This Day in History (February 24)

Date: 23 February 2018 - 21:47

News ID: ۵۰۳۶۴

Today is Saturday; 5th of the Iranian month of Esfand 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 7th of the Islamic month of Jamadi as-Sani 1439 lunar hijri; and February 24, 2018, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.
914 lunar years ago, on this day in 525 AH, the Iranian mystic, jurist, and Persian poet, Abdullah bin Mohammad Mayaneji, known popularly as "Ain ul-Qozzat Hamedani”, was hanged in the western Iranian city of Hamedan at the relatively young age of 33. His forefathers were judges in Hamedan, and he himself attained this position at the age of 30. However, while in Baghdad, because of his outspoken views he fell afoul of al-Mustarshed, the 29th self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime, and was arrested and imprisoned on the orders of the vizier of the Seljuqid Sultan. He was transferred to Hamedan and hanged next to his school. As a follower of the Sufi master, Ahmad Ghazali, he wrote many books. His important works are "Tamhidaat” (Preludes) and "Zubdat al-Haqa?eq fi Kashf al-Khala?eq” (Essence of Truth).
895 lunar years ago, on this day in 544 AH, the Islamic scholar and judge, Abu’l-Fazl Qazi Ayyadh ibn Amir ibn Musa al-Yahsubi as-Sabti, was executed at the age of 68 and his body cut to pieces for his refusal to acknowledge Ibn Tumart, the leader of the al-Muwahidin, as the Mahdi – a false claim since the Awaited Mahdi is none other than Prophet Mohammad’s (SAWA) 12th Infallible Heir (AS) who will reappear in end times, along with Prophet Jesus (AS), to establish the global government of peace, prosperity and justice. Born in Ceuta, during the rule of the al-Moravid Empire of Maghreb and Islamic Spain, he was the leading scholar of his times and later became a chief judge in Gharnata (Granada) in Islamic Spain. He led an uprising when the al-Muwahidin seized Ceuta, but was defeated and banished to Tadla and later to Marrakesh where he was finally killed. A student of Abu’l-Hassan ibn Siraj, he was the teacher of such famous scholars as the Spanish Muslim philosopher, scientist and jurist, Ibn Rushd (Averroes), and the polymath and Arabic grammarian, Ibn Madha. Qazi Ayyadh, who is revered as one of the seven saints of Marrakesh, wrote commentaries in far off North Africa on the hadith compendiums of the Iranian Sunni Muslim compilers, such as Ismael Bukhari and Muslim Naishapuri.
749 lunar years ago, on this day in 690 AH, the 8th Mamluk Sultan of Egypt, al-Ashraf Khalil ibn al-Mansour Qalawoon, succeeded in expelling remnants of the European Crusader invaders from Palestine by ending their last stronghold in Akka – or Acre as it is also called – when the Christians broke the truce to indiscriminately slaughter Muslims.
715 solar years ago, on this day in 1303 AD, the Battle of Roslin took place during the First War of Scottish Independence –  lasting from the invasion by England in 1296 until the de jure restoration of Scottish independence with the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton in 1328 (de facto independence was established in 1314 at the Battle of Bannockburn). England under Edward I attempted to establish its authority over Scotland while the Scots fought to keep English rule and authority out of Scotland. The Second War of Scottish Independence was fought from 1332-to-1357 against English encroachment. In 1603, James VI of Scotland inherited the thrones of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Ireland, and thus became King James I of what later came to be known as the United Kingdom. The Scots have always resented English domination of their homeland. The Scottish National Party, which supports Scottish independence, won an overall majority in the 2011 general election. An independence referendum was held on 18 September 2014, with independence-seekers polling 45% of the 85% voter turnout.
714 solar years ago, on this day in 1304 AD, the renowned Muslim worldwide traveller, Shams od-Din Mohammad bin Abdullah, known as Ibn Battuta, was born in the northwest African city of Tangiers – in today’s Morocco. As a young man he started his initial journey to perform the Hajj, but after the pilgrimage to Mecca, he kept on travelling, visiting over a period of thirty years, most of the Islamic world as well as many non-Muslim lands in the three continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. His journeys including trips to North Africa, the Horn of Africa, West Africa, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe in the West, and to West Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China in the East, cover a total of 75,000 miles or 121,000 km, surpassing by threefold the travels of his near-contemporary Marco Polo of Venice. In Iraq, he visited the shrine in holy Najaf of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS), and has related how people seek intercession with God through the First Infallible Successor of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) and are cured of their ailments. Ibn Battuta then travelled all over Iran, and after visiting the Byzantine Empire, Europe and Russia, he arrived in India, where he was appointed the Qazi of Delhi by Sultan Mohammad bin Tughlaq. On his return to his homeland Morocco, he also served as Qazi. He dictated to scribes the details of his travels in his book titled "ar-Rehla", and died at the age of 66.
493 solar years ago, on this day in 1525 AD, the Portuguese poet, Luis Vaz de Camoens, was born in Lisbon. His most important work is "The Lusiads”, which some compare to the renowned Iranian epic Poet Abu’l-Qassem Ferdowsi’s masterpiece "Shahnamah”. He died in 1580.
187 solar years ago, on this day in 1831 AD, the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, went into effect, as part of the US policy of ethnic cleansing of native Amerindians in Mississippi. It resulted in the seizure of 11 million acres of the lands of the Choctaw by White settlers of European origin. It was the first treaty in accordance with the Indian Removal Act passed by the Congress. The US is notorious for ethnic discrimination, genocide, wars and massacres.
170 solar years ago, on this day in the year 1848 AD, King Louis Philippe of France was forced to abdicate and go into exile, three days after start of the Second French Revolution that led to proclamation of the Second Republic of France. In French history this ruling system is referred to the rule of journalists, because eleven republican journalists, led by the French poet and author, Alphonse de Lamartine, were part of the administration. On December of the same year elections were held and Louis Napoleon, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, was elected president. In 1852, he staged a coup against republicans; suppressed the opponents and declared himself emperor, thus ending the Second Republic.
162 solar years ago, on this day in 1856 AD, Russian mathematician, Nikolay Ivanovich Lobachevsky, died at the age of 64. He served as Chancellor of Kazan University in Tataristan. He gained fame due to his researches and innovations in geometry and for rejection of the 5th principle of Euclidean geometry. He conducted extensive research on the features of spherical surfaces and presented important theories.
121 solar years ago, on this day in 1897 AD, Henri Frankfort, the Dutch-American archaeologist who established the relationship between Egypt and Mesopotamia, was born. He completed a documented reconstruction of ancient Mesopotamian culture and art. He directed excavations in Egypt (1922, 1925-29) and Iraq (1929-37) with exemplary scholarship.
114 lunar years ago, on this day in 1325 AH, the Iranian religious scholar Mirza Yahya bin Mirza Mohammad Shafee’ Isfahani passed away at the age of 75. He was a student of the famous Ayatollah Sheikh Morteza Ansari Dezfuli. He wrote a large number of books, including "Tafzil al-A’imma ala'l-Malaeka” on the superiority of the Infallible Imams of the household of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) over the angels and the other prophets.
79 lunar years ago, on this day in 1360 AH, prominent Islamic scholar and poet, Ayatollah Mirza Abu-Abdullah Shaikh al-Islam Zanjani, passed away at the age of 51 in his hometown Zanjan. Son of the prominent scholar, Shaikh ol-Islam Mirza Nasrollah Zanjani, he completed his religious studies, including philosophy, in his hometown. At the age of 21, along with his brother, Mirza Fazlollah Zanjani, he left for Iraq for higher studies at the famous seminary of holy Najaf, where his teachers included Ayatollah Seyyed Hassan as-Sadr Ameli, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Kazem Yazdi, Grand Ayatollah Shaikh osh-Shari’a Isfahani, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Abu’l-Hassan Isfahani, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Firouzabadi, Grand Ayatollah Shaikh Abdul-Karim Ha’iri Yazdi, and Grand Ayatollah Mirza Mohammad Hussain Nai’ni. After 8 years he returned to Iran on attaining the status of Ijtehad and settled in his hometown Zanjan. Five years later he went on a year-long journey through Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, and after performing the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca he returned to Zanjan where for the next ten years he busied himself in grooming students and writing books and articles in both Persian and Arabic. He again visited Egypt, where he held discussions in Cairo with university professors and the ulema of the famous al-Azhar Academy, which appreciated his scholarship and printed some of his works on the holy Qur'an in Arabic. On his return he became professor of ethics, rational sciences and religious studies at Tehran University, where after a year of teaching he returned to Zanjan because of heart problems and spent the rest of his life. Abu Abdullah Zanjani was a member of several academies in Iran, Iraq, Egypt and Syria. He authored several books including "Tarikh al-Qur’an”, commentary in Arabic on the famous Iranian polymath Khwaja Naseer od-Din Tusi’s "Baqa an-Nafs ba’d Fana al-Jasad” (Immortality of the Soul after Perishing of the Body), "Farhang-e Iran Pish az-Islam” (Iran’s Pre-Islamic Culture), "Azamath-e Husain ibn Ali” (Greatness of Imam Husain) and "Life and Works of the Great Iranian Philosopher Mullah Sadr od-Din Shirazi” – written in Arabic and published in Egypt and Syria.
101 solar years ago, on this day 1917 AD, during World War I, the US ambassador in London was given by British intelligence the decoded Zimmermann Telegram, in which Foreign Secretary of the German Empire, Arthur Zimmermann, had messaged to the German ambassador in Mexico, Heinrich von Eckardt, to persuade the government of Mexico to ally itself with Germany in case the US entered the war on the side of Britain. Germany pledged to ensure the return of New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, California and the entire southwest to Mexico that the US had seized in the 19th century. The message was intercepted by British intelligence, and its revelation made the US openly declare war on Germany in April that year. Mexican President Venustiano Carranza assigned a military commission to assess the feasibility of liberation of the said territories from US occupation. It was concluded that it would not be possible for Mexico, which was in the midst of a revolution and far weaker militarily, economically and politically, to defeat the US.
85 solar years ago, on this day in 1933 AD, East African academic and political scientist, Professor Ali Mazrui, was born in Mombasa, Kenya. On completing higher education in Britain, he taught at the University of Uganda in Kampala, and after expulsion by the dictator Idi Amin, he settled in the US, where he taught as professor in several universities. An expert writer on African and Islamic studies as well as North-South relations, he was critical of African socialism and all strains of Marxism. He argued that communism was a Western import just as unsuited for the African condition as the earlier colonial attempts to install European type governments. At the same time he was a prominent critic of the current world order. He believed the capitalist system was deeply exploitative of Africa, and that the West practiced global apartheid. He opposed the West’s interventions in the developing world, such as the US war on Iraq, and was against the policies of the Zionist entity – linking Israeli treatment of Palestinians with South Africa's apartheid. As a well-known commentator on Islam and Islamism, he rejected violence and terrorism and praised the anti-imperialist sentiment that plays an important role in the modern world. He maintained that the dynamism of the sharia law is compatible with democracy. Mazrui wrote several books, including on his native Swahili language and culture. In October 2014, he died in New York, where he was Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University. As per his will, his body was taken to his native Mombasa and buried in his ancestral graveyard according to Islamic rites.
69 solar years ago, on this day in 1949 AD, a ceasefire came into effect between Egypt and the illegal Zionist entity following the signing of an agreement on Rhode Island. In May 1948, while withdrawing from Palestine, the British colonialists, who had illegally settled hundreds of thousands of European Jews in this Islamic land between the two world wars, created an artificial entity called Israel. The Zionists immediately lounged expansionism in different directions after expelling over 400,000 Palestinians. The Zionists attacked Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, occupying parts of the three countries. According to this treaty, Gaza was placed under Egyptian protection, but in later wars it was occupied by Israel.
69 solar years ago, on this day in 1949 AD, the first manmade rocket reached outer or extraterrestrial space. The two-stage rocket was launched from the White Sands Proving Grounds, New Mexico, US. It was the first to carry telemetry transmitting technical information to ground stations, including high-altitude temperature measurements. It reached a speed of 5,150 mph and an altitude of 244 miles.
60 solar years ago, on this day in 1968 AD, the discovery of a pulsar (a pulsating radio source) was announced. The first pulsar was discovered by a graduate student, Jocelyn Bell, on 28 Nov 1967. The star emitted radio pulses with clock-like precision. It was observed at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, Cambridge University, England. A special radio telescope was used with 2,048 antennae arrayed across 4.4 acres. Pulsars prompted studies in quantum-degenerate fluids, relativistic gravity and interstellar magnetic fields.
Today, 5th of the Iranian month of Esfand is the day for commemoration of the famous Iranian Islamic polymath and theologian, Allamah Mohammad ibn Hassan, known as Khwaja Naseer od-Din Tousi. Born in the city of Tous, near the holy city of Mashhad in Khorasan, he was an outstanding philosopher, scientist, astronomer, mathematician and theologian, who made valuable contributions to the progress of science and civilization. Even the Mongol invaders acknowledged his genius and Hulagu Khan, appointed him as his scientific advisor. Naseer od-Din Tusi built the famous observatory at Maraghah in 1262. It had various instruments such as a 4-meter wall quadrant made from copper and an azimuth quadrant which was his unique invention. Using accurately plotted planetary movements, he modified Ptolemy's model of the planetary system based on mechanical principles. The observatory and its library became a centre for a wide range of work in science, mathematics and philosophy. About the real essence of the Milky Way, ?usi in his book on astronomy "at-Tadhkirah fi Ilm al-Hayyah”, wrote three centuries before Galileo: "The Milky Way, i.e. the galaxy, is made up of a very large number of small, tightly-clustered stars, which, on account of their concentration and smallness, seem to be cloudy patches. Because of this, it was likened to milk in colour.”
He wrote some 80 books in both Arabic and Persian on various subjects including "Tajrid al-E?teqad” on theology, "Akhlaq-e Naseri” on ethics, "Sharh al-Isharaat Ibn Sina” on philosophy, and "Kitab ash-Shakl al-Qatta” on mathematics, etc. It is to be noted that a 60-km diameter lunar crater located on the southern hemisphere of the moon is named after him as "Naseereddin". A minor planet discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1979 is named after him "10269 Tusi”. Naseer od-Din Tusi died in Iraq and was laid to rest in the holy mausoleum of Imam Musa al-Kazem (AS), the 7th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).
(Courtesy: IRIB English Radio – http://parstoday.com/en)