Today is Monday; 14th of the Iranian month of Tir 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 28th of the Islamic month of Ramadhan 1437 lunar hijri; and July 4, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.
1165 lunar years ago, on this day in 272 AH, the prominent Iranian-Islamic astronomer, philosopher and hadith scholar, Abu Mash’ar Ja’far ibn Mohammad al-Balkhi, passed away in Waset, Iraq, at the ripe old age of 102. Born in Khorasan in the city of Balkh, which is presently in Afghanistan, he flourished at the Abbasid court in Baghdad as the greatest astronomer of the era and the subsequent centuries. He wrote a number of practical manuals on astrology that profoundly influenced Muslim intellectual history, and through Latin translations of his works, left a profound impact on Western Europe and Byzantium. He was well versed in Persian, Arabic, Greek and Sanskrit languages, and according to the famous Persian poet of the subcontinent, Amir Khosro Dehlavi, he came to Benares in India to study astronomy. Abu Ma’shar, who was Latinized by medieval Europe as Albumasar, Albusar, or Albuxar, wrote several books including "Kitab al-Mudkhal al-Kabir ila Ilm Ahkaam an-Nujjum”, "Kitāb al‐Milal wa’l-Duwal” and "Kitāb Taḥawil Sini al-Mawālīd” (Book of the Revolutions of the Years of Nativities). These and other works were translated into Latin and Greek and had profound effect on western philosophers and scientists such as Albert, Roger Bacon, Pierre d’Ailly, and Pico Della Mirandola.
962 solar years ago, on this day in 1054 AD, Islamic astronomers in Fatemid Egypt and the Iranian Buwayhid dominions of Iraq-Iran, as well as the Chinese, recorded the seeing of a supernova -- a violently exploding star that was visible in daylight for 23 days and at night for almost 2 years. It is believed the Crab Nebula in the constellation Taurus is the remnant of this supernova. Rock paintings in North America suggest that Amerindians in Arizona and New Mexico also saw it. There are no European records of the event, since Christianity had plunged Europe into centuries of darkness. Some 48 years earlier in 1006, Islamic astronomers had recorded a supernova and given descriptions of how light varied and was visible for almost a year. This was history’s brightest "new star” ever recorded, at first seen to be brighter than the planet Venus. It occurred in our Milky Way galaxy, appearing in the southern constellation Lupus, near the star Beta Lupi.
829 solar years ago, on this day in 1187 AD, a united Muslim army of Kurds, Turks, Iranians and Arabs, broke the back of the Crusader usurpers of Palestine by inflicting a shattering defeat in the Battle of Hattin near Tiberias in what is now the Zionist usurped land of Palestine, thereby paving the way for liberation of Bayt al-Moqaddas some three months later that ended the 88-year illegal existence of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Muslims were led by the Kurdish general Salah od-Din Ayyoubi, who in 1169 after his surprised appointment as vizier of Egypt by the Fatemid Ismaili Shi’ite caliph, had turned on his benefactor to seize the country and style himself sultan, and then expand his power in Syria, Palestine and as far as his birthplace, Mosul, in Iraq.
570 solar years ago, the famous Ottoman naval commander, Khair od-Din Pasha, known to the Europeans as Barbarossa because of his red beard, died at the age of 68 in Istanbul. Born on the island of Lesbos, to a Turkish father and a Greek mother, he was named Khizr. He grew up to be a thorn in the side of European powers, defeating their navies in several battles, and finally liberating from Spain Algiers and adjoining lands, which were merged in the Ottoman Empire, with Khair od-Din as Pasha (governor).
533 solar years ago, on this day in 1483 AD, "Tabulae Alphonsinae” or the "Alphonsine Tables” were published by German printer Erhard Ratdolt in Venice. Among the earliest mathematical tables to be printed, these were a Latin translation made between 1262 to 1272 at the behest of King Alfonso X of Castile and Leon, of the Arabic Tables of the Muslim mathematician and astronomer, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Ishaq az-Zarqali (Arzachel to medieval Europe), who lived in Toledo, al-Andalus (Islamic Spain). Born in 1029 to a family of Christian Visigoths who converted to Islam, his works inspired a generation of Muslim astronomers in Islamic Spain including Ibn Bajjah (Avempace), Ibn Tufail (Abubacer), Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Ibn al-Kammad, Ibn al‐Ha’im al‐Ishbili and Nour od-Din al-Betruqi (Alpetragius). Zarqali invented several astronomical instruments including an equatorium for computing the position of the planets. He corrected geographical data from the Greek astronomer Ptolemy and the Iranian astronomer al-Khwarezmi, specifically Ptolemy’s estimate of the length of the Mediterranean Sea from 62 degrees to the correct value of 42 degrees. He also invented a perfected kind of astrolabe known as "as-Safiha az-Zarqaliyya”, which was famous in Europe under the name Saphaea. At a time when Christian Europe was immersed in the dark ages, he built a water clock, capable of determining the hours of the day and night and indicating the days of the lunar months at a time. Nicolaus Copernicus, who greatly benefitted from the works of Islamic scientists, has extensively quoted Zarqali and al-Battani. In 1085 Toledo was occupied by Alfonso VI of Castile and his Christian mercenaries, prompting Zarqali and his colleagues, such as al‐Waqqashi (1017–1095) to flee. It is not known whether the aged Zarqali moved to Cordoba, which he often used to visit, or died in a refugee camp. The crater Arzachel on the Moon is named after him.
470 solar years ago, on this day in 1546 AD, Murad III, the 12th Ottoman Sultan and the 4th self-styled Turkish caliph, was born to Sultan Salim II the "Drunkard” and his Jewish concubine, Rachel (Noorbanu). In 1574 on ascending the throne, he launched fratricide by strangling to death five of his brothers. During his 21-year reign he earned notoriety for massacre of fellow Muslims and ending the long Peace of Amasya with Iran’s Safavid Empire that resulted in the 12-year Ottoman-Persian War (1578-90) in the Caucasus and the institutional decline of the Ottoman Empire. As a result of the growing inclination of the Turkish tribes of Anatolia towards the school of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt, he made a pact with France, stopped the Ottoman push into Europe, and massacred thousands of Shi’ite Muslims. As a result, his armies suffered defeats in Europe as well, at the hands of the Austrian Hapsburg Empire.
262 solar years ago, on this day in 1754 AD, During the French-Amerindian War against the British, Colonel George Washington surrendered Fort Necessity in Pennsylvania to French Captain Louis Coulon de Villiers. Two decades later, Washington joined the American rebels against the British crown, and after victory became the first president of the United States of America.
240 solar years ago, on this day in 1776 AD, the thirteen New England colonies banded together to sign in Philadelphia the Declaration of Independence from British rule of what they called the United States of America (US). Battles were fought between the revolutionaries and the monarchists for the next several years, and it was not until 1812 that Britain recognized the independence of USA. Since then the USA, after brutally exterminating the original Amerindians or Red Skins, and forcing the black people of Africa into slavery, has terrorized the world with its crimes against humanity.
226 solar years ago, on this day in 1790 AD, Welsh military engineer and geodesist, George Everest, in whose honour the world’s tallest peak was renamed as "Mount Everest”, was born. He worked on the trigonometrical survey of India during the years 1818-43, providing the accurate mapping of the Subcontinent, and for more than twenty-five years, surveyed the longest arc of the meridian ever accomplished at the time. Everest made countless adaptations to the surveying equipment, methods, and mathematics in order to minimize problems specific to the Great Survey, such as the immense size and scope, the terrain, weather conditions, and the desired accuracy. Mount Everest in Himalayas, formerly called Peak XV by the British, was renamed in his honour in 1865, a year before his death, although he never set foot on it. The 8,800-meter high summit overlaps Tibet and Nepal. Tibetans call it "Chomolungma”, while the Nepalis call it "Sagarmatha”. In 2005, a mountaineering team from the Islamic Republic of Iran succeeded in climbing Mount Everest.
212 solar years ago, on this day in 1804 AD, American novelist and short-story writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, was born in Marblehead [Salem] Massachusetts. One of his ancestors, a judge in the Salem witchcraft trials, became the model for the accursed founder of the famous novel "The House of the Seven Gables” that he wrote. Hawthorne would often wonder whether the decline of his family’s fortune was a punishment for the sins of his "sable-cloaked steeple-crowned progenitors”. Marblehead is also the location of the house in his novel. He also wrote "The Scarlet Letter” and the "The Marble Faun”.
(Courtesy: IRIB English Radio – http://parstoday.com/en)