Today is Saturday; 6th of the Iranian month of Shahrivar 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 24th of the Islamic month of Zi’l-Qa’dah 1437 lunar hijri; and August 27, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.
2495 solar years ago, on this day in 479 BC, Persian forces led by Mardonius, the Iranian governor of Greece and Macedonia, who was the son-in-law of Emperor Darius 1, were routed by Pausanias, the Spartan commander of the Greek army in the Battle of Plataea, which marked a turning point in the Greek-Persian Wars. The battle was fought near the city of Plataea in the Peloponnese Peninsula, between an alliance of Greek city-states, including Sparta, Athens, Corinth and Megara, against the Achaemenid Empire of Xerxes I. The previous year the Iranian army, led by the emperor in person, had scored victories at the battles of Thermopylae and Artemisium and conquered Thessaly, Boeotia and Attica. However, at Salamis, the allied Greek navy won an unlikely victory, preventing the conquest of the Peloponnesus. Xerxes then returned to Iran with much of his army, leaving his brother-in-law, General Mardonius, to finish off the Greeks the following year. It is said that the rashness of Mardonius was the cause of the loss of the battle and his own loss of life, despite the fact that in the past twenty years he had been a key element of Iranian domination over the Greeks.
1686 solar years ago, on this day in 330 AD, Constantinople was founded by Emperor Constantine 1 as the new capital of the Roman Empire at the ancient town of Byzantium. The city was built on seven hills on the Sea of Marmara overlooking Asia Minor, and was an impregnable fortress. For over a thousand years, it was the seat of Christianity, until its conquest in 1453 by the Ottoman Emperor, Sultan Mohammad al-Fateh, who changed its name to Islambol and made it the capital of his empire that straddled Europe and Asia – with parts of Africa added in the subsequent century. Popularly called Istanbul, it was the Ottoman capital till 1923, and is Turkey’s most important and populous city today, spanning both the European and Asian sides of the Bosporus Strait.
1267 solar years ago, on this day in 749 AD, the Abbasid general Qahtaba Ibn Shabib-at-Ta’i, who played a leading role against the uprooting of the Ommayad caliphate, died in battle near Kufa. He was a Khorasani, belonging to the Yemeni tribal confederation that formed the bulk of the local Muslim population. While on a visit to Mecca he met Ibrahim Ibn Mohammad Abbasi who appointed him military leader for the simmering anti-Ommayad uprising in Khorasan, where the popular sentiments of the Iranian people for the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) were being deceitfully exploited by the Abbasids for their own nefarious goals. This appointment was accepted by the main Abbasid leader and propagandist in Khorasan, the Iranian general, Behzadaan Pour-Vandaad, known as Abu Muslim Khorasani. Following the fall of Merv to the Khorasanis in February 748, Qahtaba took charge of the Abbasid forces that chased the Ommayad governor of Khorasan, Nasr ibn Sayyar. His army took Naishapur, where Nasr had sought refuge, defeated a 10,000-strong Ommayad force at Gorgan in August and subsequently took Rayy near modern Tehran. In March 749 he defeated a larger Ommayad army near Isfahan, and then captured Nahavand after a siege, before moving towards Iraq. Qahtaba’s army advanced swiftly with the aim of taking Kufa, but was confronted by the Ommayad governor, Yazid ibn Hubayra. Qahtaba was able to launch a surprise night attack on the Ommayad camp, forcing Yazid and his troops to flee to Waset. Qahtaba lost his life in this battle, but his son Hassan assumed command and took possession of Kufa on September 2. Both Hassan and his brother, Humayd, were important military leaders in the early decades of the Abbasid regime. Humayd Ibn Qahtaba was given the estate of Sanabad by the Abbasids, and it was here that the Prophet’s 8th Infallible Heir, Imam Reza (AS), was laid to rest on his martyrdom through poisoning, and which place is now the sprawling holy shrine of Mashhad.
1237 lunar years ago, on this day in 200 AH, Imam Reza (AS), the 8th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), started his historic journey from his hometown Medina to Merv in Khorasan, where Mamoun the 7th self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime, had forced him to come, in order to isolate him from the followers of the Ahl al-Bayt. The Imam turned this into an opportunity by preaching the genuine message of Islam to the eager masses wherever the caravan stopped in the cities on the route, such as Basra, Ahvaz, Yazd, and especially Naishapur in northeastern Iran, where he narrated to a 20,000-plus gathering the famous Hadith Silsalat az-Zahab or Golden Chain of Authority. He quoted his father and forefathers as relating from the Prophet who was informed by Archangel Gabriel of God’s expression: "The phrase ‘there is no god but Allah’ is My strong fortress and whoever enters My strong fortress is immune from My wrath’. When the caravan started to move the Imam protruded his head from the canopied litter atop the camel and told the gathering: "But there are certain condition, and I am one of these conditions”. He meant to say that only devotion to the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt and their path guarantees entry into Allah’s strong fortress in order to be immune from divine wrath. In Merv, which is presently in Turkmenistan, Mamoun while greeting the Imam offered to abdicate the caliphate in his favour, but the Prophet’s successor aware of the intricate plot to tarnish the impeccable image of the Ahl al-Bayt, politely turned it down. The crafty caliph then forced him, against his will, to become his heir-apparent. To the astonishment of the Abbasid regime, the Iranian masses flocked to Imam Reza (AS), showing him reverence throughout the almost three years he was in Khorasan. An exasperated Mamoun stealthily gave a fatal dose of poison, as a result of which Imam Reza (AS) attained martyrdom and was laid to rest in Sanabad near Tous, which soon grew into Mashhad-e Reza or simply Mashhad as it is known till this day.   
1128 lunar years ago, on this day in 309 AH, the Iranian Muslim mystic, Hussein Mansour al-Hallaj, was executed in Baghdad by the Abbasid caliph, Muqtadar-Billah, on charges of heresy for uttering blasphemous remarks such as "there is nothing in my turban and cloak except God” and the phrase "an’al-Haq” (I am the Absolute Truth). He was a student of the two famous Iranian Sufi masters, Sahl Ibn Abdullah at-Tustari and Junayd Baghdadi, and was expelled by both of them for his weird views. Born in Fars province to a cotton-carder, as indicated by his family name "Hallaj”, he memorized the holy Qur’an at a young age and would often join other mystics in study. He was an Ismaili Muslim and performed at least three Hajj pilgrimages to Mecca, where he once stayed for a year, fasting and in total silence. He traveled widely as far as India and Central Asia, and wrote and taught along the way, gaining followers, many of whom accompanied him on his second and third trips to Mecca. He settled in the Abbasid capital Baghdad, where his weird utterances invited trouble. On refusing to renounce his beliefs, he was flogged, amputated, hanged, burnt, and his remains thrown into the River Tigris.
482 solar years ago, on this day in 1534 AD, Ismail Adel Shah, the 2nd king of the dynasty of Iranian origin of Bijapur in southwest India, died at the age of 36 after a reign of 24 years, while on a campaign against the neighbouring sultanate of Golkandeh, ruled by the Qutb Shahi dynasty – also of Iranian origin. In the footsteps of his father, Yusuf Adel Shah, the founder of the dynasty who was from Saveh in Iran, he was a devout follower of the school of the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). He patronized ulema, scholars, poets, physicians and even soldiers migrating from Iran to the Deccan. He never lost a battle, and his artillery units were considered formidable. The kingdom of Bijapur that lasted for 187 years until its annexation by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb of Hindustan (or northern subcontinent) was a Persianate state. It is worth noting that Yusuf Adel Shah had declared the Shi’a Islam as the state religion almost a decade before Shah Ismail I founded the Safavid Dynasty in Iran and decreed Shi’a Islam as state religion.
258 lunar years ago, on this day in 1179 AH, Najm od-Dowla, the Nawab Nazim of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, died of fever within a year of succeeding his father, Mir Ja’far Najafi – known in Indian history as "Traitor” for betraying the legitimate ruler, Nawab Siraj od-Dowla, to the British during the Battle of Plassey. He was succeeded to the nominal office under British protection by his brother, Sayf od-Dowla. Of Iranian origin, the Nawabs of Bengal promoted Persian language in their realm in what is now Bangladesh, and India’s Bengal and Bihar.
246 solar years ago, on this day in 1770 AD, German philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, was born. On France’s occupation of Germany in 1806, he was influenced by the characteristics of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Hegel divided history into several phases and believed that its course is determined by God. He wrote several books including "The Phenomenology of Spirit”, "Science of Logic”, and "Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences”. He died in 1831.
120 solar years ago, on this day in 1896 AD, the shortest war in world history took place between Britain and Zanzibar, lasting only 40 minutes from 09:05 hours local time to 09:45 hours. The cause of the war was the death of the pro-British Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini two days earlier and the subsequent succession of Sultan Khalid bin Barghash. The British authorities preferred Hamoud bin Mohammed, who was more favourable to British interests, as sultan.
71 solar years ago, on this day in 1945 AD, the English oriental scholar, Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, died at the age of 77. He started as a language lecturer at Cambridge University, and conducted extensive research on Persian and Arabic literature. He was a great admirer of the acclaimed Iranian poet and mystic, Mowlana Jalal od-Din Rumi, whose famous "Mathnavi” he translated into English in several volumes, along with a detailed commentary – the result of his 25-year long research. Nicholson, as a teacher of the great poet-philosopher of the Subcontinent, Muhammad Iqbal Lahori, translated the latrer’s first philosophical Persian poetry book "Asrar-e Khudi” into English as "The Secrets of the Self”. He also wrote the book "A Literary History of the Arabs”. Another prominent student of Nicholson was Arthur John Arberry, an Arabic-Persian expert and a Rumi admirer, who completed an academic English translation of the holy Qur’an as well as translation of Iqbal’s long ode in Persian "The Javid-Namah”.
(Courtesy: IRIB English Radio – http://parstoday.com/en)