Today is Friday; 7th of the Iranian month of Dey 1397 solar hijri; corresponding to 20th of the Islamic month of Rabi as-Sani1440 lunar hijri; and December 28, 2018, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1125 solar years ago, on this day in 893 AD, a devastating earthquake destroyed the city of Dvin and most of its 70,000 people, in Armenia. Dvin was built by Khosrow III of Armenia in 335 on a site of an ancient settlement and fortress from the 3rd millennium BC. Since then, the city had been used as the primary residence of the Armenian Kings of the Arsacid dynasty. In 428, it became the residence of Sassanid appointed “marzipans” or governors, Byzantine “kouropalates” and later Omayyad and Abbasid appointed “ostikans” (governors). Dvin prospered as one of the most populous and wealthiest cities east of Constantinople. Its prosperity continued even after the partition of Armenia between Romans and Sassanid Persians, and eventually it became a target during the height of the Muslim conquests. Situated along the banks of the Metsamor River, 35 km to the south of modern Yerevan, the site of the ancient city is currently not much more than a large hill.

557 solar years ago, on this day in 1461 AD, Jam Nizam od-Din II, the most powerful ruler of the Samma Dynasty, succeeded his father Sanjar Sadr od-Din and ruled for 47 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 from 1335 to 1527. 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.

396 solar years ago, on this day in 1622 AD, the English East India Company's ships defeated a Portuguese fleet of twenty-one sail under Admiral Ruy Frere, attacking them near Iran’s Jask Island in the Persian Gulf.

359 solar years ago, on this day in 1659 AD, Maratha rebel Shivaji, after feigning peace and treacherously murdering on November 10 the famous general of eastern Iranian origin, Afzal Khan, of the Persianate Adel-Shahi dynasty of Deccan (southern India), again resorted to deception to defeat near Kolhapur an army led by Rustam Zaman and Hindus opposed to his rule.

306 lunar years ago, on this day in 1134 AH, the Iranian poet and literary figure, Lotf-Ali Bayk Azar Bigdeli, was born in Isfahan. For a while he lived in Qom and Shiraz, and upon returning from the Hajj Pilgrimage, resided in his hometown, Isfahan. Despite famine and insecurity in the wake of internal wars plaguing Iran, he continued his studies under ulema and poets. An eloquent speaker well-versed in poetry, he compiled a large number of works, including a divan of poems, and “Atashkada-e Azar”, which is an anthology of contemporary and past poets.

187 solar years ago, on this day in 1831 AD, Samuel Sharp, an enslaved black African youth led an uprising in Jamaica that was brutally crushed by the British at a great cost. The 8-day uprising led to the death of around 186 Africans. In revenge, the colonial authorities convicted over 750 black people and sentenced to death 138.

159 solar years ago, on this day in 1859 AD, British historian and politician, Thomas Babington Macaulay, died at the age of 59. Born in Leicestershire in a Scottish highlander family, he studied law and worked as an attorney, before turning to politics. He became a member of parliament, and after resigning was sent to India as Secretary to the Board of Control. An expert of the English language, during his 4-year tenure in British-ruled India from 1834 to 1838, he made English compulsory and discouraged the use of Persian which for centuries had been the court and official language of the Subcontinent, besides being the strategic cultural and religious link of the Muslims of South Asia with Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia. He was scornful of the wisdom of the east, including the rich Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit heritage of India. He made English the medium of education in order to create Anglicised Indians, detached from their native culture and serving the interests of their colonial masters. Till this day in Indian culture, the term “Macaulay's Children” is used to refer to people born of Indian ancestry who adopt western culture as a lifestyle, or display attitudes influenced by the colonisers. On his return to Britain, Macaulay was elected to the parliament and later appointed war minister.

133 solar years ago, on this day in 1885 AD, the Indian National Congress was founded by members of the occultist movement known as the Theosophical Society by Allan Octavian Hume, Dadabhai Naorozji, Dinshaw Wacha, Surendranath Banerjee, and William Wedderburn. It led the Indian Independence Movement against British rule. After independence in 1947, it became the dominant political party, led by the Nehru-Gandhi family for the most part. Today its dominance has been eroded, and it is only able to form coalition governments with other parties.

124 solar years ago, on this day in 1895 AD, a motion picture was shown for the first paying audience Grand Café in Paris, marking the debut of the cinema. It was produced by the celebrated French inventors and founders of the film industry, the Lumiere Brothers – Auguste and Louis – who earlier in March the same year had screened at a private audience the first movie showing workers leaving the Lumières' factory in Lyon.

110 solar years ago, on this day in 1908 AD, an earthquake of 7.2 degrees hit the city of Messina, in Sicily, killing over 75,000 people. The Italian mainland also suffered heavy damage, and the shocks were felt within a 300 km. Moments after the quake, a 12 m tsunami struck nearby coasts causing even more devastation. 91% of structures in Messina were destroyed.

59 lunar years ago, on this day in 1381 AH, Ayatollah Sheikh Hashim Mudarris Qazvini passed away. Born in Qazvin, after completing his religious studies in his hometown, he joined the Islamic seminary at Isfahan for higher studies, before moving six years later to holy Mashhad, where he taught for forty years. Among his students was the future Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

50 solar years ago, on this day in 1968 AD, the illegal Zionist entity, in violation of international laws, attacked Beirut International Airport, destroying 13 civilian planes of several countries sitting on the tarmac. The pretext was an alleged attack on an Israeli airliner in Athens that was blamed on the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), but it was no justification to breach the sovereignty of an independent country and destroy the airliners of third countries.

44 solar years ago, on this day in 1974 AD, prominent religious leader, Ayatollah Hussain Ghaffari, attained martyrdom in the dungeon of the Shah's despotic regime. He led a simple life, and through writing books and publication of a magazine, exposed the crimes of the Pahlavi regime against the nation. A brilliant orator, his speeches revealed to the people the widespread corruption of the Pahlavi regime. As a result he was frequently detained by the regime, which tortured him to death this day.

39 solar years ago, on this day in 1979 AD, the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA), ordered public mobilization in Iran for uprooting illiteracy by launching the Literacy Movement Organization. Part of his historical declaration reads: “Now, without wasting time and without any unnecessary formalities, we launch the movement for rapid uprooting of illiteracy so that, God-willing, everyone would be able to read and write in the near future.” Today, over three decades later, Iran has the one of the highest literacy rates in the world, as per UNESCO records.

35 lunar years ago, on this day in 1405 AH, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Khwansari passed away at the age of 96 in Tehran and was laid to rest in the holy shrine of Hazrat Fatema al-Ma’soumah (SA) in Qom. His lineage goes back by 30 ancestors to Imam Musa Kazem (AS), the 7th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). His father Mirza Yusuf and his grandfather Mirza Baba were both religious scholars. His initial teachers were his elder brother Seyyed Mohammad Hassan and his sister's husband, Seyyed Ali Akbar Bidihindi. At the age of 16 he travelled to Iraq for higher studies at the seminary of holy Najaf, where his teachers included Akhond Khorasani, Sheikh ash-Shari’ah Isfahani, Mirza Mohammad Hussain Na'ini, Ziya od-Din Iraqi, Seyyed Mohammad Kazem Tabataba'i al-Yazdi, and Sheikh Abdul-Kareem Ha'iri Yazdi. On his return to Iran, he taught theology, Islamic philosophy, and jurisprudence at the seminary of holy Qom. For a while, he was sent by Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hussain Boroujerdi to Tehran, where beside his religious activities, he joined the ulema in the struggle against the despotic rule of the British-installed and US-backed Pahlavi regime. His students included the philosopher, Ayatollah Martyr Morteza Motahhari. He wrote several books, the most important of which is “Jame’ al-Madarek” in Arabic in the field of jurisprudence in 14 volumes that took some three decades to complete, and is a commentary on “al-Mukhtasar an-Nafe’” of Muhaqqiq Hilli.

18 solar years ago, on this day in 2000 AD, the prominent religious leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Baqer Musavi Hamedani, passed away at the age of 75.Born in Hamedan, he enrolled the seminary of holy Qom at the age of 16 and had the honour of being a student of the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA). He was active during the 15^th of Khordad Uprrising (June 5, 1963) against the British-installed and US-backed Pahlavi regime. A prolific writer, his proficiency in Persian and Arabic, led to his masterly rendering into Persian of the al-Mizan Exegesis of the holy Qur’an, the masterpiece of the great philosopher, Allamah Seyyed Mohammad Hussain Tabtabai. He also translated into Persian the 2-volume jurisprudential manual “Tahrir al-Wasila” of Imam Khomeini. He authored in Arabic the excellent book “Imam Ali fi Kutub Ahl as-Sunnah” (Merits of Imam Ali (AS) in Sunni Books).

9 solar years ago, on this day in 2009 AD, on Ashura, the 10^th of Muharram, in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, some fifty mourners were martyred and hundreds of others injured while commemorating the tragedy of Karbala and the martyrdom of Imam Husain (AS), the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), when Takfiri terrorists blew up through remote control in the midst of a procession of mourners an unsuspecting person to whom they had handed a suitcase full of explosives, along with money as bribe to carry it through the crowd. On the same day, in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, a similar cowardly act of terrorism was carried out by the Takfiris at a procession of mourners, resulting in the martyrdom of a dozen people and wounding over a hundred others. The Takfiris are financed by Saudi Arabia and provided ammunitions by CIA and Zionist agents to tarnish the image of Islam through such dastardly acts.

5 solar years ago, on this day in 2013 AD, the repressive Aal-e Khalifa minority regime of Bahrain, arrested prominent religious leader, Shaikh Ali Salman, the head of the main opposition bloc al-Wefaq, as part of the US-Saudi-Zionist plot to crush the Shi’a Muslim majority. Though released, in 2015 he was again illegally arrested and in a sham trial sentenced to a 9-year prison term on trumped up charges, despite the fact he and his followers advocate a peaceful non-violent struggle for materialization of their birthrights.

AS/SS