Today is Saturday; 22nd of the Iranian month of Dey 1397 solar hijri; corresponding to 5th of the Islamic month of Jumadi al-Awwal 1440 lunar hijri; and January 12, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1435 lunar years ago, on this day in the year 5 AH, the first granddaughter of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) was born in Medina to the proud parents, Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA) and Imam Ali (AS). The Prophet named her “Zainab”, meaning “Ornament of the Father”. As an epitome of virtue, she grew up with her elder brothers, Imam Hasan (AS) and Imam Husain (AS). Her piety, wisdom, knowledge, patience, courage and eloquence, were ably displayed during the tragedy of Karbala and its equally tragic aftermath when, she, along with her younger sister, Hazrat Omm Kulthoum (SA) and nephew, Imam Zain al-Abedin (AS), exposed the hypocrisy of the tyrannical Omayyad regime, despite being forced to stand as enchained prisoners in Damascus in the court of the despicable Yazid. Hazrat Zainab (SA), whose two youthful sons attained martyrdom in Karbala, universalized and immortalized the mission of her martyred brother, Imam Husain (AS), and thus nursed back to life the pure and pristine Islamic message of her grandfather. Her auspicious birthday is celebrated as Nurse Day in Islamic Iran, as a tribute to her selfless sacrifices for humanity.

1118 lunar years ago, on this day in 322 AH, Qaher-Billah, the 19th self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime, was deposed after only two years of rule; and when in the state of drunkenness he refused to abdicate, his eyes were blinded, and he was cast into prison. Eleven years later he was freed, and was at times seen in beggar's rags and wooden sandals – a sad contrast to his high-sounding title “al-Qaher-Billah” which means "Victorious by the Will of God." He died in poverty in 339 AH at the age of 54, six years after his release from prison and 17 years after losing the caliphate. He had been made caliph when his profligate brother Muqtadir-Billah was deposed, beaten and killed by the courtiers, who feared that the latter’s son might avenge his father's death. Qaher turned out to be even worse, and committed every excess of cruelty and extortion. He tortured his stepmother (mother of Muqtadir) to squeeze wealth from her. He then walled alive his nephew, the son of Muqtadir, in order to remove any rival. Qaher was succeeded by a nephew who survived, named Raazi-Billah, who during his 7-year rule returned the vast orchard of Fadak to the direct descendants of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). Fadak was the personal property of the Prophet and was situated north of Medina near Khaybar. The Prophet had given it to his daughter, Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA), who used its revenues for the upkeep of the poor and destitute. After the Prophet, the new regime seized Fadak despite the defence of her rights by Hazrat Fatema (SA), who cited ayahs of the holy Qur'an that speak of Prophet Solomon inheriting Prophet David, and Prophet Yahya inheriting Prophet Zachariah.

970 solar years ago, on this day in 1049 AD, Iranian mystic and poet, Abu-Sa’eed Abi’l-Khair, passed away at the age of 81 in Naishapur, in Khorasan. Born in Mihne, near Torbat-e Haidarieh, he was an expert on exegesis of the Holy Qur’an, hadith, and jurisprudence, and was devoted to the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt. The details of his thoughts and life are known from the book “Asrar at-Tawhid” (Mysteries of Monotheism) written by his grandson, Mohammad Ibn Munawwar. Abu Sa’eed was also an accomplished poet, and mostly composed quatrains in Persian. During his life his fame spread throughout the Islamic world including Spain. He was the first Sufi writer to widely use ordinary love poems as way to express mysticism, and as such he played a major role in foundation of Persian Sufi poetry. Abu Sa’eed records several meetings with the famous multisided Iranian-Islamic genius Abu Ali ibn Sina.

465 solar years ago, on this day in 1554 AD, Bayinnaung Kyawhtin Nawrahta, who would go on to build the largest empire in Southeast Asia, was crowned King of Burma. During his 31-year reign, he expanded his empire – often by recruiting Muslim soldiers equipped with firearms. His empire included much of modern-day Myanmar, Thailand, the Chinese Shan states, and Manipur in northeast India. Although he is best remembered for his empire building, Bayinnaung's greatest legacy was his integration of the Shan states into the Irrawaddy-valley-based kingdoms that eliminated the threat of Shan raids into Upper Burma, an overhanging concern since the late 13th century. His Shan policy was followed by Burmese kings right up to the final fall of the kingdom to the British in 1885.

458 lunar years ago, on this day in 982 AH, the exegete of the Holy Qur’an, Mohammad Mostafa Imadi, popularly known as Abu’s-Saud passed away. Born in the vicinity of city of Istanbul, in western Turkey, he was fluent in Turkish, Persian, and Arabic. He also wrote poetry in both Persian and Arabic. He focused upon the social topics of his community, and has left behind numerous books, including “Tafsir Abi’s-Saud”, “Du’a Namah”, and “Qanoun Namah”.

354 solar years ago, on this day in 1665 AD, French mathematician and presenter of the theory of numbers and possibilities, Pierre de Fermat, the author of “About Maximums and Minimums,” died at the age of 64. The West claims he was founder of differential calculus and analysis despite the fact he greatly benefited from the works of Islamic scientists. Although the concept of a derivative in the sense of a tangent line is a very old one, familiar to Greek geometers such as Euclid and Archimedes, this science developed in ancient India as well, where, around 500 AD, the astronomer-mathematician Aryabhata used infinitesimals to study the motion of the moon. In the heyday of Islamic civilization, Ibn al-Haytham greatly developed this science, which in the 12th century was borrowed and improved upon by India's Bhaskara, in whose works differential calculus can be found. It was left to the Iranian Islamic scientist Sharaf od-Din Tousi to discover the derivative of cubic polynomials and his “Treatise on Equations” developed concepts related to differential calculus, such as the derivative function and the maxima and minima of curves.

143 solar years ago, on this day in 1876 AD, US author, journalist, and social activist, Jack London, was born in San Francisco. A pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction, he was one of the first writers to obtain fame worldwide and a large fortune from his fiction alone. He wrote 50 books, produced 200 short stories, 400 nonfiction articles and 20 novels. Some of his famous works are “The Call of the Wild” and “White Fang”, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, and the wolves in the area. His short stories include “To Build a Fire”, and “An Odyssey of the North”. He also wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as “The Pearls of Parlay” and “The Heathen”, and of the San Francisco Bay area in “The Sea Wolf”. A passionate advocate of unionization, socialism, and the rights of workers, he wrote several powerful works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel “The Iron Heel”, his non-fiction exposé “The People of the Abyss”, and “The War of the Classes”. As a war correspondent, London was sent to Korea to cover the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 for the daily San Francisco Examiner. He died in Glen Ellen, California, at the age of 40, of a kidney disease, gastrointestinal uremic poisoning.

122 solar years ago, on this day in 1897 AD, Isaac Pitman, the inventor of the Phonetic Shorthand System, died at the age of 84. His shorthand has been adapted for such diverse languages as Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Latin, Persian, Welsh, and Tamil. In 1837, he set forth a shorthand system based on phonetic rather than orthographic principles.

113 solar years ago, on this day in 1906 AD, Mozaffar od-Din Shah Qajar, had to issue a decree for setting up of the first official Court of Justice in Iran with its nationwide branches, following public pressure led by the ulema on the dictatorial Qajarid Dynasty. The Court of Justice was first proposed by Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Tabatabaie, who along with Ayatollah Seyyed Abdullah Behbahani had staged the month-long sit-in protest at the shrine in Rayy of Seyyed Abdul-Azim Hassani (AS), with the support of several thousand people of Tehran.

84 solar years ago, on this day in 1935 AD, scholar and renowned orator, Seyyed Abu’l-Qassim Dehkordi, passed away in Isfahan at the age of 79. After initial studies in Isfahan, he left for Iraq to complete his higher religious studies at the famous seminary of holy Najaf. On his return to Iran, he settled in Isfahan where he groomed at least 300 scholars.  His discourses from the pulpit would draw in large crowds. He wrote several books including “Jannat al-Maawa” on ethics, and annotation of Fayz Kashani’s “Tafsir Saafi” on ayahs of the holy Qur’an.

55 solar years ago, on this day in 1964 AD, a revolution overthrew the Sultan of Zanzibar and his Arab-Omani government. An ethnically diverse Muslim state consisting of several islands off the east coast of Africa, Zanzibar was granted independence by Britain in 1963. Thereafter a series of parliamentary elections resulted in the Arab-Omani minority retaining the hold on power it had inherited from Zanzibar's former existence as an overseas territory of the Sultanate of Oman. Frustrated by under-representation in parliament despite winning 54% of the vote in the July 1963 election, the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) allied itself with the left-wing Umma Party, and mobilised around 600-to-800 activists. Having overrun the police force and appropriated their weaponry, the insurgents proceeded to Zanzibar Town where they overthrew the Sultan. Reprisals against Arab and South Asian civilians followed; the resulting death toll is disputed, with estimates ranging from several hundred to 20,000. ASP leader Obeid Karume became the new president, and positions of power were granted to Umma party members. In April the same year, the ASP joined Zanzibar with Tanganyika to form the Republic of Tanzania. Islam had been brought over a thousand years ago to Eeast Africa by Iranians from Shiraz, whose descendants are still found in Zanzibar, Tanzania, and Kenya.

49 solar years ago, on this day in 1970 AD, the 30-month civil war ended in Nigeria, as forces of the secessionist state Biafra, surrendered after nearly a million ethnic Igbos died mostly of hunger and disease. Emeka Ojukwu had led some 40 million Igbos in secession.

40 solar years ago, on this day in 1979 AD, during the most sensitive phase of Iran’s Islamic Movement, when the US was making feverish efforts to maintain the British-installed Pahlavi regime, the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA), ordered formation of the Revolutionary Council. Its main duties were to coordinate the people’s struggles against the Shah and set the stage for formation of the interim government after the regime's downfall. Imam Khomeini emphasized not just the ouster of the Shah, but establishment of the Islamic system for guaranteeing people’s freedom, Iran’s independence, and administration of social justice. After the Shah’s ouster, the Revolutionary Council also acted as a lawmaking body until the formation of the elected Majlis (parliament).

22 solar years ago, on this day in 1997 AD, the scholar Ayatollah Qodratollah Vejdani Fakhr passed away. During almost 40 years of teaching, he groomed thousands of students. He would travel around Iran and visit other countries during the annual seminary holidays to enlighten people of the dynamism of Islam. As a disciple of the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA), he stood beside the people against the oppression of the Pahlavi regime. He authored several books such as “Ethical Norms in Islam” and the 16-volume “al-Fakhriyya” on jurisprudence.

19 solar years ago, on this day in 2000 AD, scientists claimed that temperatures of the Earth's surface have risen 0.7-to-1.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century and that the Planet Earth has been warming for the past 300 years.

9 solar years ago, on this day in 2010 AD, Professor Mas’oud Ali Mohammadi, Iran’s nuclear physicist was martyred when a bomb-rigged motorcycle blew up outside his home in Tehran. The assassins were hirelings of the US and the Zionist entity. The next year, on capture and trial, one of the principal assassins, Majid Jamali Fashi confessed that he was an operative of Mossad and had visited the usurper state of Israel.

9 solar years ago, on this day in 2010 AD, a 7-degree earthquake jolted Haiti in the Caribbean Sea, killing over 300,000 people, destroying most of the infrastructure and installations, and making hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

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