kerman, and soon wrested Shiraz from the control of the Abbasids, but continued to call himself a vassal of the caliph. In 869, he returned to Zaranj, his capital, and in 871, during the caliphate of Mo’tamid, he again descended on Shiraz and advanced towards Khuzestan. The caliph was able to prevent him from invading Iraq by appointing him the Abbasid governor of Balkh, Fars, Kerman, Sistan and Sind. In 873, Yaqoub bin Layth brought all of Khorasan under his control by seizing its capital, Neishabour, from where he marched to Gorgan and Tabarestan (present-day Mazandaran) and then as far as Chalous, before withdrawing to Rayy after collecting taxes of the Caspian region. This brought him offers from Caliph Mo’tamid of the governorship of Khorasan, Tabaristan, Gorgan, Rayy, and also the position of security-chief in Baghdad. Proud of his victories, Yaqoub bin Layth rejected the offer and invaded Khuzestan, but at Dayr al-Aqoul, some seventy km from Baghdad, he was defeated by the Abbasid forces and returned to Khuzestan, to prepare for another attack, when he died. There are conflicting reports about Yaqoub’s religious beliefs, with claims that he had Ismaili Shi’ite tendencies.

1005 lunar years ago, on this day in 434 AH, the Arabic scholar of Iranian stock Abu Zakariya ibn Abdul-Wahhab Ibn Mandah, was born. As an expert on hadith he is held in high esteem by Sunni Muslims. He wrote several books including one on the biography of the famous Hadith scholar Tabarani, who among the merits of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS), has recorded the famous incident of “Radd ash-Shams” or the miraculous return of the sun, on the supplication of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), after it had set. He passed away in Isfahan at the age of 78.

710 solar years ago, on this day in 1308 AD, Sultan Ala ud-Din Khilji laid siege to the famous fort of Siwana, situated on a hilltop in the Marwar region of what is now Rajasthan state of India. Two months later he captured the fort. Ala ud-Din, the second ruler of the Persianized Turkic Dynasty, known as Khilji, because of its origin from Khilj in Afghanistan, ruled the greater part of the subcontinent for 20 years, after succeeding his uncle, Sultan Jalal ud-Din Firuz. He was a brilliant strategist and an outstanding military commander, although a ruthless person. He was the first Muslim ruler to penetrate into the Deccan or southern India, and is also noted in history for being one of the few rulers in the world to have repeatedly defended his empire against Mongol invasions. He defeated large Mongol armies and then launched punitive expeditions against them in Central Asia, around modern-day Afghanistan. During his rule, many Iranians migrated to the Subcontinent to escape the Mongol menace.

500 solar years ago, on this day in 1518 AD, Li Shizhen, Chinese polymath, who was a mineralogist, medical doctor, scientist, pharmacologist, herbalist and acupuncturist of the Ming dynasty, was born. His major contribution to clinical medicine was his 27-year work, which is found in his scientific book Bencao Gangmu (Compendium of Materia Medica). He is considered to be the greatest scientific naturalist of China, and developed many innovative methods for the proper classification of herb components and medications to be used for treating diseases. The “Bencao Gangmu” has 1,892 entries; each entry with its own name called a gang. The book has details about more than 1,800 drugs, including 1,100 illustrations and 11,000 prescriptions. It also described the type, form, flavour, nature and application in disease treatments of 1,094 herbs. This book has been translated into many different languages, and remains as the premier reference work for herbal medicine. It also includes various related subjects such as botany, zoology, mineralogy, and metallurgy.

264 solar years, on this day in 1754 AD, during the French and Indian Wars, George Washington, the future first president of the US, who was then a British officer, surrendered to the French forces in what is now Pittsburg in southwestern Pennsylvania and which was then called Fort Necessity. This left the French in control of the Ohio Valley, and marked the beginning of the French & Indian War also called the 7 Years' War. The war changed economic, political, governmental and social relations between three European powers (Britain, France, and Spain), their colonies and colonists, and the natives that inhabited the territories they claimed. France and Britain both suffered financially because of the war, with significant long-term consequences. The Seven Years' War nearly doubled Britain's national debt. The Crown, seeking sources of revenue to pay off the debt, attempted to impose new taxes on its colonies. These attempts were met with increasingly stiff resistance, until troops were called in so that representatives of the Crown could safely perform their duties. These acts ultimately led to the start of the American Revolutionary War.

195 solar years ago, on this day in 1823 AD, Ahmed Vefeeq Pasha, Ottoman statesman, diplomat, playwright, and translator of the “Tanzimaat” during the first Constitutional Period, was born in Istanbul, in a family of Greek extraction from the island of Crete. Like many other Greek Muslims, particularly from Crete and the regions of Epirus and Macedonia, he started his education in 1831 in Istanbul and later went to Paris with his family, where he graduated from Saint Louis College. On his return to Istanbul, he became a pioneer of the Pan-Turkism movement, and while serving as governor of Bursa, he built a theatre in that city and initiated the first Western style theatre plays. In 1860, he was sent to Paris as the Ottoman ambassador to France. He wrote the first Turkish Dictionary and on his return to Istanbul, was appointed Minister of Education. He was commissioned with top-rank governmental duties, including presiding over the first Ottoman parliament in 1877, and serving as Grand Vizier for two brief periods. He died in 1891 in Istanbul at the age of 68.

185 solar years ago, on this day in 1863 AD, during the US civil war, the Battle of Gettysburg ended around the town of the same name in Pennsylvania, in a disastrous defeat for the Confederates, because of General Robert E. Lee's strategic blunder in ordering his forces to mount the Pickett’s charge against the Union army, despite the advice of his commanders of the impracticability of such an operation. It is the largest military conflict in North American history. The battle involved the largest number of casualties of the entire 5-year war and is often described as the war's turning point. Lee’s retreat to Virginia ended the Confederate plan to invade the Union North.

137 solar years ago, on this day in 1881 AD, Hasan Tahsini, Ottoman Albanian astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher, passed away in Istanbul at the age of 70. Born in the village of Ninat in Konispol, Albania, to the local religious leader, he received a good education and was appointed tutor to the sons of Khayrullah Efendi, Minister of Education of the Ottoman Empire. Khayrullah Efendi later sent him to France as staff member of the Ottoman school of Paris, where Tahsini taught Turkish and religious sciences, while also being the imam or prayer leader of the Ottoman embassy and a student of mathematics and natural sciences at the University of Paris. He studied in Paris for twelve years before returning to the Ottoman Empire in 1869, and the next year he became the first rector of the newly established Istanbul University, where he gave lectures on physics, astronomy and psychology. Tahsini, who had the support of the famous Iranian pan-Islamic activist, Seyyed Jamal od-Din Asadabadi, was the target of attacks by conservative ulema for his modern views. His lectures were banned and Istanbul University temporarily closed. Nonetheless, he continued his scholarly activities and as one of the most prominent 19^th century scholars of the Ottoman Empire, wrote the first Turkish language treatise on psychology titled “Psychology or the Science of Soul”. He also wrote the first Turkish-language book on modern astronomy being also the first popular science book in Turkish. Other works of Tahsini in the Turkish language include a translation of Constantin François de Chassebœuf's “Loi Naturelle”. Along with Sami Frasheri, one of the most important figures of the Albanian National Awakening, he founded the Central Committee for Defending Albanian Rights, and developed a unique alphabet of the Albanian language.

135 solar years ago, on this day in 1883 AD, the Czech author, Franz Kafka, was born in Prague. Given that he had a tough childhood, Kafka had a pessimistic viewpoint and was a Nihilist, which is completely evident in his books. His famous works include “The Metamorphosis”, and “The Trial”.

114 solar years ago, on this day in 1904 AD, Theodor Herzl, the founder of the racist and terrorist outfit, Zionism, died at the age of 44.  Born in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, and named Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl, he later took up residence in Austria, where in1895 he wrote the controversial book titled “Jewish State” in which he bragged about the so-called racist superiority of the Jews. In 1897, Herzl and his co-thinkers in a gathering in Switzerland formally called for occupation of the Muslim land of Palestine. He died in 1904.

100 solar years ago, on this day in 1918 AD, Mohammad V, the 35^th and penultimate Ottoman Sultan and the 29^th self-styled Turkish caliph, died at the age of 74 and was succeeded by his half-brother Mohammad VI. Son of Abdul-Majid I, he spent his first thirty years in cloistered life, with no interaction with the world outside the palace, dedicating his time to studies, especially classical Persian poetry and becoming a Persian poet himself. His nine-year reign, during which he was a mere figurehead ruler with no real political power, he saw the cession of the Ottoman Empire's North African territories and the Dodecanese Islands, including Rhodes, in the Italo-Turkish War, the traumatic loss of almost all of the Empire's European territories west of Istanbul in the First Balkan War, and the entry into World War I on the side of the Germans, which would ultimately lead to the end of the Ottoman Empire.

94 solar years ago, on this day in 1924 AD, Iranian poet and political writer, Seyyed Mohammad Reza Kordestani, popular as Mirzadeh Eshqi, was killed at the age of 31 in his own house in Tehran by unknown gunmen, believed to be agents of the British-imposed premier, Reza Khan (later Pahlavi), whom he used to bitterly criticize in his newspaper articles. Born in Hamadan to Seyyed Abo’l-Qasem Kordestani, he learned French in the Ecole d'Alliance, and moved to Istanbul for a while. He is particularly famous for writing the opera “Rastakhiz Iran” (Resurrected Iran), which was a reflection of his patriotic spirit. After returning to Iran, he settled in Tehran and published newspapers in which he fiercely attacked the political system of the country. He is remembered for writing six plays. His “Nowruz-Nameh” is particularly famous. He also published a paper called “Twentieth Century” and predicted his early death repeatedly. He was buried in the Ibn Babawaiyh Cemetery in Rayy.

30 solar years ago, on this day in 1988 AD, the US in a blatant act of terrorism, shot down an Iranian Airbus passenger plane en route from Bandar Abbas to Dubai, by firing two missiles from the warship Vincennes that had ventured into Iranian coastal waters in the Persian Gulf. All 298 passengers and crew on board were killed. The regular four-days a week Iran Air Flight 655 was deliberately shot down by the US in a show of Washington’s support for Saddam who was suffering defeat after defeat in his US-instigated 8-year war against the Islamic Republic. The US lied to the world media regarding the incident and tried to depict it as a mistake, but soon in an insult to the Iranian nation, the US President granted a medal of bravery to Captain Will Rogers for his cowardly act of terrorism in downing the Iranian passenger plane.

5 solar year ago, on this day in 2013 AD, Egyptian president, Mohammad Morsi, was toppled by a military coup led by General Abdul-Fattah as-Sisi, exactly a year after he had been elected in the country’s first and only fair and free elections. A member of the Muslim Brotherhood, who failed to solve the political and economic problems of the country, he himself had promoted Sisi to the post of the topmost military commander. Although he called himself Islamist, he supported the scandalous Camp David Treaty with the illegal Zionist entity, and allowed Takfiri elements to terrorize Egypt’s Christian and Shi’ite Muslim minorities. He also adopted a wrong regional policy by supporting terrorists in Syria and relying on Saudi Arabia, which betrayed him by openly backing the coup plotters.

AS/ME