Today is Saturday; 26th of the Iranian month of Tir 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 11th of the Islamic month of Shawwal 1437 lunar hijri; and July 16, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1440 lunar years ago, on this day, a couple of years before Hijrah or migration to Medina, Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), left the persecuted atmosphere of Mecca for the fertile resort of Ta’ef to preach the message of Islam. The people of this city, including the influential clan of Thaqif, refused to believe in monotheism and subjected the Prophet to taunts including physical injury, as a result of which he returned to his hometown.

1394 solar years ago, on this day in 622 AD, the Islamic lunar calendar began. It was fixed in 638 AD, 16 solar years after the passing away of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), when confusion arose regarding the dates and years to be followed. During his caliphate Omar ibn Khattab, who had banned the written compilation of the Prophet’s hadith and even rejected the collection of the ayahs of the holy Qur’an in book form as Mus’haf after having deprived the Prophet’s divinely-decreed successor, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS) of the political rule of the Muslim state, received a letter from the governor of Basra that the absence of any years on the correspondence he receives from Medina, make it difficult for him to determine which instructions were most recent. Omar was clearly perplexed, and as usual the magnanimous Imam Ali (AS) came to his rescue by advising that the Islamic calendar should be dated according to the Hijra or migration of the Prophet from Mecca to Medina. Omar accepted the Imam’s advice, but as per the insinuation of Osman ibn Affan he fixed the date of the beginning of the Islamic year on the 1^st of Moharram, in line with the pagan Arab custom of that time, even though the actual migration of the Prophet had taken place on the eve of Rabi al-Awwal.

1338 solar years ago, on this day in 678 AD, Ayesha bint Abu Bakr died in Medina at the age of 64. She was one of the nine wives Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) had taken out of social necessity in the last ten years of his life, following the passing away of the First Lady of Islam, Omm al-Momineen (Mother of True Believers), Hazrat Khadija (SA), with whom he spent 25 years of marital bliss and through her became the father of the noblest-ever lady, Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA). Ayesha was actually killed by the Omayyad ruler Mua’wiyya ibn Abu Sufyan who had usurped the caliphate and intended to pass it on to his lecherous son, Yazid. Thus, in order to remove a potential opponent to his plan, he devised the death of Ayesha by inviting her to a feast and seating her over a booby-trapped limestone well into which she fell and died. Mua’wiyya had not forgotten Ayesha's rabble-rousing role decades earlier against his Omayyad kinsman the 3^rd caliph, Othman bin Affan, whom she used to call an apostate and who was eventually murdered. He was also well aware that she was the cause of the first armed fitna (sedition) in Islam when she led an army of oath-breakers against the Prophet's rightful successor, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS) at Basra in Iraq, where she was soundly defeated, but magnanimously treated and allowed to go back respectfully to Medina. 

950 lunar years ago, on this day in 487 AH, the Spanish Muslim lexicographer, geographer and historian, Abu Obayd Abdullah ibn Abdul-Aziz al-Bakri, passed away at the age of 82. Born in Huelva, the son of the ruler of the short-lived principality of the same name, he was a polymath in most of the sciences of the day. When his father was deposed he shifted to Qurtuba (Cordoba) where he studied with the geographer Ahmad Ibn Omar al-Udhri and the historian Hayyán Ibn Khalaf Ibn Hayyan al-Qurtubi. He spent all his life in his native Spain, mostly in Seville and Almeria, writing about Europe, North Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula. Only two of his works have survived – the “Mu'jam ma Ista'jam” and “Kitab al-Masalek wa’l-Mamalek” (Book of Ways and Lands). The latter work was based on writings and the reports of merchants and travellers, including Mohammad Ibn Yusuf al-Warraq and the Arabicized Jew, Abraham ben Jacob. It is an important source for the history of West Africa and gives crucial information on the Ghana Empire, the Almoravid Dynasty and the trans-Saharan trade. He also updated information. Al-Bakri mentions the earliest urban centers in the trans-Saharan trade to embrace Islam such as Gao along the River Niger which had native Muslim inhabitants. Soon other kingdoms along the serpentine bends of River Niger eventually embraced Islam, such as Takrur (today’s Senegal); Songhay (present day Mali); Kanem-Bornu (currently Chad); and Hausa-territories (of what is now called Nigeria). His works are noted for the objectiveness with which they are presented. For each area, he described the people, their customs, as well as the geography, climate, and main cities. He also included anecdotes about each area. Unfortunately, parts of his main work have been lost, and of the surviving parts, some have never been published. In lexicography al-Bakri wrote the book “Amsaal al-Obayd”. 

804 solar years ago, on this day in 1212 AD, The Battle of al-Uqab or Las Navas de Tolosa, occurred in southern Spain between Muslims and Christians some 64 km from the city of Jaen (corruption of the Arabic Khayyan which means crossroads of caravans), resulting in the defeat of the self-styled caliph, an-Nasser of the al-Muwahidin (Almohad) Empire of Morocco-Andalusia by the combined armies of the kingdoms of Portugal, Castile, Aragon, and Navarre. It marked the decline of Islamic Spain after five centuries of ascendancy, and was the outcome of a crusade against Spanish Muslims called by Pope Innocent III involving Christian mercenaries from all over Europe. The debacle was because of laxity on the part of the self-styled caliph, who proud of his vast army, left unguarded in the mountainous terrain some small passes through which the Christians led by Castile’s King Alfonso VIII sneaked in for the ambush while the Muslim camp was asleep. The result was a great slaughter of the Muslim forces, as an-Nasir fled the battlefield. Alfonso followed up his victory by immediately taking Ba’eza and Ubeda. The extensive effects of the Muslim defeat did not become apparent until two decades later after 1233, when the Almohad Empire disintegrated owing to dynastic squabbles and, lacking a central leader, the Muslim hold on Spain slipped rapidly before the Christian armies with the important centres of Islamic culture, Cordova and Seville, gradually falling to them.

800 solar years ago,on this day in 1216 AD, Innocent III, the most powerfully politicized Pope of the Catholic sect of Christianity, and the most hostile towards Muslims and Jews, died suddenly while on a visit to Perugia, Central Italy, at the age of 56 after an 18-year reign, and appeared in a vision the same day to nun, St. Lugarda in her monastery at Aywieres in faraway Belgium, engulfed in flames for three of the most cardinal sins he had committed in life, and for which he said (before disappearing in anguish) that he would languish for centuries in purgatory as divine punishment. Named Lotario dei Conti di Segni at birth in Italy to a Roman family that produced nine popes, he believed in the superiority of the Church over temporal rulers, and on being selected pope, strove to make the kings and emperors of Europe subordinate to his authority. He also decreed that all Jews in Christendom should wear special identifying markings on their clothing. At the same time, he persecuted as heretics all those Christians that dissented with the Catholic Church. An instance in this regard was his ordering of wars that resulted in the massacre of 20,000 men, women and children of the Albigenses or Cathar sect of southwestern France, who viewed the Catholic Church as corrupt. An avowed enemy of Islam, Pope Innocent III, in total disregard to the Muslim-Christian peace accord in Palestine, mobilised the Fourth Crusade for invasion of Egypt, which, however, because of fears of facing the powerful Ayyubids, was diverted towards an easier target, that is, the fellow Christians of the Byzantine Empire, and led to the fall of Constantinople and its savage plunder – all of which were legitimized by the Pope, regardless of the permanent rift he was causing between the Greek and Latin Churches. Earlier in 1212 he had ordered a crusade involving Christian mercenaries against the al-Muwahhadin Muslim rulers of Islamic Spain that resulted in the unmanly ambush of Las Navas de Tolosa (Battle of al-Uqab in Arabic), and huge massacre of civilians, incidentally on July 16.   

733 lunar years ago, on this day in 1304 AH, Mahmoud Ghazaan, the seventh ruler of the Mongol Empire's Ilkhanate division that was based in modern-day Iran, and included Iraq and parts of Central Asia and the Caucasus, died. He was the son of Arghun and grandson of Abaqa, continuing a line of rulers who were direct descendants of Genghis Khan. Considered the most prominent of the Ilkhans, he is best known for accepting the truth of Islam in 1295 when he ascended the throne, although he was born a Buddhist, and because of his mother was baptized and raised as a Christian. On conversion to Islam at the hands of Ibrahim Ibn Mohammad Ibn Hamwayh Khorasani al-Juwaini, he changed his first name to Mahmoud, and Islam gained popularity within Mongol territories beyond Iran. His principal wife was Kokechin, a Mongol princess sent to Iran by his distant cousin Kublai Khan the ruler of China, and escorted by the famous Italian traveler Marco Polo. Military conflicts during Ghazaan's reign included war with the Egyptian Mamluks for control of Syria, and battles with the Mongol Chaghatai Khanate of Central Asia. Ghazaan also pursued diplomatic contacts with Europe. The Mongol capital was Maragheh in today's East Azarbaijan Province, west of Tehran.

333 solar years ago, on this day in 1683 AD, the Manchu Qing Dynasty naval forces under the traitorous commander Shi Lang defeated the Kingdom of Tungning in the Battle of Penghu near the Pescadores Islands. Founded in 1642, the Qing Dynasty lasted till 1912, and in 1917, the monarchy was abolished.

205 lunar years ago, on this day in 1232 AH, the jurisprudent and theologian, Mullah Ali Akbar Eiji Isfahani, passed away. He groomed many students and authored several books, including “Zubdat-al-Ma’aref”.

144 solar years ago, on this day in 1872 AD, Norwegian explorer, Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen, was born. He was one of the great polar explorers. In his twenties, he interrupted his studies in medicine to join the first winter expedition to the Antarctic, sailing in 1897 as first mate on the Belgica, a Belgian expedition. On his next voyage (1903-06) he established the Northwest Passage. In 1904 he located the site of the North Magnetic pole. When he turned his attention to the Antarctic, he achieved his quest to be the first to reach the South Pole (14 Dec 1911). After three unsuccessful attempts, he was among the first to cross the Arctic by air in 1926 when he made a flight by dirigible from Spitsbergen, across the North Pole, to Alaska. He died in another flight over the Arctic in June 1928 at the age of 57 during a search for survivors of a shipwreck.

126 solar years ago, on this day in 1890 AD, the Parkinson Disease and how it develops were identified by English physician, James Parkinson. The main reason for this illness is brain malfunctions, and currently no certain treatment has been found for it.

80 solar years ago, on this day in 1936 AD, the prominent Iranian calligrapher, Mirza Mohammad Hussein Saifi Qazvini, known popularly as “Emad al-Kuttab”, passed away. In addition to learning the common sciences of his day, he was well versed in Arabic and French, and produced several calligraphic works including “Shahnamah”, of the renowned Iranian poet, Ferdowsi.

71 solar years ago, on this day in 1945 AD, the US misused science and technology to explode the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico, thereby triggering a race for weapons of mass destruction to the detriment of humanity. The atomic bomb was invented by two refugee German scientists, Professor Rudolph Peierls and Otto Frisch. They designed a "blueprint" for making an atom bomb in 1940 after fleeing to the US from Nazi Germany. It actually began when the Italian-born physicist Enrico Fermi, working in the US, invented an apparatus which produced the first atomic chain reactions. In 1940 both the Americans and British were researching the atom bomb and when the United States entered WW2, the British joined the American "Manhattan Project" and production of the bomb went on ahead in the US, which is the only power to have criminally used the atomic bomb on the hapless Japanese people as field test, when World War 2 was virtually over.

68 solar years ago, on this day in 1948 AD, following resistance, the Palestinian city of an-Nasserah (Nazareth), revered by Christians as the childhood hometown of Prophet Jesus (PBUH), fell to the Israeli troops, and ever since has been under Zionist occupation. The population of this city is still predominantly Arab (99 percent), with Muslims making up 69 percent and Christians 30 percent.

65 solar years ago, on this day in 1951 AD, the landlocked Himalayan country of Nepal gained independence from Britain, which had annexed it in 1816. Nepal, which until 2008 was a monarchy, is now a republic. It covers an area of 140,000 sq km, and lies between India and China.

62 solar years ago, on this day in 1954 AD, Henri Frankfort, Dutch-American archaeologist who established the relationship between Egypt and Mesopotamia and completed a thoroughly documented reconstruction of ancient Mesopotamian culture and art, died at the age of 57. The excavations he directed in Egypt (1922, 1925-29) and Iraq (1929-37) were conducted with exemplary archaeological scholarship. In 1925, Frankfort resumed work which had been started by Naville at Abydos excavating the Osireion, discovered by Petrie (1902) who named it from his interpretation as a symbolic tomb of Osiris. Frankfort's initial project site was situated to the West of Seti's Temple but expanded to record the fine reliefs of the temple of Seti itself. He wrote 15 books and monographs and about 73 articles for journals about ancient Egypt, archaeology and cultural anthropology, especially on the religious systems of the Ancient Near East. Among his books are “Kingship and the Gods” and "Review of Cylinder Seals: A Documentary Essay on Ihe Art and Religion of the Ancient Near East".

37 solar years ago, on this day in 1979 AD, Iraq’s first president of the repressive Ba’th minority regime, General Hasan Ahmad al-Bakr, was ordered by his masters in London and Washington to resign and hand over power to his more brutal vice-president, Saddam, five months after the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Saddam instantly launched a reign of terror by imprisoning and murdering prominent religious and political leaders of the long-suppressed Arab Shi’ite majority, including the reputed scholar, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Baqer as-Sadr. He also suppressed the ethnic Sunni Kurds of the north and expelled tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens on the pretext of being of Iranian origin. In September 1980, at the behest of the US, he launched a brutal war on the Islamic Republic of Iran which raged for 8 years. In 1990, he occupied Kuwait and was driven out seven months later by an international coalition. With his downfall in 2003 at the hands of his own backers, the Americans, 34 years of brutal Ba’th minority rule came to its end.

11 solar years ago, on this day in 2005 AD, in Iraq a terrorist bomber blew up a fuel truck near a crowded vegetable market outside a Shi’a Muslim mosque in the town of Musayyeb martyring 98 people. Takfiri terrorists, financed by the US, the Zionist entity and Saudi Arabia, are main criminals behind such attacks in Iraq, Syria and other countries. 

8 solar years ago, on this day in 2008 AD, Lebanon’s legendry anti-terrorist movement, the Hezbollah, in another victory, in return for the handover of the bodies of two Zionist occupation soldiers, forced Israel to release five Lebanese prisoners and the bodies of nearly 200 Lebanese martyrs. The exchange took place following indirect negotiations, with the mediation of Germany. It is worth noting that Zionist spy agencies did not know till the exchange that the two Zionist soldiers had been killed in the initial moments of Israel’s 33-day war on Hezbollah. Among the liberated Lebanese, were individuals from other groups, such as Samir Qantar, who spent almost thirty years in Zionist dungeons.

AS/ME