Today is Friday; 9th of the Iranian month of Mehr 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 28th of the Islamic month of Zi’l-Hijjah 1437 lunar hijri; and September 30, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1374 lunar years ago, on this day in 63 AH, the Battle of Harrah and the brutal massacre of the people of Medina took place in less than two years after the tragedy of Karbala, when the Godless Yazid dispatched a huge army led by the notoriously immoral Muslim bin Uqbah to sack the city of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). It happened that after the heartrending martyrdom of the Prophet's grandson, Imam Husain (AS), the people of Medina who had failed to support him, sent a delegation to Damascus to ascertain Yazid's character. The delegation found him completely devoid of all Islamic values, and as a result the people of Medina expelled the Omayyad governor and refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of Yazid's un-Islamic rule. The ungodly tyrant sent a force of 10,000 Syrians who attacked the defenders at Harrah, northeast of Medina. The well-equipped Omayyads after slaughtering a large number of Muslim defenders pursued them into the city and mercilessly butchered the people, including those that had sought refuge in the Prophet's Mosque and the Prophet's shrine. As many as 10,000 people, including 700 prominent persons comprising the Prophet's companions and scholars were massacred in cold-blood. Next, Muslim Ibn Uqbah, who has earned notoriety in Islamic history as the criminal transgressor who violated all bounds of sanctity, ordered his troops to plunder and desecrate the property and womenfolk of Medina for three days, before marching upon Mecca and blasphemously attacking the holy Ka'ba. For generations the heinous crime of Harrah was remembered. Of the women of Medina gang-raped by Yazid's soldiers, over a thousand gave birth to illegitimate children with no clue about their fathers. These are known in history as the “Offspring of the Sedition of Harrah”, and it is said that the schismatic ideas known as Wahhabism today, especially the prohibition on visiting the graves and recitation of Fateha for the dead, could actually be traced to these children of unknown and illegitimate parentage.

1279 solar years ago, on this day in 737 AD, the Battle of the Baggage occurred in Central Asia, resulting in a humiliating defeat of the Omayyads at the hands of the Turgesh Turks, supported by both Iranian and Arab Muslims of Transoxiana. It marked the culmination of a string of defeats that started over the past 16 years for the tyrannical Omayyad regime before the outbreak of the Abbasid movement that threw them into the dustbin of history. When the Omayyad governor of Khorasan, Asad Ibn Abdullah al-Qasri and his freshly arrived 20,000 Syrian troops tried to invade Khuttal in what is now eastern Tajikistan, the people requested the non-Muslim Turks and the Chinese for help, in addition to urging the local Muslim population of both Iranians and Arabs to rise up. The Turks led by Sulu attacked the Omayyads and as they tried to flee across the Oxus into what is now Afghanistan, they outpaced them to the river. The Omayyad army retreated in haste and managed to cross the Oxus, but the Turks crossed immediately after, seized the entire baggage and inflicted heavy casualties. The failure of the campaign meant the end of Omayyad control over all Transoxiana including Samarqand their last stronghold. The losses suffered by the Syrians were of grave consequences, as the Syrian army was the main pillar of the Omayyad regime, which neither had the support of other Arabs nor Iranian Muslims.

1152 lunar years ago, on this day in 285 AH, the Arab grammarian Abu'l-Abbas Mohammad al-Mubarrad died in Baghdad. He is regarded as leader of the Basran grammarians against the Kufan School. He has criticized some points in the grammar of the famous Iranian grammarian of Arabic language, Sibawayh, the greatest writer of his own school. His main work is the grammatical book "al-Kamel". Although a Sunni Muslim, al-Mubarrad has mentioned the account that Princess Shahr-Banu – daughter of Yazdegerd III, the last Sassanid Emperor of Iran – had married Imam Husain (AS) and was the mother of Imam Zayn al-Abedin (AS).

496 solar years ago, on this day in 1520 AD, Suleiman I succeeded his father Selim I as Ottoman Sultan and ruled till 1566, during which he seized Iraq from the Safavid Empire of Iran. Twice he tried to attack Iran, but the wise policies of Shah Tahmasp, coupled with stiff resistance by the Iranians foiled his ambitions, and he eventually concluded a long term peace with the Safavids. In the west, his armies swept across Southwestern Europe and North Africa, and changed the Mediterranean Sea into a Turkish lake. Suleiman, in addition to his native Turkic, was an accomplished poet in Persian.

475 solar years ago, on this day in 1541 AD, Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto and his forces entered Tula territory in present-day western Arkansas, encountering fierce resistance from the Amerindians, who were overpowered because of the superior firepower and brutality of the European invaders.

148 lunar years ago, on this day in 1289 AH, the great Iranian theologian and philosopher, Mullah Hadi Sabzevari, passed away at the age of 78. He was born in Sabzevar in Khorasan in a wealthy family, but lived a life of piety and asceticism, spending whatever he had for the poor and the needy. He studied, first in holy Mashhad and then in Isfahan for several years, and was an authority in the exegesis of the Holy Qur'an, logic, mathematics, literature, and medicine. He used to lecture both in Mashhad and his hometown Sabzevar, and trained a large number of students from Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Turkey, Caucasus, Afghanistan and the Subcontinent. He was a great exponent of the Transcendent Philosophy of Mullah Sadra, and has written 52 books in Arabic and Persian, including the famous versified “Manzoumah” and its commentary, which, along with another of his famous work, "Asrar al-Hekam", are taught till this day in Iran and other countries. The poet-philosopher of the Subcontinent, Allamah Iqbal Lahori, has paid glowing tributes to Mullah Hadi Sabzevari as one of the most prominent Islamic thinkers.

121 solar years ago, on this day in 1895 AD, Madagascar was formally proclaimed a French protectorate after much bloodshed. France invaded this island off the southeastern coast of Africa in 1883 in what became known as the first Franco-Hova War, at the end of which Madagascar was forced to cede the northern port town of Antsiranana (Diego Suarez) to the European invaders from France and pay 560,000 francs. In 1890, the British accepted the full formal imposition of a French protectorate on the island, but French authority was not acknowledged by the government of Madagascar. To force capitulation, the French bombarded and occupied the harbour of Toamasina on the east coast, and Mahajanga on the west coast, in December 1894 and January 1895 respectively. A French military flying column then marched toward Antananarivo, losing many men to malaria and other diseases. Reinforcements came from Sub-Saharan Africa and upon reaching the city in September 1895, the column bombarded the royal palace with heavy artillery, causing heavy casualties and leading Queen Ranavalona III to surrender. France dissolved the Merina monarchy and sent the royal family into exile on Réunion Island and to Algeria. A two-year resistance movement organized in response to the French capture of the royal palace was effectively put down at the end of 1897. There were several uprisings, one of which in 1947 led to the killing of almost 90,000 people by the French, who savagely attacked the independence-seekers and engaged in a variety of terror tactics designed to demoralize the population. The French carried out mass execution, torture, rape, torching of entire villages, collective punishment and other atrocities such as throwing live Malagasy prisoners out of airplane – called death flights. By August 1948, the majority of the nationalist leaders were killed or captured, and the Uprising was effectively put down by December 1948. The violent repression of the nationalist uprising left deep scars in Malagasy society. A generation of the managerial class was wiped out, creating challenges for the country upon achieving independence in 1960. The majority of people are Malagasy, tracing their origin to Borneo in Southeast Asia. Muslims constitute over 10 percent of the population. The first Muslims to arrive were Arabs and Somalis in the 9^th century. The written history of Madagascar began with the Arabs, who established trading posts along the northwest coast by the 10^th century and introduced Islam and the Arabic script that was formally used to transcribe the Malagasy language in a form of writing known as Sorabe. Today the language is written in the Latin script imposed by the French and the majority of people are Christians – a legacy of European colonial rule. It is worth noting that over 90% of wildlife of Madagascar is found nowhere else on Earth.

78 solar years ago, on this day in 1938 AD, German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler hosted a conference in Munich on the border dispute with Czechoslovakia, attended by Italian Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, French prime minister, Edouard Daladier, and British premier, Neville Chamberlain. The leaders of Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union did not attend the meeting in which Britain and France gave permission to Hitler to occupy the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Germany. The events led to the start of World War 2 the following year.

78 solar years ago, on this day in 1938 AD, the League of Nations unanimously outlawed "intentional bombings of civilian populations". In practice, however, nothing changed for the aggressors, who continue to bomb and destroy civilians, as was the case of the criminal atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US. In the 1980s, with Washington’s support Saddam devastatingly bombed Iranian cities, as the UN looked the other way, and today, the US, on the pretext of targeting its own creation the Takfiri terrorists, is killing men, women, and children in Iraq and Syria, without due regard for international laws and conventions.

51 solar years ago, on this day in 1965 AD, The 30 September Movement attempted a coup against the Indonesian government, but was crushed by the military under General Suharto, resulting in a mass anti-communist purge, with over 500,000 people killed.

50 solar years ago, on this day in 1966 AD, Botswana in southern Africa, gained independence from Britain after over 8 decades of plundering of its resources. Botswana covers an area of 600372 sq km, and shares borders with South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia.

31 solar years ago, on this day in 1985 AD, the seismologist inventor of Richter scale, Charles Richter, died in the US, at the age of 85. In the early 1930s, he developed with his German colleague, Beno Gutenberg, a scale for measuring earthquake intensity. The scale assigns numerical ratings to the energy released by earthquakes. Richter used a seismograph (an instrument generally consisting of a constantly unwinding roll of paper, anchored to a fixed place, and a pendulum or magnet suspended with a marking device above the roll) to record actual earth motion during an earthquake. The scale takes into account the instrument's distance from the epicenter. Gutenberg suggested that the scale be logarithmic so, for example, a quake of magnitude 7 would be ten times stronger than a 6.

30 solar years ago, on this day in 1986 AD, nuclear scientist, Mordechai Vanunu, who revealed details of the covert nuclear military activities of the illegal Zionist entity to the British media, was kidnapped in Rome, Italy, by the Israeli spying outfit, Mossad, in cooperation with the CIA, and taken to Israel. Vanunu, who had converted to Christianity from Judaism, spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 in solitary confinement. Released from prison in 2004, he became subject to a wide range of restrictions on his speech and movement. Since then he has been arrested several times for alleged violations of those restrictions, including giving interviews to foreign journalists and attempting to leave Israel. He says he suffered "cruel and barbaric treatment" at the hands of the Zionists while imprisoned, and suggests that his treatment would have been different if he were Jewish.

26 solar years ago, on this day in 1990 AD, the Pakistani researcher, Siraj Munir, passed away. He strove for the promotion of Persian language and introduction of Iran's prominent literary, cultural, and philosophical figures. He is considered as one of the founders of the Persian Language Association in Pakistan.

23 solar years ago, on this day in 1993 AD, an estimated 10,000 people were killed and another 30,000 injured when an earthquake measuring a magnitude of 6.0-to-6.4 struck the Latur-Osmanabad region in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra Province in the Deccan (southern India). Its epicenter was about 350 miles southwest of Jabalpur. Fifty-two villages were demolished in the intraplate earthquake. The Latur-Osmanabad regions, which has a 30 percent Muslim population, was part of the Bahmani and Adel Shahi sultanates of Iranian origin, before being annexed by the expanding Mughal Empire of Hindustan (northern India). In the early 18^th century it became part of the dominions of Nizam ul-Mulk Asef Jah of Haiderabad-Deccan, until its separation in 1960 and its joining with Bombay Presidency which later became Maharashtra State.

20 solar years ago, on this day in 1996 AD, the scholar Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Hussaini, popular as Aqa Najafi Hamedani, passed away at the age of 82 in Hamedan. Born in holy Najaf in Iraq, in his childhood he came to Hamedan along with his scholarly father and after preliminary studies, returned to Najaf at the age of 21 for higher studies. He attended the classes of leading scholars such as Ayatollah Mohammad Hussain Gharavi Isfahani, the Gnostic Ayatollah Qazi Tabatabai, and Grand Ayatollah Mirza Hussain Na’eni, whose daughter he married. After staying for 22 years in Iraq and attaining the ranks of Ijtehad, he returned to Hamedan, where he spent the rest of his life teaching and writing books.  His major work is the18-volume exegesis of the holy Qur’an titled “Anwaar-e Darakhshaan” in Persian.

2 solar years ago, on this day in 2014 AD, Kashmiri religious scholar and politician, Mowlavi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari, who is famous as organizer of the Grand Ashura Procession in Kashmir, passed away in Srinagar at the age of 71. He succeeded his father Mowlavi Mohammad Jawad Ansari as president of All Jammu and Kashmir Shi’a Muslim Association in 1962. He was a sitting member of the Jammu-Kashmir Legislative Assembly as representative of the Jammu-Kashmir People's Democratic Party. He was earlier a member of National Conference and Congress. Ansari was thrice the target of unsuccessful assassination attempts. In June 2000 he barely escaped the explosion of a landmine while addressing a religious congregation at Gund Khwaja Qasim. The blast killed twelve of his followers. On 1 September 2000 Ansari was injured by an IED explosion that killed two policemen and a driver. Police suspected Hizb ul-Mujahideen of carrying out this terrorist attack.

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