Today is Wednesday; 30th of the Iranian month of Tir 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 15th of the Islamic month of Shawwal 1437 lunar hijri; and July 20, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

2372 solar years ago, on this day in 356 BC, Alexander, the Greek conqueror of the Persian Empire, was born in Macedonia to the local king, Philip and his wife Olympias. He was tutored by the philosopher Aristotle. In 334 BC, two years after succeeding his father, he launched a raid on the western fringes of the Achaemenian Empire in what is now the Aegean Sea coast of Turkey. Because of the laxity of the Iranians, coupled with their pride in seriously confronting an upstart like him, he was able to sweep across the entire empire from Egypt till the Indus River in India. After destroying the Persian capital, Persepolis, and indulging in the massacres of the conquered peoples, he died in 323 in Babylon, in what is now Iraq, in the palace of the ancient tyrant, Nebuchadnezzar, at the age of 33, due to heavy drinking. His corpse, while on its way to Macedonia, was hijacked by General Ptolemy to Egypt.

1946 solar years ago, on this day in 70 AD, During the First Jewish-Roman War, Bayt al-Moqaddas was reconquered by the Roman army, led by the future Emperor Titus, ending the 4-year Jewish occupation. The siege ended with the sacking of the city and the destruction of its Second Temple. The destruction of both the first and second temples is still mourned annually as the Jewish fast Tisha B'av. The Arch of Titus, celebrating the Roman sack of Jerusalem and the Temple, still stands in Rome.

1434 lunar years ago, on this day in 3 AH, the Battle of Ohad was imposed on Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) by the pagan Arabs of Mecca led by Abu Sufyan, at a place outside Medina near Mount Ohad, for avenging the decisive defeat they had suffered a year earlier at Badr. Ohad turned out to be a setback for Muslims, whose ranks were infiltrated by hypocrites. In the initial encounter, the Muslims managed to repel the heavily-armed Arab pagans, but ignoring the instructions of the Prophet the guards posted at the mountain pass, left their positions to join in the seizing of the camp baggage of the fleeing Meccans. At this juncture, one of the infidel commanders, named Khaled bin Waleed, who lay in ambush, burst upon the Muslims, martyring several of them and forcing most of the companions of the Prophet to flee the battlefield. The Prophet himself was injured and lost some of his teeth. However, thanks to the valour of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS), the day was saved for the Prophet and for Islam, although in the process the Prophet's brave uncle, Hazrat Hamza (AS), was martyred by the Abyssinian Wahshi, who was ordered by his mistress, Hind bint Otbah, the wife of Abu Sufyan (mother of Mu'awiyya and grandmother of Yazid), to tear out his victim's liver and bring it to her for chewing. Thus, without the least doubt, Islam is indebted to the valour of Imam Ali (AS), in whose praise on the Day of the Battle of Ohad the angels were heard chanting: "There is no braver youth than Ali, and no sharper sword than Zu'l-Feqar."

1434 lunar years ago, on this day in 3 AH, the eminent Islamic poet and preacher, Abu at-Tufail Amer Kan’ani, was born. As a steadfast follower of the Commander of the Faithful Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS), his poems are in praise of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) and the blessed Ahl al-Bayt.

1369 solar years ago, on this day in 647 AD, Godless tyrant, Yazid was born out of wedlock to a morally-loose nomadic Arab Christian woman named Maysun bint Bajdal al-Kulaibi an-Nasrania, who was ravished and abandoned by the Omayyad governor of Syria Mu’awiyah ibn Abu Sufyan. He was suckled by several whores while growing up in the desert. Years later, after seizing the caliphate, Mu’awiyya, who had failed to produce any male issue from the women of his harem, suddenly remembered the illegitimate brat he had abandoned, brought him to Damascus as a young man, and after some years of training, named him successor on his deathbed in gross violation of the terms of the Treaty by which he had usurped rule of the Islamic realm from Imam Hasan Mojtaba (AS), the elder grandson of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). An infidel, who did not believe in any religion, although a crucifix used to dangle from his neck, Yazid was a drunkard and frequently asked his slaves to sodomize him. The first thing the libertine Yazid did was to demand allegiance to his ungodly and un-Islamic rule from the Prophet's younger grandson Imam Husain (AS), and when this was rejected he had the Imam mercilessly martyred in Karbala, along with 18 members of the Prophet's family, including the 6-month infant, Ali Asghar. The children and womenfolk of the Prophet's progeny were then dragged as captives to his court in Damascus. His second abominable crime was to attack the holy city of Medina AH after the infamous Battle of Harra in which 10,000 people were massacred, including hundreds of the Prophet's companions. Yazid's soldiers entered Medina, desecrated the Prophet's shrine, and were given permission to loot public property and rape women for three days – resulting in the birth of several thousand illegitimate children that year who are known in history as "Awlad-e Fitna" and said to be the ancestors of today’s Wahhabi heretics. Next Yazid ordered his forces to attack Mecca and storm the holy Ka'ba. Catapults were placed on mountains overlooking the “Masjid al-Haraam” (Sacred Mosque) to hurl blazing naphtha pots at Islam’s holiest sanctuary. The Symbolic House of God caught fire and was almost burnt to the ground when the attack was called off because of Yazid's sudden death in Damascus on 11 November 683. Yazid, who since the martyrdom of Imam Husain (AS), suffered severe bouts of headache, collapsed in the state of drunkenness in the toilet and died. According to another account, divine wrath struck him while on a hunting trip, and only his charred leg was found in the stirrup of his horse with no trace of his body. Some 60 years later when the Abbasid caliph, Abu'l-Abbas as-Saffah, ordered opening of the graves of the Omayyad caliphs, including that of Mu'awiyah, and the burning of their bones, only a piece of a leg bone was found in Yazid's grave and nothing else except blackened dust resembling ashes after the body and skeleton has been burnt, which indicates divine punishment. Both Sunni and Shi'a Muslims consider Yazid an infidel.

1185 lunar years ago, on this day in 252 AH, Seyyed Abdul-Azim al-Hasani, a prominent descendant of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), was martyred in Rayy, where his shrine, in what is now the southernmost suburb of the Iranian capital, Tehran, is a site of pilgrimage for people from all over the world. A pious scholar of repute, he was fifth in descent from the Prophet's elder grandson and 2nd Infallible Heir, Imam Hasan Mojtaba (AS). His genealogy reads: Abdul-Azim Ibn Abdullah Ibn Ali Ibn Hassan Ibn Zayd Ibn Imam Hasan (AS). Born in Medina in the last years of the life of the Prophet's 7th Infallible Heir, Imam Musa al-Kazem (AS), he had the honour of companionship of the 8th, 9th and 10th Infallible Imams – i.e. Imam Ali ar-Reza (AS), Imam Mohammad al-Jawad (AS), and Imam Ali al-Hadi (AS). He was sent as a missionary to Iran to enlighten the people about the teachings of the Ahl al-Bayt. Because of severe persecution of the Prophet's progeny by the tyrannical Abbasid caliph, Mutawakkel, he carried out his activities with precaution, spending the days in fasting and nights in worship. Often he used to visit the grave of Hamza, a son of the 7th Imam in an orchard outside the city, and willed that he be buried nearby on his death. Among the books authored by him was a collection of the eloquent sermons of the Commander of the Faithful Imam Ali ibnTaleb (AS), predating by over one-hundred-and-fifty years the compilation of the “Nahj al-Balagha”.

1161 lunar years ago, on this day in on this day in 275 AH, the prominent Iranian Sunni Muslim compiler of hadith, Abu Dawud Sulayman Ibn al-Ash'as Sijistani, passed away in Basra at the age of 73. Born in Sistan, in eastern Iran, he studied in Herat, Balkh, Marv, and Naishapur – the famous centres of learning in Khorasan – before travelling to Rayy and thence to Baghdad, Damascus, Hijaz, and Egypt, to collect hadith. He was primarily interested in jurisprudence, and as a result his collection focuses mostly on narrations of legal nature. Of the 500,000-odd so-called hadith he collected from whomever he encountered, he chose 4,800 as "Sahih" (authentic) for inclusion in his work titled “Sunan Abi Dawud", which Sunni Muslims regard as the third of their six "canonical" hadith collections, although after due scrutiny modern scholarship amongst the Sunnis has ruled many of his hadith as "weak". Among his other books, mention could be made of “Kitab al-Marasil”, in which he lists some 600 more hadith as authentic. Although he has acknowledged the unsurpassed merits of the Ahl al-Bayt, he did not have any direct access to the Infallible Imams or their disciples, the true repositories of the authentic "Sunnah and Sirah" (or practice and behaviour) of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).

1076 solar years ago, on this day in 940 AD, the famous Iranian Islamic calligrapher and vizier, Abu Ali Mohammad Ibn Ali Ibn Muqlah Shirazi, was torturously executed by the Abbasid regime in his hometown Baghdad at the age of 56. He is regarded as inventor of the "thuluth" script, the first cursive style of Arabic. By the age of 22 he was a scribe as well as holding two other important jobs. He was the vizier three times under the Abbasids in Baghdad. After years of fighting for causes he believed in, he was publicly disgraced and imprisoned. After four years of maltreatment, he was executed, with his tongue chopped off and right hand amputated by the executioners. Along with Ibn al-Bawwab and Yaqut al-Musta'simi, he is regarded as founder of the modern style. Among books written by him is “Risalah fi Ilm al-Khat wa'l-Qalam”.

614 solar years ago, on this day in 1402 AD, Amir Timur inflicted a shattering defeat on the Ottomans in the Battle of Ankara and captured Sultan Bayezid I – the only instance when an Ottoman Sultan has been captured in person. The battle was the culmination of years of insulting letters exchanged between Bayezid, whose armies were sweeping across Europe, and Timur, whose empire stretched over most of the Muslim east. The defeat and the subsequent death of Bayezid in captivity in Samarqand, led to a period of crisis for the Ottoman Empire. However the Timurid Empire went into terminal decline following Timur's death just three years after the battle, while the Ottoman Empire made a full recovery, and continued to increase in power for another two to three centuries.

227 solar years ago, on this day in 1789 AD, Mahmoud II, the 30^th Ottoman sultan was born in Istanbul as the posthumous son of Sultan Abdul Hamid I, three-and-a-half months after the latter’s death. His mother Naqshdil was the French heiress Aimee du Buc de Rivery – a cousin of Josephine de Beauharnais, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte – who was captured at sea by Barbary corsairs and ended up in the sultan’s harem in Istanbul. He replaced his step-brother Mustafa IV on the throne in 1808, and one of his commendable acts was to order the governor of Egypt, Mohammad Ali Pasha to liberate the holy cities of Mecca and Medina from Wahhabi occupation and to punish the heretical Saudis for the blasphemous destruction of the sacred sites in Hijaz. By 1818, Ibrahim Ali Pasha sacked and destroyed the Saudi stronghold of Diriya in Najd and dispatched to Istanbul the Wahhabi chieftain, Abdullah bin Saud, who was promptly beheaded for crimes against Islam. During his 31-year rule, Mahmoud carried out administrative, fiscal and military reforms, including abolishment of the Jan-Nisari Corps, although his armies were routed in the Battle of Erzurum in 1821 by Iranian forces led by Qajarid Crown Prince, Abbas Mirza, as part of the Ottoman-Persian War of 1821-to-1823. A few years later in 1827, the combined British, French and Russian navies defeated the Ottoman Navy at the Battle of Navarino during the Greek rebellion, forcing him to recognize the independence of Greece with the Treaty of Constantinople in July 1832. Two years earlier in 1830, with France’s occupation of the province of Algeria, the beginning of the gradual break-up of the Ottoman Empire had started. Non-Turkish ethnic groups of empire, especially in Europe, started their bid for independence with the support of European powers. On his death in 1839, Mahmoud was succeeded by his son Abdul-Majid I.

206 solar years ago, on this day in 1810 AD, New Granada, made up of the South American states of Columbia, Panama, Venezuela, and Ecuador, became independent from Spanish rule, following the occupation of Spain by French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte. The revolutionaries were led by Camilo Torres. Although the Spanish forces initially defeated the revolutionaries, in 1819 Simon Bolivar crushed the Spanish to set up the Greater Colombia Federation, which later split into independent states. With the separation of Panama in 1903, Colombia took its current shape.

189 lunar years ago, on this day in 1248 AH, the scholar Shaikh Mohammad Taqi Isfahani, passed away in Isfahan. A product of the seminary of holy Najaf in Iraq, he was a student of such scholars as Shaikh Ja’far Kashef al-Gheta, Ayatollah Seyyed Mahdi Bahr al-Uloum, and Ayatollah Seyyed Mohsin Kazemaini. He groomed at least 300 scholars, and wrote several books including “Hidayat al-Mustarshadin”.

79 solar years ago, on this day in 1937 AD, the inventor of radio, Guglielmo Marconi, died at the age of 63. He was the son of an Italian businessman and was born in France in 1874. He is credited with perfecting wireless sets.

65 solar years ago, on this day in 1951 AD, King Abdullah I of Jordan was assassinated by a Palestinian in Bayt al-Moqaddas, for the Arab defeat in the 1948 Israeli war, after a reign of 30 years over a pseudo country created by the British out of Greater Syria as a reward for the treason of his father, Sharif Hussain of Hejaz against the Ottoman Turks. Born in Mecca in 1882 into a family claiming Hashemite descent and ruling the two holy cities for several centuries before ouster by the Wahhabi brigands of Najd, he was succeeded by his son Talal, who was forced to abdicate a year later by his British masters in favour of his own teenaged son, Hussain (who died 1999), the father of the present king, Abdullah II.

64 solar years ago, on this day in 1952 AD, massive rallies were staged in Tehran and other Iranian cities in response to a call by senior religious leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Abu’l-Qasim Kashani, in protest to the ouster of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq and appointment of the pro-British Ahmad Qavvam as premier by the Shah. Although the Pahlavi regime brutally suppressed the peaceful rallies, the Shah was forced to reinstate Mosaddeq as Premier. However, Mosaddeq's folly in alienating Ayatollah Kashani and the masses, resulted in his overthrow 13 months later by a US-designed coup on 19^th August 1953 and the return of the fugitive Shah.

56 solar years ago, on this day in 1960 AD, Prime Minister Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon (presently Sri Lanka), became the world's first elected female head of government.

47 solar years ago, on this day in 1969 AD, Apollo XI astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, became the first men to walk on the moon, after their lunar module separated from the command module and landed on the lunar surface at 09:18 GMT, while Michael Collins orbited above. Armstrong stepped on the lunar surface at 10:56 and proclaimed, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Internationally, nearly 700 million television viewers witnessed the event live as it happened. Years later, while on a trip to Egypt, when Armstrong heard the “Adhaan” (Call to Prayer), he was astounded and admitted that this was exactly the tone he had heard on the moon, although he could not understand it then. The Moon is 384,000 km away from the Earth and orbits around our Planet every 29.5 days.

42 solar years ago, on this day in 1974 AD, Turkish forces landed on Cyprus on the invitation of local Turkish Muslim Cypriot leader, Raoof  Denktash, after a coup d’état by Greece to take over the entire island. Since then Cyprus is divided into the northern one-third controlled by Turks and the southern two-thirds controlled by the Greeks. UN measures for unity of this island state have remained inconclusive. Cyprus first came under Muslim rule in the latter half of the 7^th century AD when Arabs from Syria entered it. Two centuries later it was re-occupied by the Greek Byzantine Empire. It fell to the Venetians in the 15^th century, and in 1570 was formally taken over by the Turkish Ottoman Empire, whose rule lasted till 1914 and the beginning of World War 1, although in 1878 it was leased to the British.

AS/SS