Today is Wednesday; 28th of the Iranian month of Azar 1397 solar hijri; corresponding to 11th of the Islamic month of Rabi as-Sani 1440 lunar hijri; and December 19, 2018, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1220 lunar years ago, on this day in 220 AH, Iranian Muslim astrologer and mathematician, Abu Ali al-Khayyat, passed away. He authored several books, including “Sair al-Amal” and “al-Mawalid”, which has recently been translated into English as the “Judgment of Nativities” and published in the West. His works, including the “Book of Aristotle” were translated into Latin in medieval Europe.

907 solar years ago, on this day in 1111 AD, the prominent Iranian Sunni Muslim scholar, Abu Hamed Mohammad Ghazali Tusi, passed away at the age of 53. Born in Tabaran near Tous in Khorasan, northeastern Iran, at the age of 28 years he became renowned as a Shafei jurisprudent, whose fame led the Seljuqid vizier, Khwaja Nizam ol-Molk Tusi, to invite him to join the royal court in Isfahan and later, take charge of Baghdad’s famous Nezamiyah Academy. After several years in Iraq, he left for Syria, lived in Bayt ol-Moqaddas for some years, and after performing the Hajj pilgrimage, returned to his native Iran where he spent the rest of his life in near seclusion – as a Sufi – until his death in his hometown Tous. He was known as “Hojjat al-Islam” (Authority on Islam). He was proficient in theology and philosophy, and resorted to polemics against the “Batinis” at a time when secret Ismaili cells were winning adherents in Iran. He stirred controversy through his work “Tahafat al-Falasafa” (Incoherence of the Philosophers), which is a criticism of the Iranian Islamic genius, Abu Ali Sina’s rational evaluation of Aristotle’s views and the contribution to Islamic philosophy by Abu Nasr Farabi. In response, the Spanish Muslim philosopher, Ibn Rushd (Averroes) wrote “Tahafut at-Tahafut” (Incoherence of the Incoherence), which is a refutation of Ghazali’s views, while in the subsequent century, the brilliant Iranian polymath, Khwajah Naseer od-Din Tusi wrote a highly acclaimed defence of Ibn Sina and Islamic philosophy. Ghazali wrote mainly in Arabic, in addition to a few books in his native Persian including “Kimiya-e Sa’adat” (Alchemy of Happiness), which is actually a summary of his voluminous Arabic work “Ihya Oloum od-Din” (Revival of Religious Sciences).

832 lunar years ago, on this day in 608 AH, prominent judge, historian, and literary figure, Ibn Khallikan, was born in Arbil, Iraq, in a Kurdish family. Educated in Aleppo and Damascus, he lived for several years in Cairo, Egypt, and later served as Chief Judge in Damascus, where he passed away in 681 AH, and was laid to rest in the foothills of the Qassiyoun Mountain. His important works include the famous biographical dictionary in several volumes, titled “Wafiyaat al-Ayaan wa-Anba Abna az-Zamaan" (Deaths of Eminent Men and History of the Sons of the Epoch).

277 solar years ago, on this day in 1741 AD, Vitus Jonassen Bering, the Danish-Russian navigator who helped establish that Asia and America are two separate continents, died at sea at the age of 60. He joined the Dutch navy as a young man, and later the Russian navy. He was commissioned by Tsar Peter the Great to travel the coast of Asia to see if it was connected to North America. He sailed through the Bering Strait in 1728. He discovered Alaska on his second voyage in 1741, with several scientists on board, explored its coast, and discovered the Aleutian Islands. He died stranded during the winter following a shipwreck. The Bering Sea and Bering Island (where he died) are also named for him.

242 solar years ago, on this day in 1776 AD, English-American philosopher and author, Thomas Paine, published one of a series of pamphlets in The Pennsylvania Journal entitled “The American Crisis” to stir up sentiments of the colonists against the British crown. Born in Norfolk, England in 1736 in Quaker family, he came to New England in what is now the US in 1774, and helped foment the American Revolution through his writings, most notably “Common Sense”, an incendiary pamphlet advocating independence from Britain. His sixteen “Crisis” papers, published between 1776 and 1783, helped to inspire the colonists during the ordeals of the revolution. He was an active advocate of the French Revolution as well. In his work "Rights of Man", written in reply to Edmund Burke's criticism of the French Revolution, he dismissed monarchy. He opposed slavery and was among the early advocates of social security. In his works, Paine emphasized on faith and monotheism. He died in New York in 1809.

231 solar years ago, on this day in 1787 AD, Britain seized the West African land of Sierra Leone from the Portuguese occupiers. During Portuguese colonial rule tens of thousands of black men, women and children were sold as slaves in the Americas and Europe. The British continued this inhuman trade and made life miserable for the black people, the overwhelming majority of whom were Muslims. In 1961, Sierra Leone gained its independence and in 1971 became a republic. Sierra Leone covers an area of 71740 sq km. It is situated in West Africa and has a coastline on the Atlantic Ocean, sharing borders with Guinea and Liberia. Muslims account for over 77 percent of the population, while some 20 percent are Christians.

175 solar years ago, on this day in 1843 AD, the British novelist, Charles Dickens, published his masterpiece, “A Christmas Carol”, which depicts how a very rich but stingy person was finally forced to change his miserly habits to help the poor. Dickens who was editor of “Bentley’s Miscellany” a general interest monthly magazine, from January 1837 to 1839, paid tribute to the Martyr of Karbala in it, by writing:

“If Husain had fought to quench his worldly desires…then I do not understand why his sister, wife, and children accompanied him. It stands to reason therefore, that he sacrificed purely for Islam.”

170 solar years ago, on this day in 1848 AD, English novelist and poetess, Emily Jane Bronte, died at the age of 31. The second of the three Bronte sisters – the eldest being the famous Charlotte and the younger being Anne – she is best known for her only novel “Wuthering Heights”, now considered a classic of English literature. She wrote under the pen name Ellis Bell.

103 solar years ago, on this day in 1915 AD, German psychiatrist, Alois Alzheimer, who recognized the disease that was subsequently named after him, died at the age of 51. In November 1901, a 51-year old female patient with signs of dementia had been admitted to the Frankfurt hospital where Dr. Alzheimer was working. At a meeting of German psychiatrists in November 1906 he reported on this patient. The title of his lecture was “On a Peculiar Disorder of the Cerebral Cortex”. Later on, at the suggestion of Emil Kraepelin, “presenile dementia” was designated “Alzheimer's Disease”. This disease is a progressive, degenerative disorder that affects the brain. The first symptoms are loss of memory, inability to think and understand and gradual behaviour changes that may last as long as 20 years.

72 solar years ago, on this day in 1946 AD, the First Indochina War (also known as the Franco-Vietnamese War), began and lasted until 1 August 1954. Actually, fighting between Viet Minh revolutionaries and France, which tried to re-occupy Vietnam and neighbouring countries following the Japanese withdrawal from these areas and subsequent defeat in World War 2, started in September 1945. The conflict pitted a range of actors, including the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps, led by France and supported by Emperor Bao Dai's Vietnamese National Army against the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh. Most of the fighting took place in Tonkin in Northern Vietnam, although the conflict engulfed the entire country and also extended into the neighboring French Indochina protectorates of Laos and Cambodia. The first few years of the war involved a low-level rural insurgency against French authority. However, after the Chinese communists reached the northern border of Vietnam in 1949, the conflict turned into a conventional war between two armies equipped with modern weapons supplied by the United States and the Soviet Union. It was called the "dirty war" by supporters of the leftist intellectuals in France (including the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre). It culminated in a decisive French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. After the war, the Geneva Conference on July 21, 1954, made a provisional division of Vietnam at the 17th parallel, with control of the north given to the Viet Minh as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh, and the south becoming the State of Vietnam under Emperor Bao Dai, in order to prevent Ho Chi Minh from gaining control of the entire country. A year later, Bao Dai was deposed by his prime minister, Ngo Dình Diem, creating the Republic of Vietnam. Diem's refusal to enter into negotiations with North Vietnam about holding nationwide elections in 1956, as had been stipulated by the Geneva Conference, eventually led to war breaking out again in South Vietnam in 1959. This time, the US intervened and started the catastrophic Vietnam War, in which hundreds of thousands of innocent people were massacred by the Americans, who had to finally withdraw in humiliation in 1975, as the two parts of Vietnam became united once again into a single country.

36 solar years ago, on this day in 1982 AD, Saddam's Ba'thist forces targeted the southwestern Iranian city of Dezful with a large number of surface-to-surface missiles, martyring 60 civilians and wounding 287 others. Although, earlier Iraqi warplanes had bombarded different Iranian cities on several occasions, martyring many civilians, the attack on Dezful was the first wide-scale missile aggression by Saddam, who on US orders had imposed the 8-year war on the Islamic Republic of Iran. The massive attack on Iranian cities and civilians by Saddam and his subsequent use of internationally banned chemical weapons, supplied by the US and Germany was because of the repeated failure of his forces at the war fronts due to the steadfastness of Iran's combatants.

29 solar years ago, on this day in 1989 AD, US forces launched an illegal raid on Panama in Central America and kidnapped its president, Manuel Noriega, who was locked up in the US till 2007 and then transferred to Paris to stand trial at a Kangaroo court which sentenced him to seven years imprisonment. Later he was brought back to Panama where he is currently serving a 20-year jail term. The fault in the US eyes was that Noriega had tried to break away from Washington's control and assert the independence of his country. The US fears that Noriega would disclose many of the crimes of the US administration against the people of Panama and Central America, if he were allowed freedom.

29 solar years ago, on this day in 1989, Iranian poet and writer of children’s literature, Abbas Yamini Sharif, passed away at the age of 70. He was a pioneer in the development of children’s literature in Iran, and founded elementary schools. In 1953 he traveled to the US where he studied Early Childhood Education. In 1954, he established one of the first private schools in Iran called “Ravesh-e Nou” based on modern methods. He also brought out the first magazine for children, and established the first Children’s Club in Tehran in cooperation with the first children’s radio programmes aired by Iran Radio.

28 solar years ago, on this day in 1990 AD, the head of Islamic Republic of Iran’s Cultural House in Pakistan’s Lahore, Sadeq Ganji, was martyred by terrorists on the payroll of Global Arrogance. After almost four years of strengthening cultural ties between the people of Iran and Pakistan, he was cowardly gunned down while planning to return home at the end of his mission.

10 solar years ago, on this day in 2008 AD, Iran sent a warship to the coast of Somalia to protect its cargo ships against piracy in the Gulf of Aden.

AS/SS