Today is Friday; 16th of the Iranian month of Mehr 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 5th of the Islamic month of Muharram 1438 lunar hijri; and October 7, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

Some 3,503 lunar years ago, on this day, by the command of God Almighty waters parted for Prophet Moses (AS) to cross into Sinai safely from Egypt along with the Israelites who had been enslaved by the Pharaoh. When the Pharaoh tried to pursue Moses, the waters merged and drowned him and his forces. Islam considers Moses one of the five great prophets – the others being Noah, Abraham, Jesus, and the last and greatest of them all, Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).

1377 lunar years ago, on this day in 61 AH, the forces of Yazid continued to converge upon Karbala in thousands, in a bid to pressure Imam Husain (AS) to surrender to the tyrannical Omayyad ruler. Obaidullah ibn Ziyad, the bloodthirsty governor of Iraq stationed a force of five-hundred horsemen under Zahr bin Qais on the Sadah Bridge on the Euphrates to prevent anyone from Kufa to join Imam Husain (AS) in Karbala. Amer ibn Salamah, a staunch follower of the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), who had the honour of accompanying Imam Ali (AS) to the battles imposed upon the Commander of the Faithful by the seditionists and hypocrites, dauntlessly attacked the forces of Zahr bin Qays and breaking through their ranks, rode fearlessly to Karbala to join Imam Husain (AS). Amer eventually drank the elixir of martyrdom on the Day of Ashura (Moharram 10) to sacrifice his life for the ideals of faith, justice, and piety, of the Prophet’s grandson.

445 solar years ago, on this day in 1571 AD, the decisive Battle of Lepanto took place on the northern edge of the Gulf of Corinth, off the western coast of the Turkish province of Yunanistan (now known s Greece), when a fleet of southern European Catholic maritime states, backed by the Church in Rome, managed to defeat the Ottoman navy in five hours of fighting. According to historians classifying strategic battles, a Turkish victory could have led to Western Europe being overrun by the Muslims, as was the fate of the Byzantine Empire a little more than a century earlier. Lepanto was the last major naval battle in the Mediterranean fought entirely between galleys. The Christian powers calling themselves the Holy League were made up of Spain, Spain, Sicily, Sardinia, the Kingdom of Naples, the Republic of Venice, the Republic of Genoa, the Duchy of Savoy, the Papacy of Rome, the Knights Hospitallers, and special forces from Germany, all under the command of Don John of Austria. The death during battle, of the Turkish admiral (Kapudan-e Darya), Ali Pasha, and the mounting of his severed head on the mast of the Christian fleet broke the morale of the Ottoman navy, which retreated, conceding victory to the Christian powers.

279 solar years ago, on this day in 1737 AD, 40 foot waves sank 20,000 small craft and killed 300,000 people in Bengal, India.

253 solar years ago, on this day in 1763 AD, King George III of Britain issued a parliamentary degree closing aboriginal lands in North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlements. Some 15 years later the revolt of the colonists in what were then the 13 New England states, annulled the British king’s decree, and led to the genocide of the Amerindians by the White settlers from Europe who now spread in all directions to the detriment of the so-called Red Indians.

210 solar years ago, on this day in 1806 AD, Englishman Ralph Wedgwood secured the first patent for carbon paper, which he described as an “apparatus for producing duplicates of writings.” In his process, thin paper was saturated with printer's ink, and then dried between sheets of blotting paper. His idea for the carbon paper was a byproduct of his invention of a machine to help blind people write, and the “black paper” was really just a substitute for ink. In its original form, Wedgwood's “Stylographic Writer” employed a metal stylus instead of a quill for writing, with the carbon paper placed between two sheets of paper in order to transfer a copy onto the bottom sheet.

192 lunar years ago, on this day in 1438 AH, the prominent Indian Islamic scholar, Allamah Mir Hamed Hussain Musavi, was born in a religious family. He was the son of Mir Mohammad Quli Musavi Kintoori, the author of “Burhan al Sa`adah”, which is a refutation of the 7th Chapter of the seditious book of Shah Abdul-Aziz Dehlavi against the beliefs of the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) titled “Tuhfeye- Ithna Ashariyyah”. Well versed in theology, hadith, and other Islamic sciences, Hamed Hussain devoted his entire life to research and writing, for which he travelled around the Islamic world and browsed whole libraries. He authored several books, his magnum opus being the voluminous “Abaqaat al-Anwaar” on merits of Prophet Mohammad’s (SAWA) Ahl al-Bayt, as mentioned in the holy Qur'an by God Almighty and the Hadith. This valuable work which has been printed in Iran is a well-documented and rational refutation of the Abdul-Aziz Dehlavi’s highly fabricated book.

128 lunar years ago, on this day in 1310 AH, the prominent Iranian scholar Mullah Ahmad Fazel-e Naraqi, passed away. He was born in Azarbaijan Province, northwestern Iran, and studied at the famous seminary of holy Najaf in Iraq under such great scholar as Sheikh Morteza Ansari. Following his return to Iran, he groomed a large number of students. He has left behind numerous books on various topics including an exegesis of the holy Qur’an

88 solar years ago, on this day in 1928 AD, troops stormed the house of prominent leader of Iran's Constitutional Movement, Ayatollah Seyyed Hassan Modarres, and arrested him along with his family and friends on the orders of the British-installed dictator, Reza Khan Pahlavi. The Ayatollah, who in 1925 had unsuccessfully opposed the dissolution of the Qajarid dynasty by the Pahlavi upstart, was exiled to Khaf and then to Kashmar in southern Khorasan, where in 1937 he was poisoned on the orders of Reza Khan and attained martyrdom.

76 solar years ago, on this day in 1940 AD, during World War II, Romania was occupied by German Nazi troops, thus paving the way for Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union.

66 solar years ago, on this day in 1950 AD, a year after establishment of the communist system, China seized Tibet, and nine years later crushed the uprising of the Tibetan people, forcing the Dalai Lama or the Buddhist religious-political to seek refuge in India, where he is still based. Tibet covers an area of almost 1.2 million sq km, and is administered as an autonomous region in China. Muslims have been living in Tibet since as early as the 8th or 9th century. In Tibetan cities, there are small communities of Muslims, known as Kachee (Kache), who trace their origin to immigrants from three main regions: Kashmir (Kachee Yul in ancient Tibetan), Ladakh and the Central Asian countries. Islamic influence in Tibet also came from Iran. After 1959 a group of Tibetan Muslims made a case for Indian nationality based on their historic roots to Kashmir and the Indian government declared all Tibetan Muslims Indian citizens later that year. Other Muslim ethnic groups who have long inhabited Tibet include Hui, Salar, Dongxiang and Bonan. There is also a well established Chinese Muslim community (gya kachee), which traces its ancestry back to the Hui ethnic group of China.

45 solar years ago, on this day in 1971 AD, the prominent researcher, writer and preacher, Seyyed Mohammad Musawi Shirazi, son of Sultan al-Va’ezin Ali Akbar Shirazi, passed away at the age of 75. Born in Tehran, he left for Iraq with his father at the age of 12 and in the holy city of Karbala completed his preliminary studies. On his return to Iran, he resided for a time in Kermanshah, before embarking on research and scholarly tours abroad that took him to Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt and the Subcontinent. During these trips he held dialogues and debates with Sunni Muslims as well as followers of other creeds, such as Jews, Christian, and Hindus. In India, in 1927, he had a marathon 8-hour long discussion with the Leader of the independence movement against the British, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, which was widely reflected in the Indian press. His most famous debate, however, was in Peshawar in what is now Pakistan in 1927 that lasted for ten days (beginning on January 27), with two prominent Sunni religious scholar of Afghanistan – Hafiz Muhammad Rashid, and Sheikh Abdu's-Salaam; both of whom from Kabul. A condition of the dialogue was that only sources acceptable to both sects would be cited. The dialogue was held in Persian, common to both parties, while four reporters recorded its details in the presence of approximately 200 people (both Shi’as and Sunnis).  The dialogues were a model of mutual respect and in spite of the seriousness of the subject, there was no breach of decorum. The transcript of the dialogue was first published in the newspapers daily each day the following morning. Later it was published in book form titled “Shabha-e Peshawar” (translated into English as Peshawar Nights) that soon became a classic authority in the Islamic World. Sultan al-Va’ezin Shirazi also authored the book titled “Sad Maqala-e Sultani” (100 Essays on Refutation of Judaism and Christianity) as well as the 2-volume “Grouh-e Rastaragaan” also known as “Firqa’e Najiyya” – reference to Prophet Mohammad’s (SAWA) famous hadith: After me the Ummah will split into 72 sects of which only one will attain salvation and enter paradise.

29 solar years ago, on this day in 1987 AD, Saddam of Baghdad’s repressive Ba’th minority regime ordered chemical bombardment of Sumaar near Qasr-e Shirin in western Iran, resulting in the martyrdom of several civilians. During the 8-year war he imposed on Iran on the orders of the US, Saddam, who was supplied these internationally banned weapons by the West, especially Germany, used them on numerous occasions, resulting in the martyrdom and injury of around a hundred thousand Muslim combatants and civilians. Many of the chemically-scarred Iranians are still leading a painful life three decades after having fallen victim to toxic weapons, while the West, despite its claim to prohibition of use of weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons, has turned a blind eye to the plight of the world’s prime victim of unconventional warfare and terrorism, that is, the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

15 solar years ago, on this day in 2001 AD, the US invaded Afghanistan and occupied it after ousting its agents the Taleban militia by accusing it of collaboration with the al-Qa'eda outfit – also created by the CIA to spread terrorism. The US wrongly accused the Afghan-based groups of being involved in the implosion of New York's 110-storey-high Twin-Towers. The US, which along with its NATO accomplices has killed hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians and destroyed the country, is still in occupation of Afghanistan. Over the past 12 years, the US-NATO troops have killed well over a hundred thousand Afghan civilians and destroyed the country.

AS/ME