Today is Thursday; 17th of the Iranian month of Aban 1397 solar hijri; corresponding to 29th of the Islamic month of Safar 1440 lunar hijri; and November 8, 2018, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1237 lunar years ago, on this day in 203 AH, Imam Reza (AS), the 8th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), attained martyrdom at the age of 55, as a result of a fatal dose of poisoning in the city of Tous, Khorasan, northeastern Iran, by the crafty Mamoun, the self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime. Born in Medina in 148 AH, he was 35 years when the mantle of Imamate (or divinely-decreed leadership) came to rest on his shoulders following the martyrdom of his infallible father, Imam Musa Kazem (AS) in Baghdad in the dungeon of the tyrant Haroun Rashid. In 200 AH, Imam Reza (AS), because of his popularity among the people as the Prophet's righteous successor, was forced to leave Medina and come to Khorasan in northeastern Iran by Mamoun, whose capital was Marv (presently in Turkmenistan). Here, the Imam turned down Mamoun’s deceitful offer of caliphate saying: “If the caliphate is (really) yours, you cannot give to others what God has entrusted you with, and if it is not yours, how can you give it others what does not belong to you (at all).” Mamoun then forced the Prophet's Heir to agree to become his Heir Apparent although the middle-aged Imam was over twenty years his senior. The plan was to confine the Imam to the palace in the hope of tainting his spotlessly pure character with the court’s luxurious life and to isolate him from the ummah. However, to the bewilderment of the regime, when the Imam's popularity increased, as a result of his exemplary behaviour with the ordinary people, as well as his dynamic debates with scholars of various religions and philosophical schools including Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus, Mamoun martyred him in a treacherous manner through a fatal dose of poison. He then feigned grief, claiming that it natural death. The Imam was laid to rest in Sanabad in the suburbs of Tous, which soon grew into "Mashhad-ar-Reza" or Place of Martyrdom of Reza (AS) – or simply Mashhad, which is a world famous centre of pilgrimage today, with millions of people coming from all over the globe to pay homage at the magnificent golden-domed shrine.

1123 lunar years ago, on this day in 317 AH, the famous Muslim astronomer, astrologer, and mathematician,  Abu Abdullah Mohammad bin Jaber al-Battani, known as Albatenius to medieval Europe, passed away near Samarra in Iraq at the age of 81. Born in the upper Mesopotamian Syrian city of Harran (presently under Turkish occupation), he was initially educated by his scientist father Jaber Ibn San’an al-Battani. He then moved to Raqqa, situated on the banks of the Euphrates, where he received advanced education and flourished as a scholar. Later he migrated to Samarra, where he worked till the end of his life. He introduced a number of trigonometric relations, and his “Kitab az-Zij” was frequently quoted by many medieval astronomers, including Copernicus. He catalogued 489 stars. He showed that the position of the Sun’s apogee, or farthest point from the Earth, is variable and that annular (central but incomplete) eclipses of the Sun are possible. The thorough observation of the movement of the stars and the revolution of the earth around the sun, enabled Islamic scientists to fix the length of the solar year, and thus the Islamic calendar was born. As its lunar counterpart, it was also based on the auspicious migration of the Prophet from Mecca to Medina. Al-Battani determined the solar year as being 365 days, 5 hours, 46 minutes and 24 seconds. Some of his measurements were even much more accurate than ones taken by Copernicus many centuries later. The Islamic calendar is more precise than the modern western calendar, and it was perfected by the Iranian Islamic astronomer, Omar Khayyam Neishapouri, who compiled the Jalali Calendar, on whose basis the Nowrouz or exact time of the Spring Equinox continues to be determined in Iran and other eastern Islamic lands till this day. Al-Battani’s principal written work, a compendium of astronomical tables, was translated into Latin in about 1116 and into Spanish in the 13th century. The crater Albategnius on the Moon is named after him. The indebtedness of Copernicus to al-Battani is well known. He quotes him fairly often, especially— as does Peurbach—in the chapters dealing with the problems of solar motion and of precession. Much more frequent references to him are found in Tycho Brahe’s writings and in Kepler’s; while Galileo is also all praise for him.

1058 solar years ago, on this day in 960 AD, the Battle of Andrassos occurred in the Taurus Mountains in what is now southwestern Turkey, when the Byzantines under Leo Phokas the Younger, ambushed the Muslim forces of the Hamdanid Emir of Aleppo, Saif od-Dowla, who despite the surprising defeat regrouped his forces in the following years to push back the Christian invaders. Saif od-Dowla was like a bulwark against Byzantine ambitions to encroach upon Muslim lands.

1041 solar years ago, on this day in 977 AD, the Spanish Muslim scholar Ibn al-Quṭiyya (which means son of a Gothic woman) passed away in Cordoba. Named Mohammad by his father Omar, a qazi or judge, he was born and raised in Seville. His chief work, the “Tarikh Iftitah al-Andalus” (History of the Conquest of Andalusia), is one of the earliest Arabic Muslim accounts of the Muslim conquest of Spain. He claimed descent from Wittiza, the last king of the Visigoths in Spain. Ibn al-Quṭiyya's student al-Faraḍi composed a short biographical sketch of his master that is preserved in a late medieval manuscript discovered in Tunis in 1887. Al-Faraḍi calls him the most learned grammarian of the time. Ibn al-Quttiya wrote two famous works on Arabic grammar: “Book on the Conjugation of Verbs” and “Book on the Shortened and Extended Alif”. Due to his pride in his royal Visigoth ancestry, he defends the importance of the treaties made between the Muslim rulers and the ecclesiastical Gothic aristocracy, which secured the possession of their estates for their descendants. Al-Quṭiyya stresses the role such treaties played in establishing Muslim control of Spain and marginalises the effect of military conflict.

740 solar years ago, on this day in 1278 AD, Tran Thanh Tong, the second emperor of the Tran Dynasty of Vietnam, decided to pass the throne to his crown prince Tran Kham and take up the post of Retired Emperor. He was the second emperor of the Tran Dynasty, reigning over Dai Viet from 1258 to 1278. After ceding the throne to his son he assisted him in state affairs till his death in 1290. During the second and the third Mongol invasions, he and his son were credited as the supreme commanders who led the Tran Dynasty to the final victories and as a result established a long period of peace and prosperity over the country. With his successful ruling in both military and civil matters, Tran Thanh Tong was considered as one of the greatest emperors of not only the Tran Dynasty but also the whole dynastic era in the History of Vietnam

592 lunar years ago, on this day in 848 AH, Mirza Ispand, the governor of Baghdad, passed away. In 840 AH, he invited prominent ulema of all denominations of Islam to hold a debate, in which the Shi'ites or followers of the Prophet's Ahl al-Bayt triumphed through their rational discourse on the basis of the holy Qur'an and the Prophet's Hadith. Mirza Ispand thereby declared the School of the Ahl al-Bayt as the official creed of the state.

499 solar years ago, on this day in 1519 AD, Hernan Cortes and his Spanish marauders entered the city of Tenochtitlan and Aztec ruler Montezuma welcomed him with a great celebration in his capital, believing that Cortes could be the white-skinned deity Quetzalcoatl, whose return had been foretold for centuries. It soon became clear that the Spaniards were all bent on conquest, plunder and killing. Cortes and his men, dazzled by the Aztec riches, began to systematically plunder Tenochtitlan and tear down the temples. Montezuma's warriors attacked the Spaniards but with the aid of Indian allies, Spanish reinforcements, superior weapons and disease, Cortes defeated an empire of approximately 25 million people by August 13, 1521.

374 solar years ago, on this day in 1644 AD, the Shunzhi Emperor, the third ruler of the Qing Dynasty was enthroned in Beijing after the collapse of the Ming Dynasty as the first Qing Emperor to rule all over China. Crowned at the age of 5, on reaching adolescence and taking over the reins of government, he tried, with mixed success, to fight corruption and to reduce the political influence of the Manchu nobility. In late 1646, forces assembled by a Muslim leader, known in Chinese sources as Milayin, revolted against Qing rule in Ganzhou (Gansu). He was soon joined by another Muslim named Ding Guodong. Proclaiming that they wanted to restore the Ming, they occupied a number of towns in Gansu, including the provincial capital Lanzhou. Both Milayin and Ding Guodong were captured and killed in 1648, and by 1650 the Muslims had been crushed in campaigns that inflicted heavy casualties. In the 1650s, he faced a resurgence of Ming loyalist resistance, but by 1661 his armies had defeated their last enemies, seafarer Koxinga (1624–1662) and the Prince of Gui (1623–1662) of the Southern Ming dynasty. The Shunzhi Emperor died at the age of 22 of smallpox.

373 lunar years ago, on this day in 1077 AH, the Maratha rebel Shivaji Bhosle panicked and fled from the guesthouse where he was lodged in Agra, on learning that Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb, was planning to send him and his guerilla forces to the northwestern frontier for the campaign to retake Qandahar (in what is now Afghanistan) from the Safavid Empire of Iran. Back in the Deccan, Shivaji continued his marauding of the territories of the Mughals as well as that of the Adel-Shahi and Qutb Shahi kingdoms of Iranian origin, from his base in Raigarh. He molded the Maratha people, who had previously served the Nizam-Shahi and Adel-Shahi kingdoms, into a warlike group that became dominant in India for the next century, and even changed the kings of the declining Mughal Empire in Delhi, until their shattering defeat at the 3rd Battle of Panipat by Ahmad Shah Abdali of Afghanistan.

362 solar years ago, on this day in 1656 AD, English astronomer, geophysicist and mathematician, Edmond Halley was born. He is best known for recognizing that a bright comet – later named after him – had appeared several times. He calculated its orbit in 1682 and successfully predicted its return. Halley became an influential Fellow of the Royal Society. After originating the question that prodded Isaac Newton to write the seminal Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Halley edited it and arranged its publication. Halley was a professor of geometry at Oxford and later appointed Astronomer Royal. Halley identified the proper motion of stars, studied the moon's motion and tides, realized that nebulae were clouds of luminous gas among the stars, and that the aurora was a phenomenon connected with the earth's magnetism. His prediction of the transit of Venus led to Cook's voyage to Tahiti.

344 solar years ago, on this day in 1674 AD, English Poet, John Milton, died in London at the age 66 years. One of his most important works is “Paradise Lost”, which is an epic poem. He was a supporter of freedom of religion, and opponent of the monarchy. He served under Oliver Cromwell in the Commonwealth of England after overthrow of the monarchy. After restoration of the monarchy, Milton retired from public life, and had gone completely blind when he died.

154 lunar years ago, on this day in 1286 AH, the prominent Iranian religious scholar, Mullah Hussain-Ali Toiserkaani, passed away in the central Iranian city of Isfahan. He conducted researches and studies and was highly knowledgeable in sciences such as theology and jurisprudence. He lectured for long years and groomed many students. One of his most important books in theology is "Kashf al-Asraar", which has been compiled in eleven volumes. He has left behind other books, such as “Osoul-e Aqaayed”, and “Makaarem al-Akhlaaq”.

123 solar years ago, on this day in 1895 AD, the acclaimed German physicist, Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen, discovered the X-Ray. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in the year 1901 due to this important discovery. X-Ray goes through human tissues and is the best means for taking photographs of limbs, and diagnosis of damages and fractures to limbs.

118 solar years ago, on this day in 1900 AD, US author, Margaret Mitchell, was born in Atlanta, Georgia State. She first studied medicine but her sorrow over the death of her mother, led her to drop out of medical college and start writing books at the age of 22. She worked as a journalist for a long time, before her novel “Gone with the Wind” catapulted her to fame. She was killed in a car accident in 1949.

85 solar years ago, on this day in 1933 AD, Mohammad Nadir Shah of Afghanistan was shot to death after a 4-year rule, during a graduation ceremony at a high school in Kabul by Abdul Khaliq, an ethnic Hazara, who was immediately caught and later executed after being tortured. Born in Dehra Dun in northern India where his grandfather was exiled by the British, he belonged to the Telai branch of the ruling family of Afghanistan – of the Mohammadzai clan of Barakzai Pashtuns. After growing up in India, he first went to Afghanistan when his grandfather Mohammad Yahya was authorized to return from exile by the British. He joined the army, rose through its ranks to become a general under King Amanullah Khan and led the Afghan National Army in the Third Anglo-Afghan War, after which he was made Minister of War and later ambassador to France. Shortly after a rebellion by an allied force of Pashtun tribesmen and Persian-speaking Tajiks of Habibullah Kalakani, Nadir Khan was exiled due to disagreements with King Amanullah. After the overthrow of Amanullah by Kalakani, he returned to Afghanistan with his tribal Waziri army and took most of Afghanistan. By 13 October 1929, he captured Kabul and subsequently sacked the city. His forces looted government buildings and houses of wealthy citizens. He captured Kalakani and executed him on 1 November 1929, along with several others, including supporters of the ousted king, Amanullah. On 15 October 1929, Nadir Khan seized the throne and styled himself Nadir Shah. On his assassination he was succeeded by his son, Mohammad Zahir Shah, who 40 years later in 1973 was overthrown in a military coup by Daud Khan. This marked the end of monarchy in Afghanistan – a mountainous land which had no independent existence before 1747 when Ahmad Shah Abdali taking advantage of the political chaos resulting in Iran following the murder of Nader Shah Afshar set up the Durrani kingdom.

65 solar years ago, on this day in 1953 AD, Mohammad Reza Shah of the British-installed Pahlavi regime after being restored to the Peacock Throne in Tehran by the US-engineered coup of August 19, 1953, ordered the trial of the overthrown popularly elected Prime Minister Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq, in a military court. The charges against him were nationalization of Iranian oil industry and resistance to the US-British coup. Mosaddeq defended nationalization of the Iranian oil industry to end its exploitation by the British oil firms, and denounced the coup to topple his elected government as violation of Iran’s sovereignty. The military court sentenced him to a 3-year prison term, after the expiry of which he was kept under house arrest for eleven years until his death in 1967.

32 solar years ago, on this day in 1986 AD, prominent writer, researcher and translator, Karim Keshavarz, passed away at the age of 86. Born in Rasht, Gilan Province, he was proficient in English, French and Russian. He was also politically active and was subjected to bouts of prison by the Pahlavi regime. His famous work is “Hazar Saal Nasr Parsi” (A Thousand years of Persian Literature).

21 solar years ago, on this day in 1997 AD, the famous Iranian author, Seyyed Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh, passed away in Geneva, Switzerland at the age of 106. He was born in a religious family in the city of Isfahan. His father, Seyyed Jamaleddin Va'ez, was an active religious leader of the Constitutional Movement, who attained martyrdom. He followed his father’s path and was active in the Constitutional Movement. He travelled to France for higher studies and graduated in Law. He returned to Iran during World War I while the country was occupied by the British and Russian troops. His activities for liberation of Iran were inconclusive and he went to Germany, and later worked in the International Labour Bureau in Geneva, Switzerland. His literary life started when he was almost 50 years of age. His writings were simple and to the point. Hence, his stories, which were about social and political developments in Iran, were warmly welcomed by the people. He acquired the epithet of Father of Iran’s Story-Writing. He was also fluent in Arabic, German, and French. Among his famous works are “Yeki Bood Yeki Nabood” (Once Upon a Time), “Farsi Shekar Ast” (Persian is Sugar), “Sahra-e Mahshar” (The Plain of Resurrection) and “Ghair az Khoda Hichkas Nabood” (None Existed Except God).

5 solar years ago, on this day in 2013 AD, Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever recorded, struck the Visayas region of the Philippines. The storm left at least 6,340 people dead with over 1,000 still missing, and caused S$2.86 billion (USD) in damage.

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