Today is Sunday; 16th of the Iranian month of Farvardin 1394 solar hijri; corresponding to 15th of the Islamic month of Jamadi as-Sani 1436 lunar hijri; and April 5, 2015, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.
1363 lunar years ago, on this day in 73 AH, Abdullah ibn Zubayr, the claimant to the caliphate, was killed in Mecca at the age of 72 by Hajjaj ibn Yousuf, the Omayyad governor of Iraq. Born to Zubayr bin Awwam, the son of Prophet Mohammad’s (SAWA) paternal aunt, Safiya; his mother Asma was the daughter of Abu Bakr, the first self-styled caliph. He was seditious and crafty and misinterpreted and misused religion for his worldly ambitions. He was closely attached to his maternal aunt, Ayesha – a wife of the Prophet – and had inherited from her the intense hatred for the Prophet’s progeny, the Ahl al-Bayt. He was among the main perpetrators of the first "fitna” (sedition). It was his intransigence and killing of innocent Muslims that resulted in the Battle of Jamal near Basra, Iraq, in 36 AH against the Commander of the Faithful, the Prophet’s righteous heir, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS), even though his father, Zubayr, after initially breaking the pledge of allegiance to the Imam, withdrew from the battlefield. Imam Ali (AS) won the battle and magnanimously treated his fallen foes, allowing them to return to Medina. Abdullah never opposed the misrule of Mu’awiya, including the murder of his aunt, Ayesha, but in 61 AH, when the Prophet’s grandson Imam Husain (AS) came to Mecca following his refusal to acknowledge the Godless rule of Yazid, Abdullah felt uneasy and did not support him. After Imam Husain’s (AS) tragic martyrdom in Karbala, Yazid’s forces first plundered and massacred the people of Medina, including several hundred companions of the Prophet, and then attacked Mecca and the holy Ka’ba, where Abdullah had taken refuge. Yazid’s sudden death in Damascus halted the campaign, and Abdullah took the opportunity to consolidate his power in Hijaz as the self-styled caliph. He, however, made the folly of allowing the Omayyad governor Marwan ibn Hakam and the latter’s son, Abdul-Malik, to leave the Hijaz for Syria. Once in Damascus, Marwan, on the abdication of Yazid’s son Mu’awiyah II, seized the caliphate by marrying a wife of Yazid, and when she strangled him to death nine months later, his son Abdul-Malek took charge of the tottering Omayyad caliphate to pose a serious challenge to Abdullah. For almost a decade, the Muslim realm was now split between two self-styled caliphs – Abdullah in the Hijaz and Abdul-Malek in Syria. During this 2nd "fitna” the two fought each other for control of Egypt, Iraq, and Iran, but because of the uprising of Mukhtar ibn Abu Obayda to avenge the blood of Imam Husain (AS), Iraq and the eastern lands were out of their control. Abdullah again erred by refusing Mukhtar’s invitation to join forces against the Omayyads, who were on the verge of being totally wiped out, following successive defeats inflicted by the Iraqis and the "Tawwabeen” (Penitents). He instead imprisoned Mohammad Hanafiyya ibn Imam Ali (AS) and other members of the Prophet’s Hashemite clan with the intention of burning them alive. His plan was aborted by the timely arrival of a force sent by Mukhtar to Mecca to free the Hashemites. The spiteful Abdullah in 67 AH sent an army under his brother, Mus’ab, to kill Mukhtar. Mus’ab succeeded in his evil plan, but a year later, he was defeated and killed by Abdul-Malik bin Marwan. Five years later, Abdullah ibn Zubayr was finally defeated, killed and crucified by Hajjaj, who went on to destroy the holy Ka’ba as well.
1113 solar years ago, on this day in 902 AD, Ahmad al-Mu’tadid, the 16th self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime, died in Baghdad through poisoning the age of 47 after a reign of 10 years. He had seized the caliphate on the death of his uncle al-Mu’tamid during whose last days he imprisoned and killed his cousin, the heir apparent, Ja’far al-Muwaffadh. Born to Dirar, a Greek concubine of the caliph al-Mutawakkel’s son Talha al-Muwaffaq – the regent and virtual ruler of the state during the reign of al-Mu’tamid – he tried to prevent through deceit and bloodshed the further fragmentation of the shrinking Abbasid realm, but failed. He moved the capital back to Baghdad from Samarra and ruled with the help of the powerful Turkic guards – the caliph-makers. He built a series of secret prisons to detain thousands of people on suspicion.
665 lunar years ago, on this day in 771 AH, the prominent scholar, Fakhr al-Muhaqqaqin Mohammad ibn Hassan al-Hilli, passed away at the age of 89. Son of the celebrated Allamah Hilli, under whose guidance he attained the status of Ijtehad, he wrote prolifically on a wide variety of topics including exegesis of the holy Qur'an, theology, jurisprudence, and philosophy. Among his books are "al-Kafiya”, and "Tahsil an-Najaat”.
534 solar years ago, on this day in 1481 AD, Mahmoud Gawan, the able Grand Vizier of the Bahmani kingdom of Iranian origin of the Deccan (south India), was unjustly executed at the age of 71 by Mohammad Shah II, after being falsely accused of treason by his rivals at the court. Born in the Caspian Sea Province of Gilan in northern Iran, he was a man of letters and a merchant plying the lucrative route from the Persian Gulf to the Deccan coast with cargos of silken fabrics, pearls, Arabian horses, etc, for the Bahmani capital of Bidar – where Persian culture was prevalent and where earlier the elders of the Ne’matollahi Sufi order of Kerman (adhering to the path of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt) were settled. On one such visit, he was given the title of "Malik-ut-Tujjar” (King of Traders) by Feroze Shah and offered a post. He decided to stay, and in the reigns of the subsequent kings, steadily rose in the administrative hierarchy, earning the titles "Wakeel us-Saltanah” and "Khwaja-e Jahan” or Prime Minister – a post that he held for almost two decades, during which he carried out many reforms, strengthened the military, and increased the revenues. As a patron of arts and literature, he was in correspondence with the political elite and literati of other parts of the Persianate World, from Central Asia to the Ottoman Sultanate and the Subcontinent. He authored several books such as "Riyaz al-Insha” and built a magnificent college in Bidar, where scholars from Iran, Iraq, and Arabia used to teach. His death brought about the kingdom’s decline, which collapsed in the next two decades.
430 solar years ago, on this day in 1585 AD, a massacre took place in Harlem in Holland on the orders of Spain’s King Philip II, to crush the Dutch freedom-seekers. It was the worst of several periodic massacres launched by Spain to keep Holland under its control. The Harlem massacre saw the death of some 6,000 Dutch. In 1609, Holland gained independence from Spain.
427 solar years ago, on this day in 1588 AD, the English Philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, was born. He believed that human beings by nature are selfish and power-hungry with the tendency to dominate. He thus advocated establishment of a powerful government to provide peace and security for the vulnerable people. His most important book is "Leviathan”. He died in 1679.
366 solar years ago, on this day in 1649 AD, Elihu Yale, the Welsh philanthropist for whom Yale University in the United States of America is named, was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He came to England and joined the East India Company which appointed him governor of Fort St. George, Madras, which the English had leased from the Persianate Qutb-Shahi Dynasty of Golkandah-Haiderabad. The Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb soon conquered the whole of Deccan and demanded allegiance of the English, which Yale complied willingly, and promised to supply troops in the event of war. Yale, who had learned Persian and provided passage to Iran (at a high cost) for Ibrahim Beg the Safavid Ambassador to the Deccan court, amassed a fortune, largely through secret contracts with Madras merchants, against the East India Company’s directive. By 1692, his repeated flouting of regulations and growing embarrassment at his illegal profiteering resulted in his being relieved of the post of governor, under pressure of the Mughal government, because of Yale’s levying of heavy taxes on the local inhabitants and indulgence in slave trade. On his instructions, the English would kidnap young children and sell them to distant parts of the world. In 1699, having accumulated considerable wealth through every foul mean, he returned to England and settled in Wrexham. In 1718, when on request for help from the Collegiate School in New Haven in the Colony of Connecticut, Yale sent 417 books and a substantial sum of money, the officials in gratitude, named the new building Yale. Soon the entire institution became Yale College, and eventually Yale University, which has the third largest library in the US, and contains rare Persian and Arabic manuscripts as well.
342 lunar years ago, on this day in 1094 AH, an Ottoman army led by Hussein Pasha conquered Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, with the Austrian emperor’s crown among the spoils of war.
293 solar years ago, on this day in 1722 AD, on Easter Sunday Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen discovered a Polynesian Island 1400 miles from the coast of South America and named it Easter Island. He wondered how massive statues were erected here. Much of the population was later wiped out and the island became a possession of Chile. An indigenous script called ‘rongorongo’ survived but has still not been deciphered.
221 solar years ago, on this day in 1794 AD, Georges Danton, a leader of the French Revolution, was hanged. He was the victim of a plot by his revolutionary rival, Maximilian Robespierre, who now unleashed the four-month Reign of Terror on France.
72 solar years ago, on this day in 1943 AD, during World War II, US bomber aircraft massacred more than 900 Belgian civilians, including 209 children, in addition to wounding 1300 others, in the town of Mortsel. This and other war crimes of the Allied forces in Germany and other parts of Europe, as well as in Japan, have been hushed up by the western media and politicians.
59 solar years ago, on this day in 1956 AD, the 2-day raid on Gaza by troops of the illegal Zionist entity ended, resulting in the martyrdom of 56 Palestinian women, children, and elderly.
40 solar years ago, on this day in 1975 AD, Chiang Kai-shek, Chinese general, politician, president of the Republic of China (1928-1948), and then president of the breakaway island state of Formosa (Taiwan), died at the age of 88. His dream to retake mainland China which he lost to the communists led by Mao Zedong during the civil war of 1949 never materialized, despite his backing of nationalist, ethnic and religious forces including the Muslims of Xinjiang and Yunan.
2 solar years ago, on this day in 2013 AD, Kashmiri historian, Dr. Mohammad Ishaq Khan, died in Srinagar, at the age of 69. His most widely read book is "Kashmir’s Transition to Islam: The Role of Muslim Rishis”. His last book is "Merited Invocation”, which is an English translation of the Persian book "Awraad-e Fathiyya” of the famous Iranian missionary, Mir Seyyed Ali Hamadani, to whom goes the credit of spreading Islam in Kashmir. Ishaq Khan wrote several articles, such as: "Reflections on Time and History vis-à-vis the Qur’an”, "Islam in Kashmir: Some distinctive features”, "Persian Influences in Kashmir in the Sultanate Period”.  
(Courtesy: IRIB English Radio – http://english.irib.ir)