Today is Saturday; 10th of the Iranian month of Mehr 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 29th of the Islamic month of Zi’l-Hijjah 1437 lunar hijri; and October 1, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

2347 solar years ago, on this day in 331 BC, Alexander of Macedon, during his invasion of the vast Persian Empire defeated Emperor Darius III in the Battle of Gaugamela near Mosul in present day Iraq, resulting in the fall of the Achaemenian Empire of Iran. Two years earlier, Darius III had suffered a surprising defeat in the Battle of Issus in Anatolia in what is now Turkey, at the hands of Alexander, who went on to occupy the Mediterranean coasts of Syria and then seized Egypt before marching into Iraq for the decisive battle with the numerically superior and well-armed Iranians, equipped with 200 devastating war chariots and 15 Indian war elephants. Lack of discipline among Iranians made them lose the battle, and Darius while fleeing to the interior of Iran to reorganize his forces from the east, was treacherously murdered by his own general, Bessus.

1,424 lunar years ago, on this day in 13 AH, Omar ibn Khattab, the 2^nd caliph or political head of the Muslim state, succumbed to the wounds he had suffered two days earlier at the hands of Abu Lulu Firuz for failing to redress the injustice done to him by the latter’s Arab master, Mughirah, who had imposed heavy taxes on this talented Iranian convert to Islam, well versed in many crafts including the construction of mills. Omar, who before becoming a Muslim was a fierce opponent of Islam and Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), had played the leading role in installing his friend Abu Bakr as the first caliph at the dubious gathering of Saqifa Bani Sa’da after a fist fight amongst the companions of the Prophet, while the Prophet’s divinely-designated heir, Imam Ali (AS), along with the Bani Hashem clan and some prominent Sahaba (companions), was busy performing the funeral rites of the Last Messenger of God. Two years later, on Abu Bakr’s death, he became the caliph on the claim of the former’s will in his favour, although at the historic gathering of Ghadeer-Khom he was the first one to felicitate Imam Ali’s (AS) formal appointment as the Prophet’s vicegerent with the words: You have become my Master and the Master of all faithful men and women. For almost a decade that he was head of state, he forbade collection of the Prophet’s hadith, having earlier rejected Imam Ali’s (AS) compilation in book-form of the holy Qur’an, even though he himself had raised the slogan “hasbuna kitabullah” (the Book of God is enough for us), while denying the Prophet’s request in the last days for pen and paper to put in writing the Will for the salvation of the ummah – adherence to the Thaqalayn, i.e. the Holy Qur’an and the Ahl al-Bayt. On his deathbed, in order to determine the next caliph, Omar appointed a 6-man Shura (council), which chose Osman Ibn Affan, when Imam Ali (AS), who was first offered the political post, made it clear that he would rule only in accordance with the Holy Qur’an and the Prophet’s Sunnah (practice), and would not follow the unhealthy innovations that had crept into the administration during the previous two reigns.

1117 lunar years ago, on this day in 320 AH, the grammarian and hadith narrator, Abu-Bakr Mohammad ibn Ahmad Khayyat, died. He was of Iranian stock from Samarqand in Central Asia, which is now in the present day Republic of Uzbekistan. He went to Iraq for higher studies and settled there after visiting different cities. Among his works is "Ma'ani al-Qur’an".

600 solar years ago, on this day in 1416 AD, Yaqub Spata, the Muslim ruler of Arta in Albania, was murdered by the Christian chief, Carlo I of Tocco, mainly for embracing the truth of Islam. Born in a Christian family, he was raised at the Ottoman court of Sultan Mohammad I, where he became Muslim and changed his name to Yaqub.

429 solar years ago, on this day in 1587 AD, Shah Abbas I was crowned the 5^th Safavid Emperor of Iran at the age of 16 years in Qazvin by a faction of the powerful Qizilbash guards led by Murshid Qoli Khan who deposed his father, the weak-willed and almost blind Mohammad Khodabandah after a reign of 9 years. He became ruler during troubled times, when discord was rife between factions of the Qizilbash army that had earlier killed his elder brother Hamza Mirza and mother Queen Khair un-Nisa Begum. Meanwhile, the Ottomans and the Uzbeks, exploiting the political chaos, had seized Iranian territory in the west and northeast respectively. Abbas soon reduced the influence of the Qizilbash in the administrative and military affairs, executed the killers of his mother and brother, and reformed the army, enabling him to fight the Ottomans and Uzbeks and retake Iran's lost provinces. He decisively defeated the Ottomans in several battles in the Caucasus, in Anatolia and in Iraq, where he rebuilt on a grand scale the shrines of the Infallible Imams in Najaf, Karbala, and Kazemain. He drove back the Uzbeks from Khorasan and rebuilt the shrine of Imam Reza (AS), the 8^th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). During his 42-year reign, he also liberated Iranian territories from the Portuguese invaders in the Persian Gulf and from the Mughals of India in what is now Afghanistan. Shah Abbas I was a great builder and moved his capital to Isfahan, which he adorned with beautiful mosques, palaces, bazaars, caravanserais, gardens, and the famous Naqsh-e Jahan Square, to the extent that Isfahan came to be known as Nisf-e Jahan (Half the World). He patronized poets and painters, resulting in the birth of the Isfahan School that created some of the finest arts in Iranian history. He respected religious figures, and during his era some of the greatest ulema and philosophers, such as Shaikh Baha od-Din Ameli, Mir Baqer Damad and Mullah Sadra Shirazi flourished. Shah Abbas also promoted commerce, trade and diplomacy, establishing relations with European powers to keep the Ottomans in check, and strengthening ties with the Shi'ite Muslim sultanates of Haiderabad-Deccan and Bijapur in Southern India, where the name of the Safavid Emperor was recited in the Friday Prayer sermons. At the same time he maintained friendly relations with the Mughal Emperor Jahangir of Northern India.

189 solar years ago, on this day in 1827 AD, Russia, in violation of the Treaty of Golestan signed in 1813 with Qajarid Iran, following the end of its war and occupation of Daghestan and other regions in the Caucasus, sent an army under General Ivan Paskevich to start the 2^nd Russo-Persian war. The Russians seized the Khanate of Yerevan from Iran as well as Nakhchevan and what is now the Republic of Azerbaijan. Yerevan is currently capital of the Republic of Armenia.

129 solar years ago, on this day in1887 AD, the eastern part of Baluchistan was formally annexed by the British to their dominions in India to end any claims to this vast region by Afghanistan and Iran. This region which is now in Pakistan, originally belonged to Iran, both before and after the advent of Islam, and until the assassination of Nader Shah Afshar in the 1740s.

120 solar years ago, on this day in 1896 AD, Liaqat Ali Khan, the Indian Muslim statesman who became Pakistan’s first prime minister on its birth in 1947, was born in an aristocratic family in Karnal, East Punjab. He was educated at the Aligarh Muslim University in India, and at the Oxford University in Britain. Trained as lawyer, on his return to India, he rose to prominence as an influential member of the Muslim League led by Mohammad Ali Jinnah. On 16 October 1951, he was shot in the chest during a public meeting in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

115 solar years ago, on this day in 1901 AD, with the death of Amir Abdur-Rahman Khan, the Pashto ruler of Afghanistan, the plight of the Hazara people neared its end. Although he is credited with what is called the unification of Afghanistan, his principal aim was to make the rule of ethnic Pakhtouns paramount by cruelly suppressing other ethnic and lingual groups such as the Tajik, Uzbek, Balouch and Hazara. He used to treat the Persian-speaking Hazara Muslims as slaves, because of their adherence to the path of the Ahl al-Bayt or Blessed Household of Prophet Mohammad (blessings of God upon him and his progeny). In 1880, the Hazara rose in revolt but were savagely crushed and many of them were forced to seek refuge across the borders in British India, especially in Quetta, as well as in Khorasan and the city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran. The Hazaras remained de facto slaves with no rights, until King Amanullah Khan declared Afghanistan's independence in 1919.

99 lunar years ago, on this day in 1338 AH, the prominent activist of Iran’s Constitutional Era, Sheikh Mohammad Khiyabani, was martyred, thus ending the uprising in the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz against the despotic Qajar Dynasty. After acquiring Islamic sciences, he struggled against the injustices of the monarchial system. He strove to awaken the people against the infiltration of foreign powers, believing that the root cause of the problems of the Islamic ummah, were the oppressive rulers and their colonial masters. Following the ouster of Mohammad Ali Shah in 1327 AH and his fleeing from Iran, Khiyabani was elected to the parliament in Tehran as representative of the people of Tabriz, from where he launched his uprising following signing of the ominous pact with Britain in 1337 AH by the corrupt Prime Minister Wosouq od-Dowlah. After succeeding in taking charge of the administration of Tabriz, he was captured in an unequal battle with the governmental forces and executed.

95 solar years ago, on this day in 1921 AD, the police chief of Khorasan, Colonel Mohammad Taqi Khan Pesyaan, was killed by agents of the regime. He was a highly influential figure and strove for Iran’s independence. Following the British-engineered coup to install the colonialist agent Reza Khan as prime minister of the young Qajarid king, he commenced his struggle against infiltration by foreign powers and their local lackeys in government affairs. He was joined by officers in Khorasan Province and soon took charge of all provincial affairs in the name of the beleaguered government of Ahmad Shah Qajar. As a result battles started with Reza Khan’s agents, leading to his martyrdom in one such clash.

67 solar years ago, on this day in 1949 AD, the People's Republic of China was officially announced by communist party leader, Mao Zedong. After the end of World War 2 and the withdrawal of Japanese occupation forces, Mao emerged victorious from his struggle for control of China with the US-backed nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek, who fled to the island of Formosa, which is known today as Taiwan.

56 solar years ago, on this day in 1960 AD, Nigeria gained independence from British colonial rule. Islam entered Nigeria a thousand years ago and various Muslim dynasties emerged in the northern parts culminating in the Fulani Empire or the Sokoto caliphate which the British conquered in 1903. The southern parts of Nigeria were mostly animists and since the 17^th century were used by the Portuguese, the Spanish, the French, and the British as major centres of slave trade to the Americas. The British merged the north and the south before independence. Some 65 percent of the 155 million population of oil-rich Nigeria is made up of Muslims including 10 million Shi’ites or followers of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt. Nigeria covers an area of 923,768 sq km. it is located in West Africa and has a large coastline on the Atlantic Ocean, sharing borders with Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Benin.

31 solar years ago, on this day in 1985 AD, warplanes of the illegal Zionist entity pounded the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Tunis, martyring seventy people and injuring hundreds of others. The PLO headquarters were shifted to the Tunisian capital following Israel’s invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon in 1982. The UN failed to condemn this blatant act of state terrorism because of US veto at the Security Council.

6 solar years ago, on this day in 2010 AD, Iranian cinema and TV actor, Reza Khandan passed away at the age of 57. His first film was “Gomshodagan” or the Lost, while his last film was the famous TV serial “Mokhtar-Nameh” on the campaign of Mokhtar ibn Abu Obaidah to avenge the innocent blood of the Prophet’s grandson Imam Husain (AS). Khandan played the role of Sinan bin Anas.

AS/ME