Today is Thursday; 9th of the Iranian month of Azar 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 11th of the Islamic month of Rabi al-Awwal 1439 lunar hijri; and November 30, 2017, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.
5357 solar years ago, on this day in 3340 BC in Mesopotamia, the earliest record of an eclipse seems to have been documented, according to the cuneiform clay tablets deciphered. Perhaps the first recorded eclipse might have occurred earlier in view of the fact that it was in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) that Prophet Enoch (Idris) taught the science of writing, as well as astronomy and many other branches of knowledge and professions.
1040 solar years ago, on this day in 977 AD, Holy Roman Emperor Otto II was forced to lift the siege of Paris and withdraws. His rearguard was defeated while crossing the Aisne River by Frankish forces under King Lothair III. Five years later in 982, when Otto II ventured in southern Italy he was decisively defeated by the Muslim forces of the Fatemid Ismaili Shi'a Muslim caliphate of Egypt-Syria-North Africa at the Battle of Capo Colonna, in Calabria. The Fatemids, who after taking control of Sicily in the 960s had advanced into southern Italy, came into conflict with the Germans under Otto, who was advancing from the north with the intention of seizing Apulia and Calabria from the Byzantines. He was met by forces of the Sicilian Emir, Abu'l-Qassem, to whom the Greek Christians had appealed for aid against the Roman Catholics. After initial success, Otto's army was bogged down in a pitched battle south of Crotone at Cape Colonna, and although Abu'l-Qassem was martyred, the Muslim troops did not flee. They regrouped and surrounded Otto's soldiers, killing many of them and inflicting a severe defeat upon the Holy Roman Emperor. The defeat changed the political makeup of southern Italy, where Muslims retained their presence, while the Greek Orthodox forces joined the Muslims to regain possession of Apulia from the Roman Catholics. The Muslim presence in Italy lasted for over three centuries till 1300 AD, when due to loss of political power they were expelled, and the remaining were forcibly converted to Christianity with mosques turned into churches.
867 lunar years ago, on this day in 572 AH, Qilij Arslan II, the Seljuqid Sultan of Roum defeated Byzantine Emperor Manuel Komnenos at the Battle of Myriokephalon. The defeat marked the end of Byzantine attempts to recover the Anatolian plateau, which was now lost to the Turks forever and today forms the center of the Republic of Turkey. Qilij Arslan died in 1192 after a reign of 36 years. He promoted Persian culture and was succeeded by Kaykhosrow.
350 solar years ago, on this day in 1667 AD, Irish author, Jonathan Swift, was born in Dublin. He made strenuous efforts for the independence of his country from British rule. He wrote books depicting the social conditions, including the fictitious work titled "Gulliver's Travels”, which became one of the world’s literary masterpieces. He died at the age of 78.
286 solar years ago, on this day in 1731 AD, Beijing in China was hit by a powerful earthquake that resulted in the death of at least one hundred thousand people.
214 solar years ago, on this day in 1803 AD, in New Orleans, Spanish representatives officially transferred the Louisiana Territory in North America to a French representative, and just 20 days later, France sold the same land to the United States in a deal known as the Louisiana Purchase.
200 solar years ago, on this day in 1817 AD, German historian and researcher, Theodore Mommsen, was born. His most important book is "The History of Rome". He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1902, and died a year later at the age of 86. He served as an elected lawmaker in the Reichstag (parliament), and was considered a staunch opponent of the well-known German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck.
182 solar years ago, on this day in 1835 AD, US author and humorist, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, popular as Mark Twain, was born. His childhood and teenage were adventurous and these adventures later turned into the themes of his books. He wrote numerous stories for youngsters, including "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and "The Prince and the Pauper". He was broke in the waning years of his life, and finally following the death of his two daughters, he died in 1910.
164 solar years ago, on this day in 1853 AD, during the Crimean War, the Battle of Sinop was fought resulting in the destruction of Ottoman fleet under Osman Pasha by the Russian Navy commanded by Pavel Nakhimov at Sinop, a sea port in northern Turkey.
146 lunar years ago, on this day in 1293 AH, the great scholar and bibliographer, Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Mohammad Mohsin, popular as Aqa Bozorg Tehrani, was born in Tehran. His father Haji Ali was active in the tobacco boycott campaign of 1891 and later wrote a book on the history of the movement to thwart British exploitation of Iran’s economy, thanks to the historic fatwa of Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi. After preliminary education in his hometown Tehran, at the age of 26 he migrated to Holy Najaf for higher studies, and spent the rest of his life in Iraq, with the exception of four brief return visits to Iran and two short journeys to Syria, Egypt, and the Hejaz – for the Hajj pilgrimage. Among his teachers were Akhund Mullah Mohammad Kazem ?horasani, Seyyed Mohammad Kazem Yazdi, Sheikh ash-Shari’a Isfahani and Mohaddith Mirza Hussain Noori. In turn he groomed several outstanding ulema including Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hussaini Sistani – the current marja’ in Najaf. At the age of 40, he went to Samarra to join the circle of the revolutionary scholar Mirza Mohammad-Taqi Golshan Shirazi. During his 24-year stay in this city, before returning to Najaf, he conceived, and began to execute, the plan of a comprehensive bibliographical survey of all classes of literature produced by Shi’a Muslim authors. His original intention was to refute a statement by the Christian Arab litterateur, Jorji Zaydan, belittling the Shi’a contribution to Arabic literature. However, the masterpiece that Aqa Bozorg produced in almost 30 volumes, titled "adh-Dhari’a ila Tasaneef ash-Shi’a”, became a major contribution to Islamic scholarship. In this encyclopedic work, the titles of all books written by Shi’a authors are listed alphabetically, together with a brief indication of authorship and content, as well as place and date of publication in the case of printed works, and location in the case of manuscripts. He also compiled a biographical encyclopedia of Shi’a Muslim scholars as a companion to "adh-Dhari’a”, titled "Tabaqaat A’laam ash-Shi’a”, but each section, pertaining to the scholars of a given century, also has a separate title. Aqa Bozorg Tehrani’s influence was not limited to the admiration elicited by his decades of industrious scholarship. He exchanged numerous "ijazaat” (permissions of transmission) with the scholars of Hadith, both Shi’a and Sunni, whom he met in the course of his travels – a practice he consciously sought to revive as vital to the cultivation of Islamic scholarship. He was also widely regarded for his piety and asceticism: He regularly led congregational prayer at several mosques in Najaf, and on Tuesday afternoons, used to walk from Najaf to Kufa to pray at Masjid Sahla which was the house of Prophet Idris (Enoch) and will be headquarters of the Prophet’s 12th and Last Infallible Heir, Imam Mahdi (AS) during his global government of peace, prosperity and justice. He passed away in Najaf in 1389 AH at the age of 96 and was laid to rest in his own library.
141 solar years ago, on this day in 1874 AD, Winston Churchill, British soldier, journalist, politician, and Prime Minister was born. He was an avowed imperialist with little regard for the sentiments of the nations under the hegemony of Britain. He wrote the book "History of the English Speaking Peoples.”
85 lunar years ago, on this day in 1354 AH, the prominent scholar and one of the renowned lecturers of the Najaf seminary, Ayatollah Seyyed Hassan Sadr passed away. He was an outstanding jurisprudent who had attained the status of Ijtehad while quite young. At the age of 16 he went to holy Najaf to study under the leading ulema and nine years later moved to holy Samarra to study under the celebrated scholar, Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi (famous for his fatwa against tobacco consumption in Iran). He returned to Kazemain seventeen years later and soon became the leading mujtahed. He groomed many scholars, and wrote several books, including "Ta'sees ash-Shi'a", "Role of Shi’a Scholars in Development of Islamic Sciences”, "The Shi’a Muslims and Promotion of Islamic Arts”, and a refutation of the absurd viewpoints of the pseudo Syrian scholar Ibn Taimiyya.
46 solar years ago, on this day in 1971 AD, with the withdrawal of British occupation troops, the Persian Gulf islands of Abu Musa, and Greater and Lesser Tunbs, returned to Iran’s sovereignty. These three Iranian islands are strategically located near the Strait of Hormoz, which links the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. Britain had seized these islands in 1887, and had also taken control of Bahrain which earlier had been seized by the Aal-e Khalifa pirates from Qajarid Iran. Bahrain was not returned to Iranian sovereignty because of the treason of the Pahlavi regime.
29 solar years ago, on this day in 1988 AD, the world famous Egyptian "Qari” (reciter) of the holy Qur'an, Abdul-Baset Mohammad Abdus-Samad, died in Cairo. His son, Yasser, who is also a prominent "Qari” of the holy Qur’an, and has recently become a staunch follower of the School of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt, relates that after death his father appeared to him in a dream and lamenting about his not-so-satisfactory fate in afterlife, even though he was the world’s foremost memorizer and "Qari” of the holy Qur’an, said the reason was his lack of proper faith in the "Wilayah” or divinely-decreed authority of Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS), the First Infallible Successor of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).
9th of Azar is marked every year as Day of Shaikh Mufid, as a mark of respect to the great service rendered to Islam and the School of the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) by this celebrated scholar who flourished in Baghdad almost a millennium ago. Named Mohammad, he was born in the town of Ukbar, north of Baghdad. He has left behind numerous compilations in almost all branches of Islamic sciences, some of which are: "al-Irshad”, "Ahkam an-Nisa”, and "Tashih E`teqadat al-Imamiyah” – the last named is a critical and edited version of his one-time teacher, Ibn Babwaih Shaikh Sadouq's "al-E'teqad”. He trained a great number of scholars, including the celebrated pair of brothers, Seyyed Murteza and Seyyed Radhi – the compiler of the famous book "Nahj al-Balagha” – and Shaikh at-Ta’efa Abu Ja’far Tousi.
(Courtesy: IRIB English Radio – http://parstoday.com/en)