Today is Thursday; 25th of the Iranian month of Aban 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 27th of the Islamic month of Safar 1439 lunar hijri; and November 16, 2017, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.
1230 lunar years ago, on this day in 209 AH, the Iranian Sunni Muslim compiler of Hadith, Mohammad Ibn Majah al-Qazvini, was born in Qazvin. He travelled widely through Iran, Iraq, Syria, Hejaz, and Egypt, to gather hadith and compiled his book "Sunan", which contains 4000 hadith. Although later this compilation was included in the "Sihah as-Sitta" or the Six Primary Books of Hadith of Sunni Muslims, it is still regarded as the weakest one. Perhaps for fear of the Abbasid regime, Ibn Majah failed to collect genuine information about the Sunnah and Seerah of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) from the main sources of his time, that is, Imam Ali al-Hadi (AS) and Imam Hasan al-Askari (AS), the 10th and 11th Infallible Imams of the Ahl al-Bayt respectively. Like his Iranian compatriots before him, such as Bukhari, Muslim Naishapuri, Tirmizi, and Abu Dawoud Sijistani, he also did not seek the company of the disciples and companions of the blessed progeny of the Prophet to ascertain whether the hadith he had gathered were really genuine. Ibn Majah died in 273 AH in his hometown Qazvin at the age of 64.
485 solar years ago, on this day in 1532 AD, Francisco Pizarro and his Spanish marauders ambushed and captured Inca Emperor Atahualpa at the great plaza of Cajamarca in what is now Peru, killing counsellors, commanders and thousands of unarmed attendants, following months of espionage and subterfuge. Pizarro, who was born out of wedlock, treacherously executed Atahualpa despite receiving ransom for release of the Inca emperor that filled a room with gold and two rooms with silver, which he split amongst his closest associates after setting aside a share for the Spanish king. The Spaniards indulged in the mass rape of Inca women, and Pizzaro forced Atahualpa's wife to become his mistress, while distributing among his men women of the Incan nobility. Atahualpa’s death effectively ended the Inca resistance, empire and the flourishing native culture.
374 solar years ago, on this day in 1643 AD, Jean Chardin, French-English jeweler and traveler who frequented the courts of Iran and India, was born in Paris. A jeweler’s son with an excellent education, he traveled with a merchant to Iran and India in 1665. At I?fahan, he enjoyed the patronage of Shah Abbas II. He visited the Deccan or southern India by landing at Surat on the coast of Gujarat, before proceeding to the court of King Abdullah Qotb Shah in Golkandeh-Hyderabad, where famous diamond mines were situated. On returning to France via Iran in 1670, he published in 1671 his eyewitness account of the coronation of Shah Soleiman Safavi, titled "Le Couronnement de Soleiman Troisième”.  While in Isfahan, a learned nobleman, Mirza Safi, had taught him the Persian language, and assisted him in this work. Towards the end of 1671 he again set out for Iran by traveling through Turkey, Crimea, and the Caucasus. He reached I?fahan nearly two years later. He remained in Iran for four years, revisited India, and returned to France in 1677 via the Cape of Good Hope. Fleeing French persecution of the Huguenots in 1681, he settled in London, where he became court jeweler and was knighted by King Charles II. In 1683 he represented the East India Company in Holland. He mastered the Persian language and travelled all over Iran, selling jewels to the elites, besides the Safavid Emperor. He became an authority on Iran and the Persianate kingdoms of the Deccan, writing accounts of his travels, meeting with dignitaries, and adventurers. The complete account of his travels first appeared in 1711 in Journal du voyage du chevalier Chardin ("Journal of the Travel of Cavalier Chardin”). His ten-volume book in English "The Travels of Sir John Chardin” is regarded as one of the finest works of early Western scholarship on Iran and the Subcontinent in general. Chardin's style of writing is simple and graphic, and he gives a faithful account of what he saw and heard. His work received praise from a number of thinkers of his age, among them Montesquieu, Rousseau, Voltaire and Edward Gibbon. Latter-day scholars of Iran also vouch for his importance. According to John Emerson, "his information on Safavid Persia outranks that of all other Western writers in range, depth, accuracy, and judiciousness." He died in London at the age of 70.
133 solar years ago, on this day in 1884 AD, William Wells Brown, African-American abolitionist lecturer, novelist, playwright, and historian, died in Massachusetts at the age of 70. His novel "Clotel”, published in 1853, is considered the first novel written by an Afro-American.
124 lunar years ago, on this day in 1315 AH, the pious scholar, Abu’l-Ma’ali Kalbasi Isfahani passed away at the age of 68 in his native Isfahan. Son of the scholar Mohammad Ibrahim Karbasi, he attained higher degrees and wrote over seventy book and treatises.
120 solar years ago, on this day in 1897 AD, Choudhry Rahmat Ali, who created the name Pakistan, was born in a Gujjar Muslim family in the Hoshiarpur district of Punjab, India. In 1933 AD, the name Pakistan was coined by him and accepted by the Muslims of the northwestern parts of the Indian Subcontinent who campaigned for a separate country. He is the author of the famous 1933 pamphlet titled "Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever," 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 Pak – or 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 pamphlet.
104 solar years ago, on this day in 1913 AD, Sattar Khan, one of the leading activists of Iran’s Constitutional Movement, who earned the title "Sardar-e Melli” (National Commander), passed away. During his youth, he was forced to leave his hometown, Tabriz, northwestern Iran, due to harassment by agents of the despotic Qajarid regime. On the start of the freedom-struggle he returned to Tabriz and joined the uprising. He was one of the leaders of the revolutionaries who marched upon Tehran and forced Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar to abdicate. His warm reception by the people of Tehran alarmed the colonialist powers, Britain and Russia. After a short while, intense clashes erupted between the revolutionaries and agents of the foreign-backed regime. As a consequence, a number of freedom-seekers were killed. Sattar Khan, who was severely wounded, succumbed to his injuries on this day.
72 solar years ago, on this day in 1945 AD, in the wake of French colonial troops' bid to reoccupy Vietnam after the Japanese defeat in World War 2, the struggle for independence of the Vietnamese people began under Ho Chi Minh, who went on to inflict a major defeat on the French forces in 1954. Later the US interfered and messed up matters in Vietnam, until it was defeated and driven out in 1976, after massacring hundreds of thousands of innocent people and ruining the country.
71 solar years ago, on this day in 1946 AD, artificial rain was invented by American meteorologist, Dr. Craig by impregnating clouds with chemical components. However, due to its high costs, it has never become common in any part of the world.
37 solar years ago, on this day in 1980 AD, Iran's southwestern border town of Susangerd witnessed the courageous resistance of the Muslim combatants against the invading forces of Saddam. The defence operations were conducted only by two hundred personnel of the Islamic Revolution's Guards Corps (IRGC), led by Defence Minister Mostafa Chamran and assisted by the lightly-armed local Basijis. The brave Iranian combatants held back enemy tanks and liberated Susangerd from the Ba'thist forces. The victory was achieved despite virtual deprivation of water, food, and ammunitions for almost three days.
25 lunar years ago, on this day in 1414 AH, the Source of Emulation, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Abdul-‘Ala Musawi Sabzevari, passed away at the age of 86 in Najaf – said to be poisoned by the repressive Ba’th minority regime of Baghdad. Born in Sabzevar in Khorasan, northeastern Iran, until the age of 14, he continued his education in Islamic studies and Arabic literature, under his father and uncle, Ayatollah Seyyed Abdullah Burhan, before moving to holy Mashhad where for 8 years he benefited from prominent scholars such as Abdul-Jawad Adib Nayshapuri, Mirza Askar Shahidi (known as Aqa Buzurg Hakim), Seyyed Mohammad Assar Lavasani and Ali Akbar Nahavandi. At the age of 22, he went to Iraq for higher studies at the famous seminary of holy Najaf, where he completed courses in jurisprudence, theology, philosophy, exegesis of the holy Qur’an, and other Islamic sciences, under leading Ayatollahs such as Mirza Hussain Na’ini, Aqa Ziya od-Din Iraqi, Mohammad Hussain Gharavi Isfahani, Seyyed Abu’l-Hassan Isfahani, Seyyed Hussain Badkube'i and others. He learned exegesis of the Qur'an, way of debating and theology through participating in the sessions of Allamah Mohammad Jawad al-Balaghi. He also received permission for hadith transmission and accreditation for Ijtihad from Allamah Mamaqani, Shaikh Abbas Qomi, and while he was only 36 year old, he began teaching advanced jurisprudence courses. At the age of 85 he became head of the Najaf Seminary and Marja’ of world Shi’a Muslims, following the death of Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Abu’l-Qasim Khoei, but passed away after a year. He had memorized the holy Qur’an, and was active in political and social spheres in both Iran and Iraq, firmly supporting the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini. In March 1979, he issued a message hailing the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. In 1991, he issued a fatwa in support of the uprisings of the Iraqi people, and never compromised with Ba'th regime, as a result of which his house was besieged several times. He also sent expert delegations to Europe, North America, and Asian and Arab countries. His major work is the exegesis in 30 volumes titled "Mawahib al-Rahman fi tafsir al-Qur’an”.
19 solar years ago, on this day in 1998 AD, the philosopher and theologian, Allamah Mohammad-Taqi Ja'fari, passed away at the age of 75. Born in Tabriz, northwestern Iran, after elementary school, he studied at the Talebieh seminary, and then moved to Tehran and later to holy Qom, where he studied under some of the leading religious scholars of his time, before leaving for the holy Najaf seminary in Iraq, where he spent 11 years attending the classes of great ulema. Of sharp and inquisitive mind, he had attained ijtehad at the young age of 23. On returning to Iran, he continued to study the new waves of thought and intellectualism that were rapidly spreading throughout the world. This dominated his 60-year academic career, and he entered into lively discussions and debates with leading European intellectuals such as Bertrand Russell and Jean Paul Sartre. Allamah Mohammad Taqi Ja’fari wrote many books on a vast variety of fields, the most prominent of which are his 15-volume "Interpretation and Criticism of Mathnavi”, of the famous Iranian Poet Mowlana Jalal od-Din Roumi's poetical masterpiece, and his unfinished, 27-volume "Translation and Interpretation of the Nahj al-Balagha”. These two major works contain his most important thoughts and ideas in fields like anthropology, sociology, moral ethics, philosophy and mysticism.
17 solar years ago, on this day in 2000 AD, the prominent researcher and writer, Hojjat al-Islam Dr. Mohammad Hadi al-Amini, passed away at the age of 69. Born in Tabriz, he migrated to Iraq in his childhood along with his celebrated father, Allamah Abdul-Hussain Amini, the author of the famous book "al-Ghadeer”. He studied at the seminary of holy Najaf, before graduating from Baghdad University, and went on to obtain PhD from Egypt’s al-Azhar University in Arabic literature. In 1971, he returned to his homeland Iran where he taught at the university, in addition to research and writing of books. Works authored by him include "E’laam Nahj al-Balagha”, "Mu’jam Rijal Fikr wa’l-Adab”, "Itrat dar Qur’an”, and a highly researched work on Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA), the Immaculate Daughter of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).   
(Courtesy: IRIB English Radio – http://parstoday.com/en)