Today is Saturday; 10th of the Iranian month of Azar 1397 solar hijri; corresponding to 23rd of the Islamic month of Rabi al-Awwal 1440 lunar hijri; and December 1, 2018, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1239 lunar years ago, on this day in 201 AH, Hazrat Fatema al-Ma’sumah (SA), the venerable descendent of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), arrived in Qom, which proved to be her permanent abode, since seventeen days later her soul flew to the ethereal heavens from this city in the Iranian desert. The daughter of the Prophet’s 7th Infallible Heir, Imam Musa al-Kazem (AS), she was on her way from Medina to Merv in Khorasan to meet her brother Imam Reza (AS), when her caravan was attacked near Saveh by agents of the tyrannical Abbasid regime. As a result, several people, including two of her brothers were martyred, and the exhausted lady, reportedly poisoned, asked the caravan to turn towards Qom, which was a centre of adherents of the Prophet’s Ahl-Bayt. People came out in large numbers to greet her and to escort her to the city – a ceremony that is enacted till this day by the people of Qom. On the 10th of Rabi al-Akher, she departed from the world at the young age of 28, and was laid to rest in an orchard near the riverbank. Her tomb soon grew into a sprawling mausoleum, topped by a gold-plated dome, which is the site of pilgrimage today for people from all over the world, who seek intercession with God and see their prayers answered. Imam Reza (AS) had remarked: “Whoever visits her (shrine), aware of her status, is like the one who has visited me.”

683 solar years ago, on this day in 1335 AD, Abu Sa’eed Bahador Khan, the last ruler of the Iran-based Ilkhanid Empire that included Iraq and parts of Turkey, Central Asia and Afghanistan, died at the age of 30, without an heir, and with him the dynasty founded in 1255 by Hulagu Khan, the grandson of the fearsome Chingiz Khan, disintegrated. He was the son of Sultan Oljaitu Khodabandeh who had declared the School of the Ahl al-Bayt as the official creed, and who is buried in the famous mausoleum of Sultaniyeh near Zanjan in northwestern Iran. Although, Abu Sa’eed, during his 19-year reign patronized poets and scholars, he was a weak administrator, who committed many excesses, even executing able ministers, such as Rashid od-Din Fazlollah – author of the famous history, “Jame’ at-Tawarikh”. His death split the empire into several principalities, such as the Jalayarids in Iraq, the Chupanids in Azarbaijan- South-eastern Turkey, the Sarbedaran in Khorasan, and the Kartids in what is western Afghanistan. The great voyager Ibn Battuta was amazed at discovering, on his return to Persia, that what had seemed to be such a mighty realm only twenty years before had dissolved so quickly.

573 lunar years ago, on this day in 866 AH, Jam Nizam od-Din II, known as Nindo, the most powerful ruler of the Samma Dynasty, succeeded his father Sanjar Sadr od-Din and ruled for 48 years over Sindh, parts of Punjab, Baluchestan and Gujarat. Towards the end of his reign he defeated a Mughal army sent against him by Shah Beg Arghun from Qandahar. Founded by Rajputs who had embraced the truth of Islam, the Samma civilization contributed significantly to the evolution of the "Sindhi-Islamic" architectural style, which is a blending of Persian art as well. Thatta, which is in modern Pakistan, was the capital of this kingdom that lasted almost two centuries. The city is still famous for its necropolis, which covers 10 square km on the Makli Hill. Every year thousands perform pilgrimage to this site to commemorate the saints buried here. The graves testify to a long period when Thatta was a thriving center of trade, religion and scholarly pursuits.

392 solar years ago, on this day in 1626 AD, Pasha Mohammad ibn Farrukh, the tyrannical governor of Bayt al-Moqaddas that was part of the Ottoman Sanjak of Nablus, was driven out by the people. A manumitted Circassian slave from the Caucasus, due to the favour of his former owner, Bahram Pasha, he rose to the prominent position of governor.

380 solar years ago, on this day in 1638 AD, Ali Mardan Khan, the Kurdish governor of the Iranian border city of Qandahar in what is now Afghanistan, betrayed the post entrusted to him by the Safavid Emperor, Shah Safi, to handover this strategic fort and its districts to the Mughal Empire of the Northern Subcontinent. Mughal Emperor Shah-Jahan rewarded him for his treason to Iran by appointing him governor of the province of Punjab which at that time stretched from the vicinity of Kabul to the vicinity of Delhi. He later received the title of Amir ol-Omara (Chief of Nobles) and governorship of Kashmir as well. A proficient engineer and architect as well, his tomb is in Lahore, while a garden named after him as "Bagh-e Ali Mardan Khan" still survives in Srinagar, the capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

378 solar years ago, on this day in 1640 AD, with the collapse of the Iberian Union, Portugal became an independent kingdom, no longer affiliated to Spain, with which it had formed a union in 1580, along with other Christian regions of the Iberian Peninsula.

276 solar years ago, on this day in 1742 AD, Empress Elisabeth ordered the expulsion of all Jews from Russia for their charging of high usury and insulting of the fundamental beliefs of Christianity like slandering Prophet Jesus and his mother, the Virgin Mary (peace upon them).

257 solar years ago, on this day in 1761 AD, the famous wax sculptor, Madame Tussaud, was born as Marie Grosholtz in 1760 in Strasbourg, France in a German family. On the death of her father, her widowed mother shifted to Bern, Switzerland, where she worked as housekeeper for Dr. Philippe Curtius, a physician who was skilled in wax modeling and who taught the young girl this unique art.  After moving to Paris, she created her first wax sculpture in 1777, of the philosopher Voltaire. Other famous people she modeled at that time include Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the American statesman Benjamin Franklin. During the French Revolution she modeled many prominent victims. In her memoirs she claims that she would search through corpses to find the severed heads of executed persons, from which she would make death masks. In 1795, she married Francois Tussaud and acquired a new name as Madame Tussaud. In 1802 she went to London, having accepted an invitation from Paul Philidor, a magic lantern and phantasmagoria pioneer, to exhibit her work alongside his show. As a result of the Napoleonic Wars, she was unable to return to France, so she traveled throughout Britain and Ireland exhibiting her collection. By 1835 Madame Tussaud settled down in Baker Street where she set up her wax museum, one of whose main attractions was the Chamber of Horrors and included victims of the French Revolution and the newly created figures of murderers and other criminals. In 1842 she made a self-portrait which is now on display at the entrance of her museum. She died in her sleep on 15 April 1850. Today the Madame Tussaud Wax Museum is a major tourist attraction of London.

193 solar years ago, on this day in 1825 AD, the so-called Holy Alliance (also called the Grand Alliance) among Russia, Austria and Prussia collapsed shortly after the death of Czar Alexander I, at whose behest it was created in 1815 on the claim of instilling Christian religious values of charity and peace in European political life, but in practice to act as a bastion against reform, revolution and democracy.

152 solar years ago, on this day in 1866 AD, Welsh military engineer and geodesist, George Everest, who worked on the trigonometrical survey of India during the years 1818-43, providing the accurate mapping of the subcontinent, died. For more than twenty-five years, he surveyed the longest arc of the meridian ever accomplished at the time. Everest made countless adaptations to the surveying equipment, methods, and mathematics in order to minimize problems specific to the Great Survey, such as the immense size and scope, the terrain, weather conditions, and the desired accuracy. Mount Everest, formerly called Peak XV, was renamed in his honour in 1865, a year before his death, although he never set foot on it, and despite the fact that for centuries the Tibetans as well as the Nepalis, in whose territory, the world’s tallest peak lies, have called it "Chomolungma".

105 solar years ago, on this day in 1913 AD, the island of Crete, having obtained self-rule from Turkey after the Second Balkan War, was annexed by Greece with the help of Britain, France, Italy and Russia, which had seized this Muslim majority island in 1898 after over two centuries of Ottoman rule. The Greeks immediately forced Cretan Muslims to either become Christian or risk expulsion. As a result, tens of thousands of Cretan Muslims fled to Turkey, the Levant and Egypt. Crete, the 5th largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, had many citizens who followed the Bektashi Sufi order founded by Iranian mystic, Haji Bektash Vali of Nishabur, Khorasan, and were hence followers of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt. All the mosques and Tekiyes were either destroyed or turned into churches by the Greek Christians, who a century earlier had removed all traces of four centuries of Turkish Muslim rule from Greece. It is worth recalling that Islam was brought to Crete a thousand and two centuries ago by Spanish Muslims, who ruled this island as the Emirate of Ikritish for almost 150 years from their capital Rabdh al-Khandaq (modern Heraklion).

80 solar years ago, on this day in 1938 AD, Ayatollah Seyyed Hassan Modarres was martyred through poisoning by agents of the despotic British-installed Pahlavi ruler, Reza Khan, in the city of Kashmar, Khorasan, at the age of 68, for his untiring efforts to safeguard freedom and liberties in Iran. Born near the city of Ardestan in central Iran, on completion of his studies, he left for the holy city of Najaf in Iraq, to attend the classes of prominent ulema, such as Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi (famous for his anti-tobacco fatwa that saved Iranian economy from the British). On returning to Iran, Ayatollah Modarres started his struggles against the despotic regime and its colonial masters. He was elected to the parliament and lobbied for implementation of Islamic laws in the country, a factor that angered Reza Khan, who exiled him from Tehran.

78 lunar years ago, on this day in 1362 AH, famous Iranian poet and scholar, Hussain Khan Danesh, died at the age of 70. He spent a major part of his life in Turkey, conducting research on Persian works in Ankara, Istanbul and other cities, and making efforts to publish them. Among his works, mention could be made of "Dastour Zaban-e Farsi" and "Saramadan-e Sokhan".

70 solar years ago, on this day in 1948 AD, the “Tamam Shud Case”: The body of an unidentified man was found in Adelaide, Australia, involving an undetectable poison and a secret code in a very rare book. The case remains unsolved to this day, and is one of Australia's most profound mysteries. Also known as the Mystery of the Somerton Man, it concerns an unidentified man found dead at 6:30 am, 1 December 1948, on Somerton beach, Glenelg, just south of Adelaide. It is named after the Persian phrase “Tamam Shud”, meaning "ended" or "finished", printed on a scrap of paper found in the fob pocket of the man's trousers. This turned out to have been torn from the final page of a particular copy of “Rubaiyat” (or Quatrains) of the 12th century Iranian poet, Omar Khayyam. Following a police appeal, the actual book was handed in – six months after the body was found. Imprinted on the back cover of the book was something looking like a secret code as well as a telephone number and another unidentified number. The case is still open with so many speculations over the past six-and-a-half decades.

63 solar years ago, on this day in 1955 AD, Afro-American seamstress Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, and was arrested for allegedly violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which led to the December 5 Montgomery Bus Boycott – a year-long boycott of the buses by blacks, and launched the Civil Rights movement in the US. She refused to move to the back of the bus, to accommodate a white male passenger, as ordered by driver James F. Blake. She was jailed. Virginia Durr helped a black civil rights leader bail Parks out of jail. In 1999, Rosa Parks was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal.

30 lunar years ago, on this day in 1410 AH, Grand Ayatollah Jawad Aqa Tehrani passed away at the age of 88. He was born in Tehran and after completing his studies in Qom left for Holy Najaf in Iraq to continue his higher studies. He groomed many scholars and was known for his piety and ascetic nature. Among the books written by him are: "Mizan al-Mataleb" in Arabic and "Aieen-e Zindagi" in Persian.

21 solar years ago, on this day in 1997 AD, Ayatollah Mirza Jawad Sultan-al-Qurrai Tabrizi, passed away at the age of 96.Born in a family of scholars who were jurisprudents for the past four centuries, he attained Ijtehad at the young age of 25. An expert in jurisprudence, hadith, history, geography, biography of narrators, mathematics, astronomy, and Persian and Arabic literature, he travelled widely, visiting Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. He made copies of rare books in the libraries he visited, and wrote several books.

21 solar years ago, on this day in 1997 AD, eight planets from our Solar System lined up from West to East beginning with Pluto, followed by Mercury, Mars, Venus, Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter, and Saturn, with a crescent moon alongside, in a rare alignment visible from Earth that lasted until Dec 8. Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn are visible to the naked eye, with Venus and Jupiter by far the brightest. A good pair of binoculars is needed to see the small blue dots that are Uranus and Neptune. Pluto is visible only by telescope. The planets also aligned in May 2000, but too close to the sun to be visible from Earth. It will be at least another 100 years before so many planets will be so close and so visible.

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