Today is Wednesday; 10th of the Iranian month of Mehr 1398 solar hijri; corresponding to 3rd of the Islamic month of Safar 1441 lunar hijri; and October 2, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1384 lunar years ago, on this day in 57 AH, according to a narration, is the birth anniversary of Imam Mohammad al-Baqer (AS), the 5th Infallible Successor of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). Born in Medina, he was present in Karbala as a four-year old boy and was witness to the tragic martyrdom of his grandfather, Imam Husain (AS). In the aftermath of the tragedy he was imprisoned by the Omayyads, along with his parents and the rest of the womenfolk and children of the Prophet's progeny. His father was Imam Zain al-Abedin (AS) while his mother Fatema (SA) was the daughter of the Prophet's elder grandson, Imam Hasan al-Mojtaba (AS), which means he was descended on both sides from the Prophet. During his 19-year Imamate, he strove to spread the genuine teachings of Islam and the pure and pristine practice (Sunnah) and behaviour (Seerah) of the Prophet. In fact, his epithet “Baqer al-Uloum” (Splitter and Spreader of Sciences) was foretold by the Prophet himself through the prominent Sahabi, Jaber Ibn Abdullah al-Ansari, who lived until the time of the 5th Imam’s childhood and conveyed to him the Messenger of Islam’s message. In addition to the followers of the Ahl al-Bayt, Sunni Muslims have also narrated hadith on his authority. Before his martyrdom at the age of 57 as a result of poisoning by the Omayyad caliph, Hesham ibn Abdul-Malik, he opened many vistas of knowledge, which were taken to new heights by his son and successor, Imam Ja'far as-Sadeq (AS).

1233 lunar years ago, on this day in 208 AH, according to a narration, Seyyeda Nafisah, the great granddaughter of Imam Hasan al-Mujtaba (AS) – the elder grandson of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) – and daughter-in-law of the Prophet’s 6^th Infallible Heir, Imam Ja’far as-Sadeq (AS), passed away while engrossed in the recitation of holy Qur’an at the age of 63 in Fustat near what is now Cairo in Egypt. She was laid to rest in that city when husband Ishaq al-Mo’tamen saw the Prophet in his dream, instructing him not to take the body to homeland Hijaz for burial in Medina, as planned. She was a very pious and God-fearing lady, in contrast to her unprincipled father, Hassan al-Anwar (son of ibn Zayd al-Ablaj), who contrary to the ways of the Ahl al-Bayt, had sided with the usurper Abbasid regime against his own kinsmen, serving as governor of Medina during the tyrant Mansour Dawaniqi’s caliphate and opposing the marriage of Nafisah to Ishaq. Her husband was noted for his piety, knowledge, and reliability in narrating hadith, for which he had earned the epithet “al-Mo’tamen” or trustworthy. He was witness to the last will written by his brother Imam Musa al-Kazem (AS) to son, Imam Ali ar-Reza (AS). Nafisah, who was the mother of two children – a son and daughter – came to Egypt in 193 AH after visiting Damascus to perform pilgrimage to the shrine of her great grand aunt, the Prophet’s granddaughter Hazrat Zainab (SA). The Egyptian people warmly welcomed her and entreated her to stay in Cairo, where, during her 15-year stay, she used to hold classes of Qur’an and hadith, attended among others at various times by the Mystic Dhun-Noon al-Misri, Bishr bin Hareth al-Haafi of Baghdad – who was guided to the right path by Imam Kazem (AS), and two jurists who later founded their respective schools of jurisprudence, Mohammad bin Idris ash-Shafei, Ahmad bin Mohammad bin Hanbal. It has been mentioned that Nafisah performed the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca on thirty occasions, due to her miraculous powers she cured the ill and saved Egyptians and the River Nile from drought. She was mother of Seyyed Qasim and Seyyedah Omm Kolthoum, while her equally pious niece, Seyyedah Zainab (daughter of her brother Seyyed Yahya), also has a much-visited shrine in Cairo, which some people wrongly think to be the resting place of the Heroine of Karbala, Hazrat Zainab (SA). The shrine of Seyyeda Nafisah is among the most visited pilgrimage centres in Egypt. On Sundays and Thursdays, thousands of people visit her shrine. It is also a custom to hold wedding ceremonies in her mausoleum. Another account says she passed away on the 1^st of Ramadhan the same year. Each year on the birth anniversary of Hazrat Nafisa on the 11^th of Rabi al-Awwal, ceremonies are held in Egypt.

1190 solar years ago, on this day in 829 AD, Theophilos succeeded his father, Michael II, as Byzantine Emperor. He was the last emperor to support iconoclasm. In 831 until his death in 842, he was engaged in lifelong war against the Muslims, beginning with the loss of Sicily to the Arabs who took Palermo and established the Muslim Emirate on this island off the coast of Italy. In Anatolia (present day Turkey), he had to face armies of the Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad and was defeated several times, losing many fortresses. In 831, he led a large army into Cilicia and captured Tarsus. In the autumn of the same year, however, he was defeated in Cappadocia by the Muslims, followed by another defeat in the same province in 833 that forced him to sue for peace with Mamoun by offering 100,000 gold dinars for the return of 7,000 prisoners. In 834 he gave asylum to the Persian Nasr, who along with his 14,000 Khorramites (Khorramdinas), converted to Christianity and took the name of Theophobos, thereby bolstering the Byzantine army with the formation of the "Persian Tourma" made up of Iranian and Kurdish apostates. In September 837, when 16,000 more Khorramites crossed into the Byzantine Empire and joined the “Persian Tourma”, swelling the ranks of the army, Theophilos invaded Muslim lands with a 70,000-strong force, capturing Melitene and Arsamosata (in Turkey), and then taking Zapetra (Zibatra), which was brutally sacked by Theophobus and his Khorramites. The next year, however, Theophilos suffered a shattering defeat, along with his Kurdish and Persian Khorramites, in the Battle of Anzen – also known as Dazimon (Dazman in Turkey). The Muslim army was led by the Iranian general, Afshin Khaydaar bin Kavous, who a year earlier as governor of Azarbaijan and Armenia had crushed the rebellion of Babak Khorramdin and captured him. Unable to withstand the assault of Afshin's horse-archers, Theophilos and his European and Asian contingents including the elite “Tagmata” broke ranks and fled. A few weeks later the Muslims captured Amorion – ruins located near the village of Hisarkoy, Turkey. In 841, the Republic of Venice sent a fleet of 60 galleys (each carrying 200 men) to assist the Byzantines in attacking the Muslims in Crotone in Calabria in southern Italy, but failed. The next year while on his deathbed, Theophilos executed Theophobus the Persian Khorramite who had converted to Christianity.

1108 lunar years ago, on this day in 333 AH, al-Muttaqi-Billah, the 21st self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime, was deposed and blinded after a rule of four years by the Turkic general, Tuzun, who replaced him on the same day with a cousin called al-Mustakfi. The caliphate or political rule of the Islamic state that was snatched from its rightful inheritor, Imam Ali Ibn Abi Taleb (AS), at the scandalous gathering of Saqifa Bani Sa'da, by a group of Sahaba – recent converts from years of idolatry – no sooner did Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) leave the mortal world, had become so insignificant after the tyrannically un-Islamic rule of the Omayyads and the early Abbasids, that it now depended on the whims of the neo-Muslim Turkic slave guards who played havoc in Baghdad. Iran and the east were long gone; Egypt and Africa had been lost to the Fatemids, Arabia and Yemen were held by the Carmathians and local chieftains, Syria and Palestine were no longer under the caliphate, and even in Iraq there were revolts in Basra and Waset, while Mosul had become independent. In northern Syria and Anatolia, the Byzantine attempts to advance were being thwarted only because of the bravery of the Hamdanid Shi'ite Muslim dynasty whose protection Muttaqi-Billah sought on becoming caliph. Naser od-Dowla Hamdani saw this as an opportunity to add all of Iraq to his realm and marched along with the caliph, but because of the well-organized opposition of the Turkic forces in Baghdad he found it difficult to control the city. The caliph after wondering from city to city finally threw himself at the mercy of Tuzun, who soon broke his promises and deposed, blinded and replaced him with another puppet.

1036 lunar years ago, on this day in 405 AH, prominent Iranian Sunni Muslim compiler of hadith, Mohammad Ibn Abdullah, Hakem an-Naishapuri, passed away in his native Khorasan at the age 81. His famous book is "Mustadrek ala as-Sahihayn" in five volumes, which is a supplement to the two principal books of Sunni hadith, the "Sahih Bukhari" and the "Sahih Muslim" – also compiled by Iranians born in families of converts from Zoroastrianism to Islam. On the basis of the criteria set by the two books, Hakem has collected thousands of hadith that Bukhari and Muslim had failed to locate, including many pertaining to the unparalleled merits of Imam Ali (AS), and the Ahl al-Bayt. He authored several books including on the History of the Ulema of his hometown Naishapur, the Benefits of the People of Khorasan, and “Tarajem al-Musnad ala Shart as-Sahihayn” (Reports of Ibn Hanbal’s Musnad that Match the Criteria of the Two Sahih Books).

832 solar years ago, on this day in 1187 AD, a memorable event occurred in Islamic history. A united Muslim army of Arab, Turks, Kurds, and Iranians, under command of the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt and Syria, Salah od-Din the Kurd, liberated the Islamic holy city of Bayt ol-Moqaddas after 88 years of occupation by the Christian Crusaders of Europe. He thus ended the illegal existence of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, which the European occupiers had set up in Palestine after massacring as many as 70,000 Muslim men, women, and children in Bayt al-Moqaddas in 1099 while seizing it from the Ismaili Shi'ite Fatemid Dynasty of Egypt-North Africa. The anniversary of this great day is a constant reminder to the Palestinians and world Muslims that God Willing, the day will soon come when Bayt al-Moqaddas will again be liberated and the illegal Zionist entity will cease to exist.

467 solar years ago, on this day in 1552 AD, Kazan, the capital of Tataristan, was occupied after a long siege by Russia's Ivan the Terrible, who massacred as many as 110,000 Tartar Muslims, and forcibly converted to Christianity many others, after destroying mosques or turning them into churches. The fall of Tataristan was the culmination of almost a century of sea-saw struggle for domination of the region by the Muslims and Christians. The Tartar Khan Yadegar Mohammad was captured by the Russians. By 1593, mosques in the area were destroyed and Russia forbade the construction of new mosques, a prohibition that was not lifted until the 18th century. Today Tataristan is an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation and the overwhelming majority of its people are Muslims.

219 solar years ago, on this day in 1800 AD, Nat Turner, the black Afro-American who led the so-called "slave revolution" in the US, was born. In August 1931 after assembling the freedom-seeking black people of Africa who were enslaved in the US, he started an uprising in Southampton County, Virginia, by freeing many African people from slavery. The uprising was brutally crushed after a few days by the White racist government. Turner survived in hiding for over two months afterward, but was seized and executed. The white Americans then massacred over 200 black people in the southern states, where state legislatures passed new laws prohibiting education of the so-called slaves as well as free black-coloured people, as well as restricting rights of assembly and other civil rights for them.

150 solar years ago, on this day in 1869 AD, leader of India's struggle for independence from British rule, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was born in Por-Bandar seaport of Gujarat. He went to London and trained as lawyer and also lived for sometimes in British-ruled South Africa where he was discriminated against by the white authorities because of skin color. On returning to India, he joined the Congress party and soon led the civil-disobedience movement for independence, as part of his policy of non-violence. Gandhi used to say and also wrote that the factor which inspired him to struggle against heavy odds was the immortal epic of Imam Husain (AS), the Martyr of Karbala. In 1948, a year after India’s independence he was assassinated by a Hindu terrorist.

115 solar years ago, on this day in 1904 AD, English author Graham Greene was born. His books are always the scene of confrontation between good and evil. In his famous book "The Power and the Glory", Greene has introduced patience, and hardship, as the path to salvation. He has left behind numerous books, including "The Third Man", and "The Gun for Hire". He died in 1991.

122 solar years ago, on this day in 1897 AD, the famous Persian poetess of the Caucasus, Khurshid-Banu Natavan, passed away in Shusha at the age of 65. Daughter of Mahdi Quli Khan, the last ruler of the Qarabagh khanate, she is considered the best lyrical poet of what is known today as the Republic of Azerbaijan and which throughout history has been part of Iran, until its occupation by the Russians in the first half of the 19th century. Her ancestor Panah Ali Khan was appointed governor by the Safavid Emperor of Iran. She taught Azeri, Persian and Arabic to her children, some of whom became scholars.

78 solar years ago, on this day in 1941 AD, Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler launched a second offensive on the Soviet Union during World War 2. In its first offensive, started on June 22, 1941, Germany occupied parts of the Soviet Union's soil. The goal was to break resistance of Red Army, and seize more regions, especially the capital Moscow, prior to the onset of winter. The Soviet people and the army stoutly defended and foiled Hitler's bid. The Germans were driven out from Soviet soil by late 1944.

61 solar years ago, on this day in 1958 AD, Guinea gained independence from French rule. In late 15th century it was occupied by the Portuguese, followed by the French in early 19th century, becoming a colony in 1849. In 1946, it gained autonomy. Finally, following a referendum, Guinea announced its independence, and Ahmed Sekou Toure was elected the first president of this Muslim majority country. The Republic of Guinea covers an area of 245875 sq km. It is situated in West Africa and shares borders with Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea Bissau.

27 solar years ago, on this day in 1992 AD, a bloody massacre of prisoners took place in Carandiru Penitentiary in Sao Paulo, Brazil, when military police stormed it following a prison revolt because of bad conditions. It left 111 prisoners dead and is considered a major human rights violation in the history of Brazil. The police made little if any effort to negotiate with the prisoners before attacking the unarmed inmates. Survivors said police also fired at inmates who had already surrendered or were trying to hide in their cells. The officer in charge of the operation, Colonel Ubiratan Guimaraes, was initially sentenced to 632 years in prison for his mishandling of the revolt and subsequent massacre, but his surprise acquittal several years later resulted in his assassination in 2006 as an act of vengeance. Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), one of Brazil's feared gangs, was formed in 1993 as a response to the event. This group is believed to be responsible for the death of Jose Ismael Pedrosa, director of the prison at the time. The notorious prison was demolished on December 9, 2002. In April 2013, 23 policemen involved in the massacre were sentenced to 156 years in jail each for the killing of 13 inmates, while a further 25 policemen involved in the massacre were sentenced to 624 years in jail each for the deaths of 52 inmates in August 2013.

7 solar years ago, on this day 2012 AD, Bahraini activist, 24-year old Mohammed Mushaima, attained martyrdom due to torture and medical negligence by jailors of the repressive Aal-e Khalifa minority regime, prompting the international Human Rights Watch to call for an investigation. He was detained illegally in March 2011 for taking part in a peaceful rally and had been hospitalized since August 2011 because of acute torture. His lawyers’ request to the kangaroo courts in Bahrain for his release because of his bad health, were rejected. After his funeral, clashes erupted in Manama as protesters took to the streets demanding an investigation into the circumstances of Mushaima’s death.

AS/SS