Aug 15, 2016 03:55 UTC

Today is Monday; 25th of the Iranian month of Mordad 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 12th of the Islamic month of Zi’l-Qa’dah 1437 lunar hijri; and August 15, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1380 solar years ago, on this day in 636 AD, a series of 6-day military engagements, known as the Battle of Yarmouk started near Yarmouk River in Palestine between the neo-Muslim Arab forces and the Christian armies of Byzantine (Eastern Roman Empire), resulting in the decisive victory of Muslims and opening the way for Islamicization of Syria. This was the start of a new phase of wars in the Levant-Mesopotamia region between new adversaries, only 8 years after the end of the 26-year long (602-628) last and deadliest round of the Byzantine-Sassanid wars that had raged for almost four centuries, beginning with the start of armed hostilities between Severus Alexander and Ardashir I in 230 AD, as continuation of the Roman-Parthian wars started over three centuries earlier in 92 BC for control of Syria, Mesopotamia, Anatolia (modern Turkey) and Armenia. Thus, with the advent of Islam and the shattering defeat of both the Persians and the Byzantines (Greco-Romans), the ethno-religious demography of the region was permanently changed, although Iranians as Muslims would continue to influence events and play vital roles in the region and beyond, on a scale greater than the pre-Islamic era.

1298 solar years ago, on this day in 718 AD, the naval and land forces of the Omayyad regime of Damascus were forced to lift the Second Arab Siege of Constantinople after over a year and a month of unsuccessful efforts to conquer the capital of the Byzantine Empire. The First Siege of Constantinople was during the years 674-78 by Mu’awiyya Ibn Abu Sufyan, and had ended in failure. In 716, Sulaiman Ibn Abdul-Malik, on hearing of a narration that the city would be conquered by a person bearing the name of a Prophet, sent a massive force of 200,000 via land and by sea through the Mediterranean – on the assumption that he was the namesake of Prophet Solomon. After wintering in the western coastlands of Asia Minor, the Arab army crossed into Thrace on the European side in early summer 717 and built siege lines to blockade Constantinople, which was protected by massive walls. The Arab fleet, which accompanied the land army and was meant to complete the city's blockade by sea, was neutralized soon after its arrival by the Byzantine navy through the use of Greek fire. The Arab army was crippled by famine and disease during the unusually hard winter that followed. An additional army sent overland from Syria through Asia Minor was ambushed and defeated. In the meantime Sulaiman was no more and the new caliph was Omar ibn Abdul-Aziz. Coupled with attacks by the Bulgarians on their rear, the Arabs were forced to lift the siege, losing 150,000 men during the unsuccessful campaign. On its return journey, the Arab fleet was almost destroyed by natural disasters and Byzantine attacks. The siege's failure had wide-ranging repercussions, including end of the Muslim advance into Europe, and is considered one of history's most decisive battles, along with the Omayyad defeat in France at the Battle of Tours in 732. The huge financial loss speeded up the collapse of the usurper Omayyad regime, followed by its complete destruction by the Abbasid regime in 750. It was in 1453 that Constantinople was finally captured by Muslims under the Ottoman sultan, Mohammad II.

1238 solar years ago, on this day in 778 AD, the Battle of Roncevaux Pass occurred in the Pyrenees Mountains in Spain between the rearguard of the retreating army of Charlemagne of France and the Basques, resulting in the death of the famous knight, Roland. It was not fought between Christians and Muslims, as alleged, but the Muslims did play a crucial role during the invasion of northern Spain by the French and their retreat, when Sulaiman al-Arabi, the pro-Abbasid governor of Barcelona and Girona, along with Hussain of Zaragoza and Abu Taur of Huesca promised Charlemagne military aid against Abdur-Rahman I, the Omayyad Emir of Cordoba. The three also said the caliph of Baghdad, Mahdi al-Abbasi, was preparing an invasion force against Abdur-Rahman. Seeing an opportunity to extend his own power, Charlemagne invaded and was welcomed in Barcelona and Girona by Sulaiman al-Arabi. Abdur-Rahman of Cordoba sent his general, Tha’laba Ibn Obeid, to prevent the French invasion, but was defeated and imprisoned by Hussain, who handed him, along with gold, to Charlemagne. The French king who had planned to seize Zaragoza but was frustrated in his designs, turned against his Muslim ally Sulaiman al-Arabi and put him in chains. Meanwhile, an Iranian-Arab force sent by the Baghdad caliph was stopped near Barcelona. Following his failure to take Zaragoza, Charlemagne retreated to France and in Pamplona he suffered an ambush led by the pro-Abbasid Muslim forces who freed Sulaiman al-Arabi. The French were also attacked by Basques who routed the guard and killed Roland and others.

1089 solar years ago, on this day in 927 AD, Muslims from North Africa, after bringing the island of Sicily under Islamic rule, took brief control of the city of Taranto in Apulia, southern Italy, before evacuating it. In the preceding century also, the Muslims, after taking control of Sicily, had established a foothold in southern Italy, founding the emirate of Bari, which fell over a half-a-century earlier in 871 to the savage onslaught of the Christian forces of Holy Roman Emperor Louis II, who massacred Muslims, burned libraries, and turned mosques into churches.

1034 solar years ago, on this day in 982 AD, the Holy Roman Emperor Otto II was decisively defeated by the Muslim forces of the Fatemid Ismaili Shi'ite Muslim caliphate of Egypt-Syria-North Africa at the Battle of Capo Colonna, in Calabria, southern Italy. The Fatemids, who after taking control of Sicily in the 960s had advanced into southern Italy, came into conflict with the Germans under Otto, who was advancing from the north with the intention of seizing Apulia and Calabria from the Byzantines. He was met by forces of the Sicilian Emir, Abu'l-Qassem, to whom the Greek Christians had appealed for aid against the Roman Catholics. After initial success, Otto's army was bogged down in a pitched battle south of Crotone at Cape Colonna, and although Emir Abu'l-Qassem was martyred, the Muslim troops did not flee the battlefield. They regrouped and surrounded Otto's soldiers, killing many of them and inflicting a severe defeat upon the Holy Roman Emperor. The defeat changed the political makeup of southern Italy, where the Muslims retained their presence, while the Greek Orthodox forces joined with the Muslims to regain possession of Apulia from the Roman Catholics. The Muslim presence in southern Italy lasted for over three centuries till 1300 AD, when due to loss of political power they were expelled, and the remaining were forcibly converted to Christianity with mosques turned into churches.

661 lunar years ago, on this day in 776 AH, the eminent scholar, Abu Ja'far Mohammad ibn Mohammad Buwayhi, popularly known as Qotb od-Din Razi, passed away in Damascus, Syria. Born in Varamin near Rayy in Iran, he was a student of the famous Allamah Hilli, and in turn was among the teachers of Shaikh Jamal od-Din, the First Martyr (Shaheed Awwal). Among his works mention could be made of "al-Mohkamaat", which is the author's judgment on a comparative study of the philosophical views of the Iranian religious philosophers, Khwaja Naseer od-Din Tousi and Fakhr od-Din Razi. His other works include, A Commentary (Sharh) on the "Shamsiyya" of Kateb Qazwini, "Sharh Matale’ al-Anwaar", and an Annotation (Hashiyya) on the "Qawa'ed Ala-al-Ahkaam" an explanation of the jurisprudential masterpiece of the famous Allamah Hilli.

247 solar years ago, on this day in 1769 AD, French general and emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, was born in Ajaccio on the island of Corsica in a relatively modest family of Italian ancestry. He was well-educated, although he spoke French with a heavy Corsican accent. He joined the army and rose rapidly during the later stages of the French Revolution. He became prominent under the First French Republic, and on being appointed general, he established his reputation as a military leader, especially in his Italian and Egyptian campaigns. He invaded Egypt in 1799, intending to sail to India to assist Fath Ali Khan Tipu Sultan of Mysore against the British, but three years later in 1801, he was forced to withdraw after unsuccessful attempts to pose as liberator from Ottoman rule or win the confidence of the Egyptians, even though he participated at al-Azhar in the birth anniversary celebrations of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), clad in Arab clothes and turban, and telling the congregation that he has changed his name to “Ali Bonaparte”. On return to France, he contrived to undermine the elected assembly and finally seized totalitarian powers in 1804 as emperor, embroiling France in continental wars for the next ten years for supremacy over all Europe. After his defeat in the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon was exiled to the island of St. Helena, where it is said the British poisoned him to slow death.

139 solar years ago, on this day in 1877 AD, Thomas Edison coined the telephone greeting "Hello." He suggested the use of "Hello" to the president of the Telegraph Company to answer the phone instead of "ahoy, ahoy" suggested by Alexander Bell.

133 lunar years ago, on this day in 1304 AH, Ayatollah Moḥammad Taqi Amoli was born in Tehran. After initial studies under his scholarly father, he went to holy Najaf in Iraq for higher religious studies. His teachers were such great scholars as Ayatollah Mirza Hussain Na'ini, Ayatollah Aqa Ziya od-Din Iraqi, and Ayatollah Seyyed Abu’l-Hassan Isfahani. He passed away in Tehran at the age of 85 and his body was taken to Mashhad for burial in the mausoleum of Imam Reza (AS).

102 solar years ago, on this in 1914 AD the Panama Canal, cut through the Isthmus of the same name at the narrowest point in Central America, to join the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Traffic officially opened with transit of the cargo ship “SS Ancon”.

93 lunar years ago, on this day in 1344 AH, the prominent Iranian poet, Abdul-Jawad Adib Naishabouri, passed away at the age of 63. He went blind in childhood due to smallpox, but continued to learn sciences enthusiastically and after honing his skills in Arabic literature and other sciences of his era, he started to lecture these subjects. Gradually, he turned into a skilled poet. Selection of appropriate terms and precise meanings are the strong points of his poetry. His Diwan of poems consists of beautiful verses in Persian and Arabic.

69 solar years ago, on this day in 1947 AD, India gained independence from British colonial rule after years of struggles. Although an ancient civilization, it was the advent of Islam that placed India firmly on the international map, especially during the era of the Great Moghuls in the 16th and 17th centuries. With the weakening of the Moghul Empire and its splintering into regional Muslim states in the mid18th century, the British, who had entered the country as traders, played one ruler against the other, to consolidate power and seize large chunks of territory. Wars were imposed on the Indian people, both Muslim and Hindu, and the superior firepower of the British ensured their victory, whether it was against Tipu Sultan in 1799 or the 1857 uprising in the north, which were brutally crushed. In the closing years of the 19th century independence movements emerged in the form of the Indian National Congress Party and the All-India Muslim League. In the 20th century after World War I, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi launched his non-violent movement against the British, saying it was the epic martyrdom of Imam Husain (AS), the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), which inspired him to struggle for liberty and independence. Among the Muslims, Mohammad Ali Jinnah – an Ismaili Shi’ite who later became Ithna Ash’ari (Twelver) – emerged as a dynamic leader, and the crafty British played the communal card to pit Muslims against Hindus, as part of their divide-and-rule policy. Finally, following the end of World War 2 and sapping of British energies, London decided to grant independence on the basis of the 'two-nation-theory'. Thus India – and a day earlier Pakistan – emerged as independent states in the subcontinent. In 1950 India became a republic.

68 solar years ago, on this day in 1948 AD, the South Korean Republic was formed south of the 38th parallel in the American occupied southern part of the Korean Peninsula, which continues to remain divided against the will of the people, because of the unwanted presence of US troops.

63 years ago, on this day in 1953 AD, Mohammad Reza Shah of the British-installed Pahlavi regime fled Iran for Baghdad and later Rome, when the first phase of an Anglo-American coup against Iran’s elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddeq, failed. A day earlier, as instructed by the CIA the Shah had sent Colonel Ne’matollah Nassiri to Mosaddeq with a dismissal order, which the prime minster rejected saying the Shah had no constitutional authority, since executive powers rest with the parliament. Mosaddeq had Nassiri arrested, but when the terrified Shah fled the country, he erred, assuming that the CIA coup had failed, and asked his supporters to return to their homes and to continue with their lives as normal. In the meantime, British and American agents secretly hatched the next phase of the coup by distributing dollars among the people of Tehran, and carrying out the plot successfully on August 19 through General Fazlollah Zahedi to oust Mosaddeq and restore the fugitive Shah to power. Finally on January 16, 1979, after a quarter century more of oppression, the Shah fled Iran to die in exile as the tidal wave of Islamic Revolution, under the leadership of Imam Khomeini (RA), swept across the country, ending the Pahlavi regime and throwing into the dustbin of history the monarchic system by establishing the Islamic Republic based on people’s aspirations.

41 solar years ago, in 1975 AD, Bangladesh's founder, Sheikh Mujib ur-Rahman, was killed along with most members of his family during a military coup launched by his own disgruntled Awami League officers headed by Khondkar Mushtaq Ahmad. Mujib led the struggle for secession of East Pakistan from Islamabad's rule and its renaming as Bangladesh in 1971 with the support of India. The present prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, is his daughter.

22 solar years ago, on this day in 1994 AD, Iranian philosopher, Seyyed Ahmad Fardid, passed away at the age of 84. Born in Yazd, he came to Tehran as a 16-year old for higher studies, and mastered Arabic and French. He then left for France and studied philosophy at Sorbonne University and the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Influenced by German philosopher Martin Heidegger, he endeavoured to synthesize the results of his studies of Eastern civilizations with the Western philosophy. A staunch supporter of the grassroots Islamic movement against the British-installed and US-supported Pahlavi potentate who was trying to destroy Iranian culture and religious values by imposing the depraved western culture, he coined the concept of "Westoxication" which was then popularized by Jalal Aal-e Ahmad in his widely read book “Gharbzadegi”. Fardid exposed the flaws in the West’s concept of Human Rights, and taught his disciples, many of whom later became prominent officials of the Islamic Republic system of Iran, to disregard such "westoxicated" concepts as democracy, and secularism, and instead to return to their "authentic Oriental self". His influence is evident in the work of many philosophers in modern Iran. Fardid’s books include “Futohaat Akher az-Zamaan” (Victories of the End-times) and “Persian equivalents of Philosophical Terms”.

11 solar years ago, on this day in 2005 AD, because of Palestinian resistance, the Zionist regime was forced to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, which it had occupied in 1967. Israel continues to keep the West Bank under its control despite the 1993 agreement with the PLO to evacuate it. Gaza and its 1.5 million people are under siege for the past several years, and in 2008-2009 it was subjected to the 22-day holocaust unleashed by Israel.

AS/ME