Today is Monday; 8th of the Iranian month of Bahman 1397 solar hijri; corresponding to 21th of the Islamic month of Jamadi al-Awwal 1440 lunar hijri; and January 28, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1204 solar years ago, on this day in 814 AD, Charlemagne, the king of Franks, died at the age of 72. After his conquest of Italy and central Europe he was crowned the first Roman Emperor in Western Europe after three centuries by Pope Leo III. Throughout his long 45-year reign, he was brutal in his suppression of opposition to his rule, but his attempts to expand his dominion into Muslim Spain met with defeat and a historical retreat that resulted in the complete destruction of his rearguard by the Basques in the Pyrenees. When a clock was sent to him from Baghdad by the scientifically advanced Muslims, Charlemagne and the Europeans who were living in the dark ages were for long suspicious of the mechanical object and thought that a genie was inside it, showing the time of the day and the passing hours.

1119 lunar years ago, on this day in 320 AH, acclaimed Muslim physician, philosopher, and geographer, Ahmad ibn Ja'far ibn al-Jazzar al-Qayrawani, was born in Qayrawan in what is now Tunisia during the rule of Fatemid Ismaili Shi'ite Muslim dynasty of North Africa. Known to medieval Europe by his Latinized name Algizar. He authored several books on grammar, history, jurisprudence, medicine, prosody, etc. His book on medicine titled “Zaad al-Musafer”, was translated as “The Viaticum” in Latin, and later translated into Greek and Hebrew. It was copied, recopied, and printed in France and Italy till the sixteenth century, and was used in Europe as a medical education text, along with “al-Qanoun fi't-Tibb” (The Canon of Medicine) of the famous Iranian Islamic genius, Abu Ali ibn Sina. Ibn al-Jazzar also wrote a book on sleep disorders and another one on forgetfulness and how to strengthen memory, titled “Kitab an-Nisyaan wa-Ṭuruq Taqwiyat az-Zakira”. He also wrote books on pediatrics, sexual disorders, leprosy, therapeutics and animals.

829 lunar years ago, on this day in 610 AH, Mu'tazzalite literary figure and lexicographer, Burhan od-Din Nasser bin Abdus-Seyyed Matrazi, passed away at the age of 74 in his homeland Khwarazem in Central Asia which was part of Iran. He is known as successor to the famous Iranian exegete of the Holy Qur'an, hadith scholar, and lexicographer, Jarallah Zamakhshari, who passed away in the year that Matrazi was born. His famous book on lexicography is titled “al-Maghreb fi Lughat al-Fiqh”. He wrote numerous other books including a commentary on the Arabic literary masterpiece “Maqamaat Hariri”.

389 solar years ago, on this day in 1629 AD, the coronation of 18-year old Sam Mirza as Shah Safi took place, as the 6th ruler of the Safavid Empire, ten days after the death of his grandfather, Shah Abbas I. He was the son of Mohammed Baqer Mirza, the eldest son of Shah Abbas I, and his Georgian wife, Dilaram Khanum. An inefficient ruler, he ruthlessly eliminated anyone he regarded as a threat to his power, and paid little attention to state affairs and had no cultural or intellectual interests, preferring to spend his time in his addiction to opium. He, however, abhorred tobacco smoke like his grandfather, going as far as to have those caught smoking tobacco in public brutally killed. The dominant political figure of Safi's 13-year reign was Saru Taqi, appointed grand vizier in 1634. Taqi was incorruptible and highly efficient at raising revenues for the state. Iran's foreign enemies took opportunity to exploit Safi's perceived weakness. The Ottomans made incursions in the west in 1630 and 1634 (briefly occupying Revan and Tabriz) and in 1638 they succeeded in seizing Baghdad from Iran. Nevertheless, the Treaty of Zuhab signed in 1639 put an end to all further wars between the Safavids and the Ottomans. Apart from the Ottoman attacks, Iran was troubled by the Uzbeks and Turkmens in the northeast and lost Qandahar in what is now Afghanistan to the Moghal Empire of the Subcontinent in 1638.

317 solar years ago, on this day in 1701 AD French mathematician and traveler, Charles Condamine, was born in Paris. In 1735, he led a delegation for measurement of the meridian, which took about ten years. He died in 1774.

271 solar years ago, on this day in 1757 AD, Ahmad Shah Abdaali (Durrani) of what is now Afghanistan invaded India, annexed the Punjab and briefly occupied Delhi to save the tottering Moghal dynasty and the people from the raids of the Maratha marauders. An ethnic Pashtun general of Nader Shah Afshar of Iran, he had taken part in the latter’s triumphal Iranian march on Delhi in 1739. On Nader Shah’s death, Ahmad Khan Durrani seized control of the eastern parts of Iranian Khorasan and the Pashto-speaking regions of the Moghul Empire of India to set up the first independent Afghan state and declare himself king in 1747, although the term Afghanistan was officially used by the first time in 1857. In 1761, Ahmad Shah again invaded India to inflict a shattering defeat on the Marathas at the 3^rd Battle of Panipat, thus ending, once and for all, their dreams of empire in India.

274 solar years ago, on this day in 1754 AD, the word “Serendipity” meaning a “fortuitous happenstance” or “pleasant surprise” was coined from Persian by British man of letters, Horace Walpole. In a letter to a friend he explained an unexpected discovery he had made by reference to a Persian tale titled “The Three Princes of Serendip”, who were “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.” “Serendip” was the ancient Iranian name for Sri Lanka. In its modern vernacular, “serendipity” is commonly associated with luck and accidental discovery. The notion of serendipity is a common occurrence throughout the history of scientific innovation such as Alexander Flemming's accidental discovery of Penicillin in 1928, and the invention of the microwave oven by Percy Spencer in 1945, to name but a few. In contrast, “Bahramdipity” is derived from the 15th Sassanid Emperor of ancient Iran, Bahram Gur, and means suppression of serendipitous discoveries or research results by powerful individuals.

198 solar years ago, on this day in 1820 AD, a Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev discovered the Antarctic continent in the South Pole.

172 solar years ago, on this day in 1846 AD, the Battle of Aliwal, in Punjab near Ludhiana was won by the superior tactics of British troops, making it a turning point in the First Anglo-Sikh War. The Sikhs after losing over 2000 of their soldiers retreated in a disorderly manner, abandoning 67 canons and their camp baggage.

136 solar years ago, on this day in 1882 AD, Moroccan freedom fighter and patriot, Amir Abdul-Karim al-Khattabi, was born. He struggled against the Spanish and French domination of Morocco and formed a resistance core in the mountainous regions. In World War I, Spain, intent on expanding its territory massacred many Muslims in Morocco. After the termination of war and the growth of the movement of Moroccan revolutionaries, France slaughtered thousands of Moroccan Muslims that virtually eliminated the revolution against the Spanish and French occupiers after 18 years of resistance. He was exiled to Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, and later moved to Egypt, where under President Jamal Abdun-Naser, he presided over the Liberation Committee of the Maghreb from European colonial rule. He died in 1963.

122 solar years ago, on this day in 1896 AD, Giuseppe Fiorelli, Italian archaeologist whose systematic excavation at Pompeii helped to preserve much of the ancient city as nearly intact as possible and contributed significantly to modern archaeological methods, died at the age of 72. Fiorelli's initial work at Pompeii was completed in 1848. With his next excavations at Pompeii (1860), he pioneered his meticulous method of studying archaeological strata; observation, recording, preservation (including building a museum), and reporting were its fundamental features. In particular he studied the materials and building methods utilized at Pompeii. It was his idea to pour liquid plaster into the spaces left by decomposed bodies in the beds of ashes to produce casts representing the original victims. It was in August 79 AD that Mount Vesuvius in Italy erupted, burying in volcanic ash and molten lava the Roman cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae, which were notorious as vice dens of the Empire. An estimated 20,000 people were struck by divine wrath. Today, Pompeii, whose excavation has provided an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a Roman city, including the erotic and sinful ways of the pagans, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here it is necessary to recall the warnings of God Almighty in the holy Qur’an to mankind to travel around the world to see the ruins of the past nations and reflect on the fate that befell unrepentant sinners. Pompeii and its inhabitants were destroyed after due warnings, years before the major eruption of Vesuvius. In 62 AD, a major earthquake had devastated most of the city. Although preceded over the past decades with small-scale tremblers, this severe earthquake was clearly a divine warning to the people to leave their sinful and erotic ways or else face the wrath of the All-Merciful God that finally descended 17 years later. Many inhabitants moved to other cities, fearing divine punishment, while others remained, or came from other cities in pursuit of carnal pleasures and were struck by divine wrath.

85 solar years ago, on this day in 1933 AD the name ‘PAKISTAN’ was coined by Choudhary Rahmat Ali Khan who campaigned for a separate country made up of the five predominantly Muslim populated regions of the Subcontinent in the northwest. He authored the famous 1933 pamphlet titled “Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever”, which is also known as the Pakistan Declaration. The pamphlet started with the famous statement: “At this solemn hour in the history of India, when British and Indian statesmen are laying the foundations of a Federal Constitution for that land, we address this appeal to you, in the name of our common heritage, on behalf of our thirty million Muslim brethren who live in PAKSTAN – by which we mean the five Northern units of India, namely: Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Kashmir, Sindh and Baluchistan.” In a subsequent book, Rahmat Ali discussed the etymology in further detail, saying: “PAKISTAN is both a Persian and an Urdu word. It is composed of letters taken from the names of all our South Asia homelands; that is, Punjab, Afghania (or Pashtun-speaking areas of the Subcontinent), Kashmir, Sindh and Balochistan. It means the land of the Paks – the spiritually pure and clean.” In 1947, at the birth of the country he had envisaged, he was unhappy over a Smaller Pakistan than the one he had conceived in his 1933 pamphlet.

49 solar years ago, on this day in 1390 AH, Allamah Abdul-Hussain Amini, the renowned Islamic scholar and theologian, and compiler of the valuable book “al-Ghadeer”, passed away at the age of 68 in the holy city of Najaf in Iraq. He was born in the city of Tabriz, in north-western Iran, in a religious family, and after completion of preliminary studies, left for holy Najaf, where he attended the classes of prominent ulema, such as Shaikh Abdul-Karim Haeri and Mirza Mohammad Hussein Na’ini. Soon he attained the status of Ijtehad at a relatively young age, and started writing books. His most valuable work is the 11-volume book titled “al-Ghadeer fi’l-Kitab wa’s-Sunna wa’l-Adab”, in which he refers to the ayahs of the holy Qur’an, the Prophet’s hadith and Arabic literature, regarding the historical event of Ghadeer-Khom on the 18th of Zilhijja 10 AH, when Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) while returning from his Farewell Hajj Pilgrimage was commanded by God Almighty to proclaim Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS) as his vicegerent. While writing this book Allamah Amini endured the hardships of travel to several lands, including India, Turkey, Syria, Egypt and Iraq to study different sources. He gathered from Sunni sources the narrations of at least 110 Sahaba or the Prophet’s companions about the event of Ghadeer, and recorded the Hadiths narrated in this regard by 360 reliable narrators. He wrote several other books such as an exegesis of the Holy Qur’an. He founded a large library in holy Najaf, which stands to this day and is used by scholars.

39 solar years ago, on this day in 1979 AD, the fugitive Shah’s premier, Shapour Bakhtiar, tried to deceive the nation by announcing he would visit Paris for talks with the Father of Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA). The Imam, however, quelled this deceptive move by saying he will meet Bakhtiar only when he resigns as prime minister and comes as an ordinary Iranian citizen. Meanwhile, on this day the people of Tehran gathered near Mehrabad Airport to make arrangements for according a glorious welcome to Imam Khomeini on his eventual return home from exile, dauntless of the savagery of the regime against peaceful protestors.

AS/SS