This Day in History

Date: 03 December 2014 - 20:35

News ID: ۸۱۷۵

Today is Thursday; 13th of the Iranian month of Azar 1393 solar hijri; corresponding to 11th of the Islamic month of Safar 1436 lunar hijri; and December 4, 2014, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.
2544 solar years ago, on this day in 530 BC, Iran’s pre-Islamic monotheist Emperor, Cyrus the Great, the Founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, died in battle against the Massagetae tribe along the River Jaxartes in Central Asia, after a 30-year reign. His empire embraced all the previous civilized states of Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and the ancient Levant. He conquered most of Southwest Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus. From the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Indus River in the east, he created the largest empire the world had yet seen.
1249 solar years ago, on this day in 765 AD (according to the Gregorian calendar), Imam Ja’far as-Sadeq (AS), the 6th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), was martyred in his hometown Medina, as result of a fatal dose of poison given by Mansour Dawaniqi, the 2nd self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime. He was twelve years old, when his grandfather, Imam Zain al-Abedin (AS), the Survivor of the heartrending tragedy of Karbala, was martyred through poisoning. At the age of 31, the mantle of imamate or divinely-decreed leadership of mankind came to rest on his shoulders following the martyrdom (also through poisoning) of his equally illustrious father, Imam Mohammad Baqer (AS). For the next 34 years, he spared no efforts to revive the genuine teachings of Islam, and in the process spurned the offer of caliphate by a general, since his God-given position was loftier than the worthless political rule that depended on the whims of insincere power-mongers. As a matter of fact, the jockeying for political power of the Islamic state by the Omayyads and the Abbasids, provided the 6th Imam with an opportunity to groom a generation of scholars in different fields, including theology, Qur'anic sciences, hadith, jurisprudence, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, botany, history, ethics, etc. His famous academy of Medina at its height had 4,000 scholars studying different branches of knowledge, including the Father of Chemistry, Jaber Ibn Hayyan (Geber to medieval Europe). The founders of the four schools of jurisprudence of what later came to be known as the Sunni sect were directly or indirectly indebted to him. The 6th Imam was the reviver of the pristine "Sunnah” (practice) and "Seerah” (behaviour) of the Prophet. In other words, his school of jurisprudence, the "Fiqh al-Ja'fari”, unlike other schools, is not any innovation or guesswork but the unsullied "Shari'ah” of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).
1015 lunar years ago, on this day in 421 AH, Sultan Mahmoud, the prominent ruler of the Ghaznavid Turkic dynasty who for 34 years ruled the eastern Iranian lands, died. He turned Ghazni into the capital of an extensive empire that covered most of today's eastern and southern Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, parts of Uzbekistan, as well as Northwest India. His initial campaign was the capture of Khorasan along with his father, Sebuktigin, a slave of Alaptagin, who in turn was a Turkic slave of the Iranian Samanid dynasty of Bukhara. On succeeding his father, Mahmoud invaded Sistan to end the Iranian Saffarid dynasty. He then turned towards the north to end the rule of the Samanid dynasty. He next invaded Punjab in the east and overthrew the Ismaili Shi'ite Muslim kingdom of Multan which was allied with the Fatemids of Egypt. Mahmoud massacred the Ismailis and then penetrated into India defeating the Hindu rulers of Lahore. He next crushed the Rajput confederacy, and in the subsequent years the Indian kingdoms of Nagarkot, Thanesar, Kannauj, Gwalior, and Ujjain were all conquered and left in the hands of Hindu, Jain and Buddhist kings as vassal states, since he never maintained a permanent presence in India. Despite his brutal nature, Mahmoud was a patron of arts and Persian poetry. He brought whole libraries from Rayy and Isfahan to Ghazni after raiding these Iranian cities. He even demanded that the Khwarezmshahi court send its men of learning to Ghazni, such as Abu Rayhan Birouni, and Abu Ali ibn Sina. Birouni joined Mahmoud's court and accompanied him to India where he stayed, learned Sanskrit, and did valuable research on a wide variety of subjects such as astronomy, geology, anthropology, and history. Ibn Sina declined and fled to the Buwaiyhid courts in Rayy, Isfahan, and Hamedan. The famous Persian poet, Abu'l-Qassem Ferdowsi, after laboring 27 years, went to Ghazni and presented his monumental epic, the "Shahnamah", to Mahmoud. According to historians, Mahmoud had promised Ferdowsi a dinar for every distich written, but when he saw the "Shahnamah" was made up of 60,000 distiches, which required him to pay 60,000 dinars, he retracted and presented him a mere 200 dinars, which Ferdowsi declined and returned to Tous, where after writing a scathing satire against the Sultan, he died heartbroken.
935 lunar years ago, on this day in 501 AH, , the prominent narrator of hadith, Ja'far ibn Hussain ibn Ahmad as-Sarraj, passed away in the city of Tyre in southern Lebanon at the age of 82. An expert in jurisprudence, Qur'anic sciences, Arabic grammar, and linguistics, he traveled to numerous lands including Egypt. He works include the book "Nizam al-Manasek”.
904 solar years ago, on this day in 1110 AD, with the arrival of a 60-ship fleet led by King Sigurd of Norway, the European Crusader invaders who had earlier occupied the holy Islamic city of Bayt al-Moqaddas, brutally sacked the city of Sidon in what is now Lebanon, After a 47-day siege to take the city from the control of the Ismaili Shi’ite Muslim Fatemid Dynasty of Egypt, the Christians massacred the people and looted their property. The attack was led by Baldwin the self-styled king of the usurper Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, and was assisted by the Venetian fleet, to prevent the Fatemid navy from sending reinforcements. It is worth recalling that Bayt al-Moqaddas and Palestine were seized by the Crusaders from the Fatemids, whose Islamic army made up of Arabs, Iranians, Turks, and Berbers lost mainly because of arrogance and underestimation of the power and intentions of the European invaders.
883 solar years ago, on this day in 1131 AD, the Iranian mathematician, astronomer, and poet, Ghiyas od-Din Omar Ibn Ibrahim Khayyam, passed away in his hometown Naishapour, Khorasan, in northeastern Iran. He studied in Balkh, Samarqand and Bukhara, before joining the court of the Seljuq ruler, Malik Shah, as scientific advisor. He set up an observatory in his hometown and led work on compiling astronomical tables. To him goes the credit of reforming the solar hijri calendar on the basis of the Spring Equinox, which is still in use in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and parts of Central Asia, the Caucasus, Iraq, Anatolia, and the Subcontinent. This calendar, known as Jalali, is more perfect than the Gregorian Christian calendar that was imposed on Muslim countries by the colonialists after World War 1. Among Khayyam's works, his book on algebra was until the last century taught as textbook in Iran. In geometry, he reformed the generalities of Euclid. He is known to English-speakers for the translation of the "Rubaiyyaat” (quatrains) although in the Islamic east he remains the astronomer and mathematician that he was, since whatever he composed of poetry were casual expressions during his leisure hours after strenuous scientific studies and experiments. He was buried in the courtyard of the shrine of Imamzadah Mahruq.
115 solar years ago, on this day in 1899 AD, vaccine to prevent the typhoid fever was used for the first time. It was developed by British pathologist and bacteriologist, Edward Wright.
24 solar years ago, on this day in 1990 AD, the prominent Iranian researcher, author and member of the academic board of the UNESCO International Studies Department, Dr. Mohammad Hussein Mashayekh Faridouni, passed away at the age of 76. An expert on Persian language and literature, Islamology, Iranology, and cultural relations of Islamic lands, among his works is "Nawa-e Sha'er-e Farda" (Voice of the Poet of the Future) on the Persian poems of Allamah Mohammad Iqbal Lahori of the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent.
3 solar years ago, on this day in 2011AD, Iranian defence experts brought down intact in eastern Iran through cyber control, a US spy drone RQ-170, which violated Iranian space from American-occupied Afghanistan. Among the most modern types of pilotless aircraft, these drones are designed to evade radars. These are equipped with an automatic pilot system designed to make them automatically explode in case of severance of links with their base operator. By gaining control of this radar-evasive drone, the Islamic Republic of Iran showed its ability in cyber warfare to the confusion of US military experts and officials. Iranian experts by decoding the advanced drone gained access to confidential data and technology behind its production.
This Day in History (December 5)
Tomorrow is Friday; 14th of the Iranian month of Azar 1393 solar hijri; corresponding to 12th of the Islamic month of Safar 1436 lunar hijri; and December 5, 2014, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.
376 lunar years ago, on this day in 1059 AH, Iran’s Safavid Empire retook the strategic border city of Qandahar in what is now Afghanistan from Daulat Khan the governor of the Mughal Empire of the subcontinent. Qandahar was the bone of contention between the two sides.

344 solar years ago, on this day in 1670 AD, Sultan Abdullah Qotb Shah of the Iranian origin kingdom of Golkandah-Haiderabad in the Deccan (southern India), issued a farman to the Iranian Armenian merchant of Isfahan, Marcara Avanchintz, permitting the French to trade and build a factory in the port-city Machli Bandar on the Bay of Bengal coast. Marcara was in the service of King Louis XIV and was director of the newly founded French East India Company. Due to the common bond of Persian language, he had established cordial relations with the Qotb Shahis.
223 solar years ago, on this day in 1791 AD, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the famous Austrian pianist and composer, died at the relatively young age of 35. Born in Salzburg, he spent the last ten years of his short life in Vienna. He composed several masterpieces. His famous operas include: "The Marriage of Figaro", and "The Magic Flute".
144 solar years ago, on this day in 1870 AD, French author Alexandre Dumas died at the age of 68. He wrote numerous novels on the French Revolution and history such "The Three Musketeers”, and "The Count of Monte Cristo”.
48 solar years ago, on this day in 1966 AD, Jabbar Baghchebaan, passed away at the age of 84, after years of sincere services to deaf Iranians. He set up the first kindergarten in the city of Tabriz in 1923 to educate three deaf children. He used a new method of teaching the Alphabet to enable the deaf to read and write, a system which is currently in use in Iran. In 1934, he founded the first school for deaf children.