Today is Friday; 28th of the Iranian month of Aban 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 18th of the Islamic month of Safar 1438 lunar hijri; and November 18, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1401 lunar years ago, on this day in 37 AH, Owais Qarani, the devout follower of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) from Yemen, who never personally met the Prophet, attained martyrdom during a battle of the War of Siffin in defence of the cause of the Prophet's 1^st Infallible Heir, Imam Ali ibn Abil Taleb (AS). He was a victim of treachery of the Omayyad rebel, Mu'awiyah ibn Abu Sufyan, who had incited civil war amongst Muslims. Born in Qaran in Yemen, he lived a life of piety, and on hearing of the message of Islam, became a Muslim and travelled to Medina to meet the Prophet who was not in town. Owais had to return to Yemen without meeting him since his mother was very sick. When the Prophet heard about this he blessed Owais and prayed for him. After the Prophet’s passing away, Owais gave his pledge of allegiance to Imam Ali (AS) and was an ardent supporter of the cause of the Ahl al-Bayt. When seditionists started civil wars, he stood firmly beside the Imam, until he attained martyrdom. His tomb in Reqqa near the Syrian city of Aleppo, which was a site of pilgrimage, was criminally demolished by Takfiri terrorists.

415 solar years ago, on this day in 1601 AD, Tiryaki Hassan Pasha, provincial governor of Ottoman Empire, decisively defeated Habsburg forces commanded by Ferdinand the Archduke of Austria during the Siege of Nagykanizsa. The 50,000-strong Christian force attacked what was then Kanije in southwest Hungary, but the superior tactics of the Muslim defenders enabled the Turks to withstand the siege and ultimately counterattack and defeat the enemy forces. Hassan Pasha was an ethnic Bosnian and because of addiction to coffee was known as Tiryaki.

349 solar years ago, on this day in 1667 AD, The Treaty of Bongaja was forced upon Sultan Hassan od-Din of Gowa in what is now Indonesia by the invading forces of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), following the defeat of the Muslim army at Makassar on Sulawesi Island, mainly due to the siding of the animist warlord Arung Palakka with the Christians. Based on the terms of the treaty, Sultan Hassan od-Din conceded to the Dutch the territories of Buton, Makassar, Timor, Bima and the coasts of Java. For the next two centuries, Netherland’s control over the archipelago was tenuous outside of coastal strongholds and only in the early 20th century did Dutch dominance extend to what was to become Indonesia's present boundaries. In 1945, following end of World War 2 and Japanese occupation, Indonesia announced its independence, but was attacked by the Dutch, who in 1949, finally left the world’s most populous Muslim country.

229 solar years ago, on this day in 1787 AD, the French painter, inventor, and physicist, Louis Daguerre, was born. His most important invention was the camera in the year 1839. He managed to take the first clear photo with this camera. Interestingly, nearly concurrent with Daguerre, his compatriot, Joseph Nicephore Niepce, had also succeeded in inventing the camera. Daguerre died in 1851.

177 solar years ago, on this day in 1839 AD, the second phase of the Algerian people’s anti-colonial struggles against France started under the leadership of Seyyed Abdul-Qader bin Mohieddin al-Hassani, al-Jaza'eri, who claimed descent from Imam Hasan Mojtaba (AS), the elder grandson of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). Abdul-Qader, who returned to Algeria, a few months before the Turks lost it to the French invaders in 1930, had during his 5-year journey abroad, met with, and was highly impressed by Imam Shamil of Daghestan – the leader of the struggle against Russian expansion in the Caucasus which recently had been seized by the Czar from the Qajarid rulers of Iran. As a Sufi scholar, Abdul-Qader now led the military struggle against France, and within two years was made an amir by tribes fighting the French. He organized guerrilla warfare and for a decade scored many victories. He often signed tactical truces with the French, but these did not last. His failure to get support from the eastern tribes, apart from the Berbers of western Kabylie led to the quelling of his uprising. On December 21, 1847, after being denied refuge in Morocco because of French pressure, he surrendered. It took more than a century for the French to leave Algeria as a result of the freedom war that started in the 1950s and triumphed in 1962, but not before France had massacred over a million Algerian Muslims.

142 lunar years ago, on this day in 1306 AH, the prominent Indian Islamic scholar, Allamah Mir Hamed Hussain Musavi, passed away in Lucknow at the age of 60. He was the son of Mir Mohammad Quli Musavi Kintoori, the author of “Burhan al Sa`adah”, which is a refutation of the 7^th 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.

117 solar years ago, on this day in 1899 AD, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Abu’l-Qasim Musavi Khoei, was born in Khoy in Iran’s West Azarbaijan Province. After initial studies in Tabriz, he left for holy Najaf in Iraq at the age of 13 to continue his studies. Here, his piety and knowledge attracted the attention of the Indian-based Iranian religious scholar, Mirza Ahmad Najafi-Tabrizi, who gave his daughter in marriage to him and lodged him in his own house. Mirza Ahmad used to frequent the semi-independent state of Banganapalle in south India, ruled by a Seyyed family of Iranian origin, who were patrons of scholars and learning. Soon Ayatollah Khoei mastered logic, rhetoric, theology, jurisprudence and philosophy, and in the process attained the status of Ijtehad. In 1971, he succeeded Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Mohsin al-Hakim as the leading Marja’ of the Islamic world and thereafter groomed a large number of scholars from Iran, Iraq, the Subcontinent, Bahrain and Lebanon. Among his valuable books are “Lectures in the Principles of Jurisprudence”, in 10 volumes, “Islamic Law” in 18 volumes, and "Mu'jam Rijal al-Hadith" in 24 volumes. The last named is an authoritative work on evaluation of narrators of hadith. During the 8-year war imposed on Iran in the 1980s by the US through Saddam, he refused to yield to the Ba’thist minority regime’s pressures to denounce the Islamic Republic, even though his house was frequently subjected to water and electricity cuts. He passed away in Kufa in 1992, a year and some five months after Saddam brutally crushed popular uprising of the Iraqi people. It is believed the regime martyred him through poisoning.

113 solar years ago, on this day in 1903 AD, the Panama Canal Treaty was concluded between the Republic of Panama and the US, on the basis of which, the strategic Canal was permanently leased to the US for a mere $10 million in cash and an annual payment of $250,000. The people of Panama, through their struggles, finally forced the US to revise the permanent lease contract in 1978, when US president, Jimmy Carter, and the president of Panama, Omar Torrijos, signed an agreement to give back the Canal to Panama towards the end of the year 1999. The Panama Canal is 68 km in length and links the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. However, despite the US withdrawal, Panama continues to be considered by the US as its fiefdom.

113 lunar years ago, on this day in 1326 AH, the prominent religious scholar of Iraq, Sheikh Baqer Kazemaini, passed away at the age of 68. Born in the holy city of Kazemain near Baghdad he completed his studies in the famous seminary of holy Najaf under prominent ulema, including Iran's Ayatollah Sheikh Morteza Dezfuli Ansari. He wrote “Mizan al-Haq” and other books.

90 solar years ago, on this day in 1926 AD, Irish thinker and playwright, George Bernard Shaw, refused to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying, "I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize." Instituted in 1895 by the Swedish chemist, who was dismayed by the epithet “merchant of death” which he acquired after inventing dynamite, the Nobel Prize was soon politicized and turned into a means for promotion of the West’s domineering, divisive, exploitative and murderous policies that led Bernard Shaw to criticize it. Interestingly, Shaw has made the following statements regarding Islam:

“If any religion had the chance of ruling over England, nay Europe within the next hundred years, it could be Islam."

“I have always held the religion of (Prophet) Mohammad (SAWA) in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capacity to the changing phase of existence which can make itself appeal to every age. I have studied him - the wonderful man and in my opinion far from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the Saviour of Humanity.”

“I have prophesied about the faith of (Prophet) Mohammad (SAWA) that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today.”

60 solar years ago, on this day in 1956 AD, Morocco became independent from the colonial rule of France, which had seized this Muslim country in 1921. Morocco covers an area of 458730 sq km, and is located in northwestern Africa and the coastlines of Atlantic Ocean. Muslims constitute 99% of its population.

54 solar years ago, on this day in 1962, Danish scientist and physicist, Niels Bohr, died at the age of 82. He conducted atomic researches for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1945.

53 solar years ago, on this day in 1963 AD, Colonel Abdus-Salaam Aref, with the help of the Ba'th Party, seized power in Iraq, by staging a coup and killing General Abdul-Karim Qasem. Abdus-Salaam Aref, after consolidating his power, purged the government of the Ba’th Party. In 1966, he was killed in a plane crash, while returning to Baghdad from Basra, where in a blasphemous speech he tried to ridicule the famous sermon of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS), in the book “Nahj al-Balagha”, where Prophet Mohammad's (SAWA) 1st Infallible Successor censures the people of Basra for their unmanly characteristics in assisting the seditionists that had stirred the Battle of Jamal and shed Muslim blood. Abdus-Salaam Aref was replaced by his brother Abdur-Rahman Aref.

37 solar years ago, on this day in 1979 AD, as a humanitarian gesture to expose the colour, and gender discrimination in US society, the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA), ordered the release of 13 female and black Americans from among the scores of spies captured by Iranian revolutionary students on the seizure of the US espionage den in Tehran.

AS/ME