Today is Tuesday; 18th of the Iranian month of Dey 1397 solar hijri; corresponding to 1st of the Islamic month of Jumadi al-Awwal 1440 lunar hijri; and January 8, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

981 lunar years ago, on this day in 459 AH, the Iranian literary figure and poet, Sharaf od-Din Khaled Fini Kashani, was born in Kashan. He served as assistant to the famous Seljuqid vizier Khaja Nizam ul-Mulk Tusi, on whose assassination he resigned his post and settled in the Iraqi port city of Basra, spending his years in study and research. He has penned memoirs of his days in administrative posts at the Seljuqid court in Isfahan. It is a fine specimen of Persian prose and includes poems of prominent classical poets.

695 solar years ago, on this day in 1324 AD, Venetian traveler, Marco Polo, died at the age of 69. He was seventeen years old when he started his long journey to China, along with his father and uncle, visiting several Asian lands, including Iran, both on the way and while returning. During his return journey he escorted Princess Kokachin sent by Kublai Khan from China as a bride for his grandnephew, Arghun Khan, the Ilkhanid Mongol ruler of Iran-Iraq. It took two years for Marco Polo and the bridal party to reach Hormuz by sea from southern China, and when they arrived in Maraghah, the then capital of Iran, the Khan had died and was succeeded by his son, Ghazaan Khan, who married the princess and on conversion to Islam changed his name to Mahmoud. When Marco Polo finally returned to his hometown, Venice in 1291, it was after 24 long years, but with many riches and after travelling some 24,000 kilometers. He related his memoirs to Rustichello da Pisa while both were prisoners of the Genova Republic, mentioning his observations at the court of China’s Mongol Emperor, such as use of paper money, in addition to his observations in other Asian cities and lands, including Iran.

639 lunar years ago, on this day in 801 AH, the fearsome Turko-Mongol invader, Amir Timur Gurkani captured Meerut north of Delhi. Days earlier, he had ordered a general massacre in Delhi, killing tens of thousands of people, before proceeding to the banks of River Ganges to defeat a Hindu force near Tughlaqpur, and an Indian Muslim army under Mubarak Khan. He then defeated Malik Shaikha at Kutila (Hardwar), and started his return march to his capital Samarqand (in what is now Uzbekistan) through the Siwalik Hills, where he gained a victory on the 15th of Jamadi al-Awwal over Ratan Sen and captured Nagarkot (Kangra).

524 lunar years ago, on this day in 916 AH, Da’ud Khan of the Faruqi Dynasty of Khandesh in Central India, died after a reign of 7 years, during which he was totally dependent on his two brothers, Hussain Ali and Yar Ali, with the former serving as vizier of the state. Because of ill advice, he attacked the Nizamshahi Dynasty of Ahmadnagar, but the latter’s army marched into Khandesh, almost making him lose his kingdom which was only saved by his pleas of help to the Sultan of Malwa, who forced him to become his subordinate. His son and successor, Ghazni Khan, was killed by poisoning within ten days of his death, prompting the kingdoms of Berar and Ahmadnagar to install his cousin, Alam Khan, as ruler, a move that was opposed by Mahmoud Shah, the powerful sultan of Gujarat, who instead sent an army to crown another member of the Faruqi Dynasty as Adil Khan III. Founded in 1382 by Malik Ahmad Raja Faruqi, the son of a Rajput convert to Islam who served Sultan Feroze Shah Tughlaq of Delhi, Khandesh and its capital Burhanpur, were annexed by the Moghal Emperor Jalal od-Din Akbar in 1601. The Sultanate was a Persianate society, and made contributions to Persian literature, art and architecture. Islam was promoted through peaceful means, as is evident today by the large number of Tadvi Bhils, and Raj Gonds, who are Muslims.

377 solar years ago, on this day in 1642 AD, Italian scientist, astronomer, and physicist, Galileo Galilei, died at the age of 78. Born in Pisa, he studied literature until the age of 19 before turning to physics and mathematics. With the usage of lens, invented by the famous Muslim astronomer, Ibn al-Haytham, he developed a telescope for observing stars. With this instrument, and with the aid of the writings of Islamic scientists, he wrote that the surface of moon has plains and altitudes and each galaxy is made of small and large stars. He also claimed as his own, the discoveries of Islamic scientists that the Sun is at the centre of the Solar System and other planets, including Earth, revolve round it. These discoveries were already made several centuries earlier in the Islamic world by the renowned Iranian astronomer, Abu-Rayhan Birouni (a follower of Prophet Mohammad’s [SAWA] Ahl al-Bayt), who had proved the orbit of the Earth around the Sun as it rotates on its axis. Following the publication of Galileo’s theory on the movement of earth and other planets of the solar system round the sun, the Roman Church charged him with blasphemy, forcing him to renounce his views or risk execution.

338 solar years ago, on this day in 1681 AD, the Treaty of Radzin ended the five-year war between the Ottoman Empire and the allied countries of Russia and Poland. The Turks were forced to recognize Russia’s sovereignty over much of Ukraine including the capital Kiev and its adjacent districts. Russia was also granted access to the Black Sea, although the Muslim populated Crimean Peninsula remained in Ottoman hands.

239 solar years ago, on this day in 1780 AD, an earthquake of estimated magnitude 7.7 hit the city of Tabriz, Iran, killing about 80,000 people and causing major damage.

229 lunar years ago, on this day in 1211 AH, renowned Iraqi poet-scholar, Sheikh Kazem Tamimi Bahgdad who wrote under the penname “Azari” passed away in his hometown Baghdad at the age of 80. After preliminary studies he went to holy Najaf for higher Islamic studies, and soon mastered jurisprudence, exegesis of the holy Qur’an, hadith, history, literature and philosophy. His famous work is a lengthy ode totaling a thousand couplets, titled “al-Haiyya” on the God-given merits of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA), Imam Ali (AS), and the rest of the Infallible Ahl al-Bayt, along with poetical explanation of the Fundamentals of Faith. He also wrote an excellent elegy on Imam Husain (AS) and the heartrending tragedy of Karbala.

142 solar years ago, on this day in 1877 AD, native Amerindian Chief, Tasunke Witko, whom the Anglo-Saxon occupiers of America, called 'Crazy Horse', fought his last battle against the US Cavalry at Wolf Mountain, Montana Territory, before he was tricked into surrendering, and some months later cowardly shot to death. He took up arms against the US regime to fight encroachments on Amerindian territories and way of life of the Lakota people by the white-skinned occupiers of his homeland. In June 1876 he had defeated the better armed US army at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The US, which was originally made up of the 13 'New England' colonies established by the British occupiers of North America, has almost wiped out the native Amerindians, as part of its expansionist policy of genocide.

131 lunar years ago, on this day in 1309 AH, Grand Ayatolllah Mirza Mohammad Hassan Hussaini Shirazi, issued his historic fatwa against consumption of tobacco in Iran in order to prevent the undermining of Iranian economy by the British colonialists. The inefficient Qajarid king, Naser od-Din Shah, under pressure from Britain granted Major G. F. Talbot a 50-year monopoly for cultivation and production of tobacco in Iran, as well as its exclusive sale and export through the British Regie company. The Iranian people outraged by the selling of national resources and honour for a paltry sum of British pounds, appealed to the religious leaders, who in turn demanded cancellation of the grant. When the Shah remained unmoved and news reached the holy city of Samarra in Iraq, where the leading jurisprudent Grand Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Hussaini Shirazi lived, he promptly sent a telegram to the Iranian king warning him of the ruin he was bringing upon the Iranian economy and harming national sovereignty. When Naser od-Din Shah failed to heed the warnings, Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi had no other choice but issue a Fatwa prohibiting use of tobacco, with the words: “Any use of tobacco from now onwards would be considered war against the Lord of the Age, Imam Mahdi (AS) – the 12^th and Last Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).” Immediately, the people of Iran obeyed the edict, and throughout the country refrained from buying, selling and using tobacco. The ban even spread to the royal palace, where the queen ordered the breaking of all tobacco pipes and the traditional huqqas. When Naser od-Din Shah asked her, on whose orders she had done such a thing, she promptly replied: “On the orders of the person who has legalized husband-and-wife relations between me and you.” The Shah had no other choice but to cancel the tobacco concession.

Born in Shiraz, Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi mastered various branches of Islamic sciences in holy Najaf Iraq, under such great scholars as Ayatollah Sheikh Morteza Ansari Dezfuli, before settling in Samarra, where he passed away at the age of 82. This erudite scholar also championed the rights of Shi’a Muslims in Afghanistan, and sent missionaries to India, Kashmir, the Caucasus, and other parts of the Muslim World. He trained a number of scholars such as the Ayatollahs Sheikh Fazlollah Noori, Mirza Husain Noori Tabarsi, Ismail as-Sadr, Mohammad Hussain Na’ini, Mohammed Kazem Yazdi, Abdul-Karim Ha'eri Yazdi (Reviver of the Qom Seminary), and Mirza Mohammad Taqi Golshani Shirazi (leader of the 1920 revolution of Iraq against British rule).

93 solar years ago, on this day in 1926 AD, Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud, chieftain of a Wahhabi clan from Najd, declared himself king of Hejaz after destroying the holy shrines in Mecca and Medina, and massacring tens of thousands of Muslims in the two holy cities, as well as in Jeddah and Ta’ef. A salaried servant of the British Empire for destabilizing Ottoman rule in Arabia and paid in India currency through the Bombay Presidency, in the 1920s he expanded his territories at the expense of fellow British agent, Sharif Hussein of the Hejaz. He also occupied parts of Yemen and seized the oil-rich lands of the Sh’ite Muslim tribal chiefs on the eastern, Persian Gulf coast of the Arabian Peninsula. In 1932, the British decided to gift him with a kingdom called Saudi Arabia, for his promise to facilitate the planting of the Zionist entity, Israel, in Palestine. The most blasphemously criminal act of Abdul-Aziz was destruction of the sacred cemeteries of Jannat al-Mo’alla in Mecca that housed the holy tombs of family members of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) and of Jannat al-Baqie in Medina that housed the holy shrines of Four of the Prophet’s Twelve Infallible Heirs – Imam Hasan al-Mojtaba (AS), Imam Zain al-Abedin (AS), Imam Mohammad al-Baqer (AS) and Imam Ja’far as-Sadeq (AS).

20 solar years ago, on this day in 1999 AD, Pakistan formally acknowledged that at least 50,000 Pakistanis were being kept as slaves by powerful landlords in the Sindh Province. The acknowledgement was made by Governor Moinuddin Haider. Pakistan is among the countries with the highest number and highest percentage of forced labour. According to the latest figures from Pakistan, about two million people are in bonded labour, mostly in the Sindh and Punjab provinces, particularly in brick kilns, carpet-making, agriculture, fishing, mining, leather tanning, and production of glass bangles;

18 solar years ago, on this day in 2001 AD, the Taliban militia massacred over 300 unarmed Shi’ite Muslims of the Hazara ethnic group in Yakalang in Afghanistan. Created from among Afghan Pashtun refugees in Pakistan, with Saudi money and weapons supplied by the US, the savage militia seized power in Afghanistan and terrorized the country and the people by implementing inhuman medieval European laws in the guise of Islam, until its ouster by the Americans in 2001. The Taliban, like similar terrorist groups, such as al-Qa’eda, Boko Haram, Daesh, and Lashkar-e Jhangavi, preach and practice hatred, violence, and brutal killings of Muslims, as part of the Zionist-Salafi-Imperialist plot to tarnish the image of Islam.

12 solar years ago, on this day in 2007 AD, the Iranian historian and researcher, Hojjat al-Islam Ali Davani, passed away at the age of 78. Born near the city of Kazeroun, in southern Iran, at the age of 14 he left for the seminary of holy Najaf in Iraq for learning Islamic sciences. He returned to Iran five years later and continued studies under prominent figures, such as Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hussain Boroujerdi, and the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA). He soon attained the status of Ijtehad. He was an expert on Islamic history and wrote 110 books and numerous articles in this regard. His books include "The Movement of Iranian Ulema", which is in ten volumes. He was compiling the "Alawid Encyclopedia" when death overtook him.

AS/SS