Sometime between 2012 to 2018 solar years ago, the miraculous birth of Prophet Jesus (PBUH) through the Virgin Mary, without the association of any male as his father, took place by the Will of the One and Only God. He was born on a date of the Roman calendar that still remains uncertain, although several centuries later, the newly-founded Christian Church chose as Christmas the 25th of December, which was a major pagan festival, in order to propagate Christianity amongst the polytheists of Europe. It is, however, worth noting that the Israelites, amongst whom this great Prophet was born, followed the lunar calendar, similar to the Arabic and the later Islamic calendar. Thus according to certain narrations, the birth of Prophet Jesus was either on the eve of the 25th of the month of Zilqa’dah or the 6th of the month of Moharram. Anyway since most of the Christian World celebrates Christmas this day we extend our congratulations to them, and pray for guidance of the Western powers, which have totally deviated from the peaceful message of the Messiah and plunged the world into wars, moral depravity, economic chaos, and social disintegration. The holy Qur’an, which is the final revelation of God to mankind, mentions the virgin birth of Jesus. Islam regards Jesus as one of the five greatest Prophets – the others being Noah, Abraham, Moses, and the last and greatest of them all, Prophet Mohammad (blessings of God upon him and his progeny). In Surah Saff, the holy Qur’an mentions Jesus’ prediction to the Israelites of the coming of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), a fact that is also found in the Gospel of St. John. Here, it would be not out of context to refer to the account in the Gospel of St. Mathew of the coming of the Magi or Three Wise Men from the east, to Bethlehem to pay homage to the infant Jesus. It is obvious by the term Magi, which is a corruption of the Persian word ‘Majous’ that these wise men were Iranians.
1012 lunar years ago, on this day in 421 AH, Sultan Mahmoud, the prominent ruler of the Turkish Ghaznavid 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 Turkish slave of the Iranian Samanid dynasty of Bukhara. Soon, Mahmoud succeeded his father and 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. His armies stripped the temples of their wealth, especially the main temple of Somnath in Gujarat. 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 Tus, where after writing a scathing satire against the Sultan, he died heartbroken. Mahmoud's last four years were spent contending with the influx of Oghuz Turkic tribes from Central Asia, and rebellions by Seljuqs. Mahmoud's tomb is located at Ghazni in what is now Afghanistan.
933 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. He was an expert in jurisprudence, Qur'anic sciences, Arabic grammar, and linguistics, and traveled to numerous lands including Egypt. He has left behind a collection of poems. His books include “Nizam al-Manasek”.
875 solar years ago, on this day in 1137 AD, , Salah od-Din Ayyoubi, who liberated the Islamic city of Bayt ol-Moqaddas from the European Crusader invaders by ending the 88-year illegal existence of the usurper Kingdom of Jerusalem in Palestine, was born in Tikrit in Iraq into a Kurdish family. After serving the Turkic Zangi dynasty of Syria, along with his uncle Shirkouh, he saw service in Egypt, which he seized from the Fatemid Ismaili Shi'ite Dynasty and subsequently spread his rule over Syria and the Hijaz. He died in Damascus at the age of 57 and is buried behind the Omayyad Mosque.
347 solar years ago, on this day in 1665 AD, , the French East India Company was set up during the reign of King Louis XIV for political, economic, and colonial rivalry with the British East India Company, established 66 years earlier. The British and the French fought for control of southern India. The British emerged victorious and drove out the French.
370 solar years ago, on this day in 1642, English physicist and mathematician, Isaac Newton was born. He greatly benefited from the works of Islamic scientists, and his study of optics included using a prism to show that white light could be split into a spectrum of colours. His three laws of motion are fundamental in the study of mechanics. He was the first European to describe the moon as falling (in a circle around the earth) under the same influence of gravity as a falling apple, embodied in his law of universal gravitation – although centuries earlier, Muslim scientists had discovered these facts. He died in 1727 at the age of 85.
136 solar years ago, on this day in 1876, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the Founder of Pakistan was born in Karachi. After completing education in London, he started his career as a lawyer, and soon turned into a popular politician and statesman, earning the title "Qa’ed-e Azam" (Great Leader) from Muslims of the Subcontinent. Jinnah served as head of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until Pakistan's independence on August 14, 1947, and as Pakistan's first Governor-General from August 15, 1947 until his death on September 11, 1948 at the age of 7. Jinnah's legacy is still alive in Pakistan.
34 solar years ago, on this day in 1978 AD, Professor of Tehran’s Polytechnic University, Kamran Nejatollahi, was martyred by the Shah's regime during a sit-in protest by university professors at the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education.
33 solar years ago, on this day in 1979 AD, three senior Palestinian officials were assassinated by the Zionist entity’s spying agency Mossad. Ali Hassan Salameh, the security official of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was killed in a car bombing in Beirut. Samir Toqan, a member of PLO Political Bureau in Cyprus was assassinated by Mossad agents. The third Palestinian official, who was killed on this day by the Zionist terrorists, was the PLO representative in Kuwait, Ali Naser Yasin. The racist state of Israel is notorious for its acts of state terrorism.
9 solar years ago, on this day in 2003, a 6.8-magnitude earthquake shook the city of Bam in southern Iran, and its environs, almost destroying the city of Bam and claiming the life of 41,000 people in addition to the tens of thousands of injured and homeless. The Iranian nation and government rushed to help of the quake-hit victims. The earthquake also damaged the ancient Bam Citadel, the world’s largest mud-brick fortress.
