Today is Monday, 27th of the Iranian month of Aban 1398 solar hijri; corresponding to 20th of the Islamic month of Rabi al-Awwal 1441 lunar hijri; and November 18, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

Over 3100 lunar years ago, on this day, the young Prophet David (AS) killed in combat Goliath, the fearsome warlord of the idol-worshipping Philistines, who broke ranks and fled. Almighty Allah has referred to this historic event towards the end of Surah Baqarah, which informs us of the weak faith of the monotheist Israelites; most of whom, except for 313 men of firm faith, deserted the army of King Saul when faced by an invading force of the Philistines led by the veritable giant, Goliath. Even Saul despite his strength and stature avoided combat with Goliath by ignoring the assurances of divine help by Prophet Samuel (AS). At this stage, David, still a young lad without any battle experience and only with a sling in his hand with which he used to chase away wild beasts attacking his flock of sheep, decided to accept the challenge of the heavily armed and armour-clad Goliath. Goliath laughed at the sight of the slim unarmed youth, but before the infidel had time to use his sword or bow, David, taking aim at his opponent’s forehead, flung a stone or two by means of his sling, piercing the area below the helmet. Goliath cried loudly in pain and fell dead on the ground. At this, fear seized the hearts of the Philistines, who began to flee. Ayah 246 of Surah Baqarah says in this regard:

“Thus they routed them with Allah’s will, and David killed Goliath, and Allah gave him the kingdom and wisdom, and taught him whatever He liked. Were it not for Allah’s repelling the people by means of one another, the earth would surely have been corrupted; but Allah is gracious to the world’s creatures.”

A similar event took place in the early days of the founding of the Islamic state by Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) when a 12,000 strong joint Arab-Israelite army besieged Medina in a bid to kill Muslims and wipe out Islam. The infidel warlord Amr ibn Abd Wudd, who was a giant like Goliath, leapt over the ditch which the Muslim defenders had dug as means of defence and challenged them to fight. Fear prevailed everywhere and no one heeded the Prophet’s call to face Amr, except the young Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS). In a heroic combat during which the Imam allowed his fearsome opponent respite to renew the life-and-death fight when the fallen infidel had dared to spit at him, he made short work of Amr, making the Arab-Israelite force disperse in fear and ensuring victory of Islam. The Prophet stated: “The stroke of Ali on the Day of the Ditch is superior to the worship of mankind and jinn.” This event is known in the annals of history as Battle of Khandaq or Ditch, and also Battle of Ahzaab, i.e. Confederates, since the Arabs and Israelites had joined together to try to kill the Prophet and wipe out Islam.

991 lunar years ago, on this day in 450 AH, the Iranian Shafei jurisprudent and scholar, Taher ibn Abdullah Abu Tayyeb at-Tabari, died in Baghdad at the age of 102. Born in Amol, in the Caspian Sea region of Mazandaran, he traveled widely to acquire knowledge, before settling in Iraq, where he was Chief Judge of Baghdad until his death. His books include "Jawab fi's-Sama" and the ten-volume work titled "al-Ghena wa't-Ta'liqat al-Kubra fi'l-Furu".

934 lunar years ago, on this day in 507 AH, the famous Iranian Arabic scholar and poet, Abu'l-Muzaffar Mohammad bin Ahmad Abiwardi, died in Isfahan. He was well-versed in history, hadith, lexicography, and calligraphy and wrote on various topics. Among his books are "Tabaqat al-Ilm", "Tarikh-e Abiward", and a critical work on genealogy titled "Qabsat al-Ajlan fi-Nasab Aal-e Abi Sufiyan", which deals with the dubious paternity of Abu Sufyan, Mu'awiyya and other Omayyads. He wrote a moving ode in Arabic on the plight of Muslims in Syria and Palestine during the occupation of these lands by Europe’s Crusader invaders, who had unleashed a bloody holocaust on the people. Here are some of his verses:

"We have mingled blood with flowing tears,

And there is no room left for pity

To shed tears is a man's worst weapon

When the swords stir up the embers of war,

Sons of Islam, behind you are battles in which heads rolled at your feet.

Dare you slumber in the blessed shade of safety!

Where life is soft as an orchard flower?

How can the eye sleep between the lids?

At a time of disasters that would awaken any sleeper!

While your Syrian brothers can only sleep,

On the backs of their chargers or in vultures' bellies!

Must the foreigners feed on our ignominy, while you trail behind!

The train of a pleasant life, like men whose world is at peace?

When blood has been spilt, when sweet girls must for shame 

Hide their lovely faces in their hands!

When the white swords' points are red with blood, and the iron

Of the brown lances is stained with gore!

At the sound of sword hammering on lance

Young children's hair turn white, 

This is war, and the infidel's sword is naked in his hand,

Ready to be sheathed in men's necks and skulls,

This is war, and he who lies in the tomb at Medina seems

To raise his voice and cry: O sons of Hashem!

I see my people slow to raise the lance against the enemy:

I see the Faith resting on feeble pillars.

For fear of death the Muslims are evading the fire of battle,

Refusing to believe that death will surely strike them. 

Must the Arab champions then suffer with resignation? 

While the gallant Persians shut their eyes to their dishonour!

598 solar years ago, on this day in 1421 AD, a seawall at the Zuiderzee dike in the Netherlands breaks, flooding 72 villages and killing about 10,000 people. This event will be known as St Elizabeth's flood.

537 solar years ago, in 1482 AD, Gedik Ahmed Pasha, Kapudan (Chief Admiral) and 17th Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Sultan Mohammad II (conqueror of Constantinople) was killed in prison on the orders of Sultan Beyazid II. Of Serbian descent, he personally led the campaign in 1471 to defeat the last Anatolian Turkic beylik (dominion), the Karamanids, who as successors of the Seljuq Sultanate of Roum and control of the historic city of Konya, had been the strongest power in Anatolia for almost 200 years. Thus, Gedik Ahmed Pasha's victory over them and his conquest of the Mediterranean coastal region around Ermenek, Mennan and Silifke, proved crucial for the future of the Ottomans. He also fought against the Venetians and was dispatched in 1475 by the Sultan to aid the Crimean Khanate against Genoese forces. He rescued the Khan of Crimea, Menli I Giray, and as a result of his campaign, Crimea and Circassia entered into the Ottoman sphere of influence. In 1479 he was ordered to besiege Shkodra in Albania, and later that year to lead the Ottoman Navy in the Mediterranean as part of the war against the Italian states of Naples and Milan. Since Mohammad II had conquered Constantinople in 1453 he saw himself as the inheritor of the Roman Empire and seriously considered the conquest of Italy. As part of this plan, Gedik Ahmed Pasha was sent with a naval force to the heel of the Italian peninsula, and took the port city of Otranto in 1480, making the Pope consider fleeing from Rome. The death of Sultan Mohammad in May the next year ended the campaign, and his successor Beyazid II dismissed and imprisoned him.

418 solar years ago, on this day in 1601 AD, Tiryaki Hassan Pasha, provincial governor of Ottoman Empire, decisively defeated Habsburg forces commanded by Ferdinand the Archduke of Austria during the Siege of Nagykanizsa. The 50,000-strong Christian force attacked what was then Kanije in southwest Hungary, but the superior tactics of the Muslim defenders enabled the Turks to withstand the siege and ultimately counterattack and defeat the enemy forces. Hassan Pasha was an ethnic Bosnian and because of addiction to coffee was known as Tiryaki.

352 solar years ago, on this day in 1667 AD, The Treaty of Bongaja was forced upon Sultan Hassan od-Din of Gowa in what is now Indonesia by the invading forces of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), following the defeat of the Muslim army at Makassar on Sulawesi Island, mainly due to the siding of the animist warlord Arung Palakka with the Christians. Based on the terms of the treaty, Sultan Hassan od-Din conceded to the Dutch the territories of Buton, Makassar, Timor, Bima and the coasts of Java. For the next two centuries, Netherland’s control over the archipelago was tenuous outside of coastal strongholds and only in the early 20th century did Dutch dominance extend to what was to become Indonesia's present boundaries. In 1945, following end of World War 2 and Japanese occupation, Indonesia announced its independence, but was attacked by the Dutch, who in 1949, finally left the world’s most populous Muslim country.

232 solar years ago, on this day in 1787 AD, the French painter, inventor, and physicist, Louis Daguerre, was born. His most important invention was the camera in the year 1839. He managed to take the first clear photo with this camera. Interestingly, nearly concurrent with Daguerre, his compatriot, Joseph Nicephore Niepce, had also succeeded in inventing the camera. Daguerre died in 1851.

180 solar years ago, on this day in 1839 AD, the second phase of the Algerian people’s anti-colonial struggles against France started under the leadership of Seyyed Abdul-Qader bin Mohieddin al-Hassani, al-Jaza'eri, who claimed descent from Imam Hasan Mojtaba (AS), the elder grandson of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). Abdul-Qader, who returned to Algeria, a few months before the Turks lost it to the French invaders in 1930, had during his 5-year journey abroad, met with, and was highly impressed by Imam Shamil of Daghestan – the leader of the struggle against Russian expansion in the Caucasus which recently had been seized by the Czar from the Qajarid rulers of Iran. As a Sufi scholar, Abdul-Qader now led the military struggle against France, and within two years was made an amir by tribes fighting the French. He organized guerrilla warfare and for a decade scored many victories. He often signed tactical truces with the French, but these did not last. His failure to get support from the eastern tribes, apart from the Berbers of western Kabylie led to the quelling of his uprising. On December 21, 1847, after being denied refuge in Morocco because of French pressure, he surrendered. It took more than a century for the French to leave Algeria as a result of the freedom war that started in the 1950s and triumphed in 1962, but not before France had massacred over a million Algerian Muslims.

120 solar years ago, on this day in 1899 AD, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Abu’l-Qasim Musavi Khoei, was born in Khoy in Iran’s West Azarbaijan Province. After initial studies in Tabriz, he left for holy Najaf in Iraq at the age of 13 to continue his studies. Here, his piety and knowledge attracted the attention of the Indian-based Iranian religious scholar, Mirza Ahmad Najafi-Tabrizi, who gave his daughter in marriage to him and lodged him in his own house. Mirza Ahmad used to frequent the semi-independent state of Banganapalle in south India, ruled by a Seyyed family of Iranian origin, who were patrons of scholars and learning. Soon Ayatollah Khoei mastered logic, rhetoric, theology, jurisprudence and philosophy, and in the process attained the status of Ijtehad. In 1971, he succeeded Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Mohsin al-Hakim as the leading Marja’ of the Islamic world and thereafter groomed a large number of scholars from Iran, Iraq, the Subcontinent, Bahrain and Lebanon. Among his valuable books are “Lectures in the Principles of Jurisprudence”, in 10 volumes, “Islamic Law” in 18 volumes, and "Mu'jam Rijal al-Hadith" in 24 volumes. The last named is an authoritative work on evaluation of narrators of hadith. During the 8-year war imposed on Iran in the 1980s by the US through Saddam, he refused to yield to the Ba’thist minority regime’s pressures to denounce the Islamic Republic, even though his house was frequently subjected to water and electricity cuts. He passed away in Kufa in 1992, a year and some five months after Saddam brutally crushed popular uprising of the Iraqi people. It is believed the regime martyred him through poisoning.

116 solar years ago, on this day in 1903 AD, Panama Canal Treaty was concluded between the Republic of Panama and the US, on the basis of which, the strategic Canal was permanently leased to the US for a mere $10 million in cash and an annual payment of $250,000. The people of Panama, through their struggles, finally forced the US to revise the permanent lease contract in 1978, when US president, Jimmy Carter, and the president of Panama, Omar Torrijos, signed an agreement to give back the Canal to Panama towards the end of the year 1999. The Panama Canal is 68 km in length and links the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. However, despite the US withdrawal, Panama continues to be considered by the US as its fiefdom.

102 solar years ago, on this day in 1926 AD, Irish thinker and playwright, George Bernard Shaw, refused to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying, "I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize." Instituted in 1895 by the Swedish chemist, who was dismayed by the epithet “merchant of death” which he acquired after inventing dynamite, the Nobel Prize was soon politicized and turned into a means for promotion of the West’s domineering, divisive, exploitative and murderous policies that led Bernard Shaw to criticize it. Interestingly, Shaw has made the following statements regarding Islam:

“If any religion had the chance of ruling over England, nay Europe within the next hundred years, it could be Islam."

“I have always held the religion of (Prophet) Mohammad (SAWA) in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capacity to the changing phase of existence which can make itself appeal to every age. I have studied him - the wonderful man and in my opinion far from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the Saviour of Humanity.”

“I have prophesied about the faith of (Prophet) Mohammad (SAWA) that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today.”

73 solar years ago, on this day in 1946 AD, Head of the Islamic seminary of holy Mashhad, Ayatollah Shaikh Morteza Ashtiyani, passed away at the age of 83 and was laid to rest in the mausoleum of Imam Reza (AS) – the 8th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). He completed his higher studies and reached the status of Ijtehad in holy Najaf, Iraq, where his teachers were the famous ulema, Mirza Habibollah Rashti, and Akhound Khorasani. On his return to Iran, he took up residence in Tehran for some years before shifting to holy Mashhad where he spent the last 25 years of his life, teaching and preaching.

63 solar years ago, on this day in 1956 AD, Morocco became independent from the colonial rule of France, which had seized this Muslim country in 1921. Morocco covers an area of 458,730 sq km, and is located in northwestern Africa and the coastlines of Atlantic Ocean. Muslims constitute 99% of its population.

57 solar years ago, on this day in 1962, Danish scientist and physicist, Niels Bohr, died at the age of 82. He conducted atomic researches for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1945.

56 solar years ago, on this day in 1963 AD, Colonel Abdus-Salaam Aref, with the help of the Ba'th Party, seized power in Iraq, by staging a coup and killing General Abdul-Karim Qasem. Abdus-Salaam Aref, after consolidating his power, purged the government of the Ba’th Party. In 1966, he was killed in a plane crash, while returning to Baghdad from Basra, where in a blasphemous speech he tried to ridicule the famous sermon of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS), in the book “Nahj al-Balagha”, where Prophet Mohammad's (SAWA) 1st Infallible Successor censures the people of Basra for their unmanly characteristics in assisting the seditionists that had stirred the Battle of Jamal and shed Muslim blood. Abdus-Salaam Aref was replaced by his brother Abdur-Rahman Aref.

37 solar years ago, on this day in 1982 AD, Iraqi parties in exile met in Tehran to form the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SAIRI) to free their homeland from the tyrannical rule of the Ba'th minority regime of Saddam. SAIRI was active in political and military circles against the Ba'thists during the 8-year war the US had imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran through Saddam. After the US and Britain turned against their protégé Saddam and dislodged him from power in 2003, SAIRI relocated its headquarters to Iraq, where a few months later, its charismatic leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Baqer Hakeem was martyred shortly after leading the Friday Prayer in Najaf in the holy shrine of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS). It has now changed its name to Supreme Islamic Assembly of Iraq, and is led by Hojjat al-Islam Seyyed Ammar Hakeem, nephew of Seyyed Mohammd Baqer Hakeem. The group is an active me7mber of the ruling coalition of Iraq.

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