Today is Friday; 31st of the Iranian month of Khordad 1398 solar hijri; corresponding to 17th of the Islamic month of Shawwal 1440 lunar hijri; and June 21, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

2236 solar years ago, the largest and most successful ambushes in military history took place in the Battle of Lake Trasimene in northern Italy as part of the Second Punic War, when the Carthaginians led by general, Hannibal, defeated the Romans under the Consul Gaius Flaminius, who had set out with a huge army to try to avenge the earlier defeat at Trebia. Occupying an ideally concealed position in the hills and forests overlooking the lake, Hannibal skillfully used his army of North Africans and Europeans to annihilate the initial Roman force of about 30,000, of which 15,000 were either killed in battle or drowned while trying to escape into the lake — including Flaminius himself. The others were captured and sold into slavery, while Hannibal suffered only 2,500 casualties. The disaster for Rome did not end there. Within a day or two, a reinforcement force of 4,000 under Gaius Centenius was intercepted and destroyed. The Second Punic War lasted from 218 to 202 BC and involved battles in the western and eastern Mediterranean, with the participation of the Berbers on Carthage's side. The war is marked by Hannibal's landing in Spain with an army of elephants and his overland journey through what is now France, via which he crossed the Alps into Italy. Rome narrowly escaped destruction during his spectacular victories. The term "Punic" comes from the Latin word Punicus or Poenicus, which is a reference to the Carthaginians' ancestry in Phoenicia or modern Lebanon.

1435 lunar years ago, on this day in 5 AH, the Battle of Khandaq or Ditch, also known as the Battle of Ahzaab or Confederates, which a 10,000-strong joint force of pagan Arabs and Israelites had imposed upon Muslims by laying siege to Medina as part of the plot to kill Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), ended in decisive victory for Islam, thanks to the valour of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS). To defend the city against the mighty horde led by Abu Sufyan, the archenemy of Islam, the Muslims dug a ditch around the sensitive parts of Medina on the suggestion of Salman Farsi, the Prophet's Iranian companion. When the joint Arab-Israelite force arrived, it was surprised to see a ditch around Medina, and decided to besiege the city in order to break the will of the Muslims. As days passed and no breakdown of morale occurred in Medina, the fearsome Arab pagan warlord, Amr ibn Abduwad, along with some of his accomplices, leapt his horse across the ditch at its narrowest point and challenged the terrified Muslims to personal combat. Except for Imam Ali (AS), none of the companions of the Prophet dared to rise up against this veritable giant who had a nasty reputation of physical strength. A duel took place, and the Imam, despite receiving a wound on his forehead, knocked out Amr to the ground. At this moment, the fallen foe, turned out to be a coward, and spat at the Imam in a bid to avoid certain death. At this insult, Imam Ali (AS) gently withdrew to allow his emotions to cool down so that personal feelings do not mix with pure and sincere jihad in the way of God. The Arab infidel rose to his feet and renewed the life-and-death struggle, but this time the flashing sword of Imam Ali (AS), the famous double-bladed Zul-Feqar, made short work of the opponent who fell down dead to the ground. He then scattered the companions of Amr, and this valorous feat sent shivers down the spine of the Arab-Israelite hordes, making them break ranks and flee. The Prophet expressed the famous hadith this day: "The Stroke of Ali on the Day of Khandaq is superior to the worship of mankind and jinn."

1233 lunar years ago, on this day in 207 AH, Abu Salt al-Harawi, the loyal servant and companion of Imam Reza (AS), the 8th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), passed away at the age of 45 and was laid to rest in the environs of holy Mashhad, where a shrine stands today and is a site of pilgrimage. Born in the holy city of Medina in an Iranian family from the Khorasani city of Herat, as is indicated by his surname ‘Harawi”, his name was Abdus-Salaam, the son of Saleh bin Sulayman bin Ayoub. He had the honour of meeting Imam Reza (AS) in Medina, and became a loyal disciple to him, never separating until the 8th Imam’s martyrdom in Tous, Khorasan. He also holds the honour of being a narrator of Hadith from Imam Reza (AS). He has reported on the matchless virtues of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt and travelled over Hijaz, and to Yemen, Basra, Kufa, and through Khorasan to report narrations. Another of his virtues was that he used to debate the Murji'ya, the Jahmiya and the Qadariya sects regarding the genuine teachings of Islam. Aba Salt was the lone person at the side of the 8th Imam on his martyrdom through poisoning by the Abbasid caliph Ma’moun. After the Imam’s martyrdom, he was imprisoned by Ma’moun and escaped from the prison following the miraculous appearance of the 9th Imam Mohammad Taqi (AS), after he had supplicated to God for release. According to the famous bibliographer an-Najashi he had compiled a book on the martyrdom of the 8th Imam titled “Maqtal ar-Reza”.

1149 solar years ago, on this day in 870 AD, Muhtadi ibn Watheq, the 14^th self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime, was killed by the Turkic guards at the age of 38 after almost a year-long reign, having succeeded his lecherous cousin, Mu’taz ibn Mutawakkel, whom the Turkic guards had deposed and killed. Son of a Greek concubine named Qurb, on taking up power in Samarra, he tried to reform his court by banning singing girls, dancers and musicians, and prohibiting wine and gambling.

1183 lunar years ago, on this day in 257 AH, the Godless Ali bin Mohammad, a person of obscure origin and said to be a descendant of slaves, who styled himself Sahib az-Zanj or Leader of the black-skinned people of East African origin, entered the Iraqi port city of Basra, after his sedition met with failure in Bahrain, and launched a general massacre of the populace, burning entire localities including the Jame’ Mosque, where he killed the eminent grammarian Abbas bin Faraj Riyyashi while in prayer. He is said to have lived for a while in the Abbasid capital, Samarra, where he mixed with some of the influential slaves of Caliph Muntasir and saw the deep financial discrimination among Muslim citizens as a result of state policy. He then moved to the Persian Gulf island of Bahrain, where he pretended to be Shi’ite or follower of the household of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), in order to rouse the people into rebellion against the caliphate. His following grew so large that land taxes were collected in his name, but the rebellion eventually failed, and he relocated to Basra. Here he claimed himself to be a Kharijite or renegade from Islam and started collecting around him the bonded labourers of the marshlands. Soon, supported by the Arab Bedouin as well as black-skinned people, he styled himself Emir and embarked on plunder, death and destruction. His rebellion, which coincided with the secession of Egypt by Ahmad ibn Toloun and Yaqoub bin Laith Saffar’s uprising in Iran, lasted 14 years, during which he seized southern Iraq up to Wasset and parts of Iran’s Khuzestan, defeating several armies sent by the Abbasid caliphs, until he was defeated and killed in 267 AH. He left a trail of destruction and famine, with agricultural lands desolate and as many as half-a-million people killed. It is interesting to note that the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS), prophesied the revolt of Saheb az-Zanj two centuries earlier, citing Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) as his source of information, as is evident from the following passage in Sermon 127 of the Nahj al-Balaghah:

“O' Ahnaf! It is as though I see him advancing with an army which has neither dust nor noise, nor rustling of reins, nor neighing of horses. They are trampling the ground with their feet as if they are the feet of ostriches.”

1113 solar years ago, on this day in 906 AD, Ahmad ibn Mohammad, the Saffarid emir of Sistan for forty years, was born in the family of the famous Iranian adventurer Yaqoub bin Layth. His wife was the granddaughter of Amr bin Layth, and he  was he proclaimed ruler by the people in 923 at the age of 17 in Zaranj – ten years after the last Saffarid ruler was ousted from power. Ahmad started expanding his power in all directions, and although his sway in Kerman was temporary, he focused mainly in the east in and around Bust in what is now southeastern Afghanistan, where he crushed opposition to his rule. A great patron of arts, he was held in high regard by his neighbours; even the Saffarids’ historical enemies, the fellow Iranians, Samanids, of what is now Central Asia. The famous Persian poet, Rudaki, praised Ahmad Saffarid’s name in a panegyric at the Samanid court in Bukhara. Other poets, both in Persian and Arabic, also had favourable views about him. Many scholarly gatherings in Sistan were conducted by Ahmad and were attended by prominent scholars such as the logician Abu Sulayman Mohammad as-Sijistani and the academician Nasafi. Ahmad was killed during a drinking party by Turkic slaves hired by a Saffarid family member while his sons were away. He was succeeded by his son Khalaf Wali od-Dowla, who ruled Sistan for the next forty years until his defeat and capture by Sultan Mahmoud Ghaznavi the Turk, who ended the almost 140-year rule of the Saffarid dynasty.

492 solar years ago, on this day in 1527 AD, Italian historian and philosopher, Niccolo Machiavelli, died in his hometown Florence. Regarded as a founder of modern unprincipled political science, he was a diplomat, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic, serving as secretary to the Second Chancery from 1498 to 1512, when the Medici family were out of power. He wrote his political theory titled “The Prince” after the Medici had recovered power and he no longer held a position of responsibility. He believed that there is no harm in acquiring power and maintaining it through any means possible including deceit and oppression, without regard for ethical principles or moral and religious values. Machiavelli died in 1527.

195 solar years ago, on this day in 1824 AD, Egyptian forces, dispatched by Mohammad Ali Pasha to quell the West European-backed Greek sedition against Ottoman rule, recaptured Psara Island in the Aegean Sea from the rebels.

177 lunar years ago, on this day in 1263 AH, the eminent scholar, Seyyed Ibrahim Karbalai, passed away in the holy city of Karbala in Iraq at the age of 49. Born in Iran, after preliminary studies at his homeland, he left for Iraq, where in holy Karbala he spent the rest of his life, studying and lecturing on Islamic sciences. Among the books remaining from this Islamic scholar, mention can be made of "Dala’el al-Ahkaam", and "Treatises on Hajj Pilgrimage".

154 lunar years ago, on this day in 1286 AH, the prominent scholar Seyyed Mohammad Quli Kintoori passed away near Lucknow in northern India. Scion of a scholarly family from Naishapur in Khorasan, Iran, which had migrated to India and settled in Barabankavi and the town of Kintoor, he is the author of “Burhan as-Sa`adah”, and “Taqlib al-Maka’ed”, which are refutations of the 7th and 12th Chapters respectively of the seditious book of Shah Abdul-Aziz Dehlavi against the beliefs of the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) titled “Tohfeye- Ithna Ashariyyah”. He served in the judicial branch as a civil servant of the court of law, and presided as judge at the High Court of Meerut, where he authored the treatise “Adalat al-Alawiyya” on the exemplary judgements of Imam Ali (AS), the first Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). He also authored the book “Thathir al-Mu'minin an Najasat al-Mushrikin”. He strove to implement the Imami legal system in the kingdom of Awadh ruled by a family of Naishapur Seyyeds of Iranian origin, and adopted the code of governmental laws of the erstwhile Qotb Shahi kingdom of Golkandah-Haiderabad in the Deccan or southern India, ruled by an Iranian family from Hamedan. Mohammad Quli Kintoori was the father of the celebrated Ayatollah Seyyed Hamed Hussain Musavi the author of the famous book “Abaqaat al-Anwaar” on the merits of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt, as mentioned in the holy Qur'an by God Almighty and the Hadith.  

114 solar years ago, on this day in 1905 AD, the French philosopher and author, Jean-Paul Sartre, was born in Paris. He was among the pioneers of the weird school of thought known as Existentialism. He refused to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964. Among his books, mention can be made of “The Flies” and “Being and Nothingness”. He died in 1980. It is worth noting that Sartre’s philosophy was debated and disproved by two of Iran’s leading Islamic philosophers who were contemporary with him – Allamah Seyyed Mohammad Hussain Tabataba’i, and Allamah Mohammad Taqi Ja’fari.

93 solar years ago, on this day in 1926 AD, Iraqi Islamogist and philosopher, Muhsin Seyyed Mahdi, was born in the holy city of Karbala. After finishing studies in Baghdad, he was awarded a government scholarship to study at the American University of Beirut. On return to Iraq, he taught for a year at the University of Baghdad before going to the US in 1948, where he obtained an M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. He wrote his dissertation on Ibn Khaldun, and after spending two years in Baghdad, returned to Chicago, where he taught at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. At Harvard University (from 1969 until his retirement in 1996), as Professor of Arabic, he served as director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and also as Chairman of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. He was well versed in Islamic, ancient Greek, medieval Jewish and Christian philosophy as well as modern Western political philosophy. Grounded in the methods of critical editions of manuscripts, he tried to establish the same standards in the fields of Arabic philology and philosophy. He devoted much of his career in search of manuscripts wherever his travels took him. He is especially known for the recovery, edition, translation and interpretation of many of the works of the renowned Iranian Islamic philosopher, Abu Nasr al-Farabi. Among his books is “Alfarabi and the Foundation of Islamic Political Philosophy”. He also researched, edited, and published “The Thousand and One Nights.”

66 solar years ago, on this day in 1953 AD, Benazir Bhutto, who served as Pakistan's prime minister for two terms – from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996 – was born in Karachi in a Sindhi Muslim family. She was the daughter of Prime Minister Zulfeqar Ali Bhutto, who was deposed and executed by coup leader General Zia ul-Haq. Her mother Nosrat Isfahani was of Iranian origin. Benazir was assassinated at a public rally on 27 December 2007 under suspicious conditions during Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s rule, when it seemed that due to her immense popularity she was all set to win the parliamentary polls.

60 solar years ago, on this day in 1959 AD, Martyr Shaikh Nimr Baqer an-Nimr was born in Awwamiyya in the eastern oil-rich part of the Arabian Peninsula, that is currently under occupation of the Wahhabi Aal-e Saudi regime, which brutally martyred him on 2^nd January 2016 in a move that shocked the civilized world and led to protests around the globe. After preliminary education, he studied higher religious sciences in the Islamic Republic of Iran and later Syria, before returning to his homeland, where his popularity, especially among the youth, alarmed the repressive Aal-e Saud regime. His call for fair and free elections unnerved the regime, and led to his arrest in 2006. Upon release, he continued his criticism of the regime, calling for restoration of the suppressed rights of the Shi’a Muslims, warning that failure to meet the popular demands would lead to eventual declaration of independence by the oil-rich eastern region that the Saudis had occupied in the 1920s. The regime responded by arresting him and 35 others. During the 2011-12 peaceful protests, Shaikh Nimr called for protestors to resist police bullets using "the roar of the word" rather than violence. He predicted collapse of the pseudo country called Saudi Arabia which the British had set up in 1932 by naming their agent, the desert brigand Abdul-Aziz Aal-e Saud as king.  On 8 July 2012, regime forces shot him in the leg and imprisoned him. Despite torture, he refused to give up demands for the denied rights of the long-suppressed Shi’a Muslim majority of the eastern region as well as support for people in the neighbouring Persian Gulf island state of Bahrain where the Aal-e Khalifa minority regime is indulging in all sorts of crimes against the nation. He was sentenced to death by a kangaroo court in 2014 and martyred without trial in the prison.

49 solar years ago, on this day in 1970 AD, the Leader of Indonesia’s independence from Dutch colonial rule, Ahmed Sukarno, died at the age of 69. He was elected as president of Indonesia in 1949, and was in power for 15 years when General Suharto staged a coup and seized power. In 1967, he was forced to resign.

38 solar years ago, on this day in 1981 AD, Islamic thinker, scientist, and Iranian defence minister, Dr. Mostafa Chamran, was martyred by the invading Ba'thist forces at the age of 49 while directing operations at the warfronts in Khuzestan, southwest Iran. He studied electronic engineering and obtained a PhD in this field from the US, where he was active in the struggle against the British-installed and US-backed Pahlavi regime. He left his prestigious job as a senior research staff scientist at Bell Laboratories and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to live in self-exile in Lebanon, where, while cooperating with the famous Iranian émigré religious leader, Imam Musa Sadr, he helped the deprived Lebanese people set up the Amal (Hope) Movement to confront the state terrorism of the illegal Zionist entity. Following the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, he returned to Iran and was in charge of organizing the Islamic Revolution’s Guards Corps (IRGC). Elected to the parliament in March 1980 he subsequently became defence minister. When Saddam at the behest of the US imposed the 8-year war on Iran, the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA), appointed him representative to the Supreme Defense Council. As an experienced general he was actively involved in defence operations at the warfronts and achieved martyrdom.

29 solar years ago, on this day in 1990 AD, a massive earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale jolted Gilan and Zanjan Provinces in northwestern Iran, at night, inflicting huge fatalities and major losses. The epicenter was in Roudbar. It claimed more than 50,000 lives, while wounding 60,000 others and leaving 500,000 people homeless. In the wake of this catastrophic earthquake, the Iranian people and government rushed to help the quake victims and compensated for the damages imposed by this quake.

15 solar years ago, on this day in 2004 AD, Iranian engineer, architect and archeologist, Mohammad Mehryar, passed away at the age of 65, while engaged in projects to restore the historic Bam Citadel following the devastating earthquake. For over 30 years he was active in research, field work, and projects to determine pre-Islamic and Islamic architectural masterpieces at Iran’s historical sites.

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