Today is Sunday; 28th of the Iranian month of Azar 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 18th of the Islamic month of Rabi al-Awwal 1438 lunar hijri; and December 18, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

2232 solar years ago, on this day in 218 BC, during the Second Punic War, the Battle of the Trebia in northern Italy was won by Hannibal's Carthaginian forces against the Roman Republic. It was a severe Roman defeat with heavy losses. In this battle Hannibal got the better of the Romans by exercising the careful and innovative planning for which he was famous. Hannibal, who is regarded as one of the world’s greatest generals and strategists, landed in Spain from North Africa and after a series of victories, crossed the Alps into Italy with his huge army that also included African war elephants. He was of Phoenician origin in what is now Lebanon, and was one of the staunchest enemies of Roman imperialism. For generations, even after his death, the Romans used to shudder at the name and thought of Hannibal, who eventually died, through suicide, in what is now Turkey, where after leaving his North African homeland in Tunisia, under pressure from the Romans, was serving as military advisor to the Greek king, Antiochus, in the defence against the Roman expansionism eastwards into Asia.

1438 lunar years ago, on this day, a few days after Hijra, work started for construction of the famous “Masjid an-Nabi” (Prophet's Mosque) in Medina after the entry of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) in this city which was then called Yathreb. The Prophet personally took part in the construction, and adjacent to it rooms or quarters were built for him, for his cousin, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS), and some of his companions. The Prophet used to hold the daily congregational prayers in this mosque, and would use it as a place for handling the various affairs of the Muslim society. The “Masjid an-Nabi”, in whose precincts, the Prophet reposes in eternal peace, is the second holiest mosque for the Islamic Ummah after the “Masjid al-Haraam” (Sacred Mosque) which houses God's symbolic house, the holy Ka'ba in Mecca. It is worth noting that on God’s commandment, the doors of the Sahaba opening into the courtyard of the “Masjid an-Nabi” were closed except for the doors of the houses of the Prophet and Imam Ali (AS).

1430 lunar years ago, on this day around 8 AH, Omm Kulthoum, the second and youngest daughter of Imam Ali (AS) and Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA) was born in Medina in the lifetime of her grandfather, Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). Like her elder sister, Hazrat Zainab (AS), and brothers, Imam Hasan (AS) and Imam Husain (AS), she was a picture of virtue, and on growing up married her paternal first cousin Awn ibn Ja’far at-Tayyar – who was martyred years later in 38 AH in the War of Siffeen – since as a member of the spotlessly pure Ahl al-Bayt no other man was worthy of her hand, except a faithful Hashemite. She was present in Karbala at history’s most heartrending tragedy; was taken in chains along with the rest of ladies and children of the Prophet’s blessed household to the court of the tyrant Yazid; delivered memorable sermons to unmask the hypocrisy of the Omayyad regime; and on return to Medina recited the famous elegy “Madinato Jaddona la taqbalina…” (O City of our Grandfather, don’t accept our coming).

961 solar years ago, on this day in 1055 AD, the Turkic warlord, Mohammad Toghril Beg, who established the vast Seljuqid Empire, occupied Baghdad on the secret invitation of the scheming Abbasid caliph, al-Qa’em-Billah, to end the 110-year rule of the Iranian Buwaihid Dynasty of Iraq-Iran, after conquering territories in northwestern Iran and Anatolia (modern Turkey). To legitimize his rule and expand his empire, he forced the figurehead Abbasid caliph, to give him his daughter in marriage, and to sign decrees for wars against the Byzantine Christian Empire in Anatolia and the Syrian territories of the Fatemid Ismaili Shi’ite Muslim caliphate of Egypt-North Africa. Born in Central Asia in what is now Kazakhstan to Mikail the son of Seljuq – chief of the Oghuz tribe – he strove to unite the Turkic tribes of the vast Eurasian Steppes into a confederacy. He, along with his elder brother, Chaghri Beg, rose to prominence in the service of the Khaqan of the Qara-Khanid Dynasty of Bukhara that had displaced the Iranian Samanid Dynasty in Central Asia. He turned against the Qara-Khanids and in 1040 vanquished the Ghaznavids of Khorasan-Afghanistan at the Battle of Dandanqanan. His hordes gradually swept across the Iranian Plateau before marching into Anatolia and Iraq. In 1058, he lost Baghdad to the Fatemids but recaptured it two years later. On his death in Rey at the age of 73 the childless Toghril was succeeded after a brief struggle between the two sons of his deceased brother, Chaghri, by his surviving nephew Alp Arsalan – perhaps the greatest ruler of the Seljuq Dynasty. The Seljuqs who ruled for over a century-and-a-half, became Persianized and played a vital role in the development and spread of the Persian language and culture in Anatolia, where a branch of them ruled until 1307 as the Seljuq Sultanate of Roum.

898 solar years ago, on this day in 1118 AD, the Spanish Muslim city of Zaragoza and the province of the same name, now called Aragon, was occupied by Alfonso the Battler, thereby ending 414 years of glorious Islamic rule. Founded by the Romans as Caesar-Augusta, the city was captured by the Goths, who lost it to the Muslims in 714, and was called Saraqusta in Arabic. It grew to become the biggest Muslim city of Northern Spain. It became a hotbed of political intrigue. In 774, its governor, Hussain Ibn Yahya al-Ansari declared Hispania to be a province of the Abbasid caliphate, prompting the Omayyads of Cordoba to launch an abortive attack. Hussain resisted till 788 and in the meantime in 777, beat back an attempt by Charlemagne of France to besiege it. The area changed hands several times among the various Muslim factions. In 884 it was sold by Mohammad Ibn Lubb Ibn Qasi to the Christian Raymond of Pallars, but was immediately retaken by the Muslims. In 886 the Banu Tujibi family was appointed to govern it, and after over a century of increasing its economic and military might it declared it as an independent Taifa or emirate. In 1038, Zaragoza was seized by Banu Houd, whose ruler, Abdul-Malik Imad od-Dowla, made the mistake of allying himself with the Castilian Christians against the al-Morawid Muslim dynasty. The treachery proved fatal and in 1118 with the help of mercenaries, Alfonso seized Zaragoza and ended Muslim rule. The magnificent al-Jaferia Palace, built by Ja'far al-Muqtadir, serves as the regional parliament today.

394 solar years ago, on this day in 1622 AD, the Portuguese, as part of the plot to expand their dominions in sub-Saharan Africa, invaded the already Christianized Kingdom of Kongo and defeated the indigenous African people at the Battle of Mbumbi in present-day Angola, with the help of the Imbangala cannibals. The Portuguese took as slaves thousands of the newly converted black Christians for sale in the Americas, while their Imbangala allies, as was their custom, cannibalized many of the wounded prisoners including the bodies of the duke of Mbamba and the marquis of Pemba.

242 solar years ago, on this day in 1774 AD, Prussian Empress Maria Theresa expelled Jews from Prague, Bohemia and Moravia, for their anti-social activities, involvement in usury, and sacrilege of the fundamental beliefs of Christianity, especially the slandering of Prophet Jesus and his mother, the Virgin Mary (peace upon them).

170 lunar years ago, on this day in 1268 AH, the highly efficient Iranian Prime Minister, Mirza Taqi Khan Amir Kabir, was killed on the orders of the Qajarid king, Nasser od-Din Shah in the “hammam” (bathhouse) of the famous garden-pavilion of Feen in the city of Kashan, where he was exiled, after dismissal from his post, following court intrigues by local agents of foreign powers, on loss of their illegal interests, because of his political and administrative reforms. He had risen from the lower rungs of the society through hard work, honesty, and voracious appetite for knowledge and eagerness to learn new techniques. He became prime minister of Mohammad Shah and within three years carried out important reforms. On Mohammad Shah's death, when Naser od-Din Shah ascended the throne as a boy, Amir-e Kabir acted as his guardian and saved Iran from the colonial designs of the British and the Russians. His achievements include the vaccination of Iranians against smallpox; economic development of the fertile Khuzestan Province; foundation in Tehran of the Dar ol-Fonoun Academy (for teaching medicine, surgery, pharmacology, natural history, mathematics, geology, and natural sciences to train the civilian and military staff); cancellation of the one-sided treaties with the Russians and the British; launching of a newspaper; crackdown on the seditious Babi-Bahai plot against Islam and the country; and execution of the heretic Mohammad Ali Bab. With Amir Kabir died the prospects of an independent Iran led by meritocracy.

138 solar years ago, on this day in 1878, Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, known as Joseph Stalin, was born in the town of Gori in the Tiflis Governorate of Georgia, some half-a-century after this Caucasus land was seized from Iran by the Russians. He was involved in the communist struggle against the Czarist rulers, for which he was deported to Siberia in 1913 and remained in exile until the victory of Russian revolution in 1917. He rose in ranks during the rule of Vladimir Lenin, and following the latter’s death in 1927, he staged a coup with the help of Leo Kamenov and Grigori Zinoviev in order to prevent Leon Trotsky from succeeding Lenin. Stalin gradually eliminated his partners and became autocratic ruler. He ruthlessly continued the purging of opponents inside and outside the Communist Party, and during World War II, assumed the posts of premier and commander-in-chief of the Soviet army. Until his death, he ruled with an iron fist, and killed over six million people, besides ordering mass deportation of millions of others from their ancestral homes and hearths. For instance, in 1944, he ordered the mass deportation of Caucasian Muslim nations. Chechens and Ingush were deported to Kazakhstan for resisting Soviet rule on the allegations of abetting the Germans. Around a million persons were evicted and loaded onto special railway cars. More than a third of the population died on the way. Also deported were the Karachays, Balkars, and Meskhetian Turks.

128 solar years ago, on this day in 1888 AD, the Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde, Colorado, was discovered by rancher Richard Wetherill, while searching for missing cattle, along the north side of the Mancos River, He came across the ancient Amerindian site that he later named the Cliff Palace. These ruins of the largest and most famous cliff dwelling in North America are now preserved in Mesa Verde National Park. In the 1200s, the Anasazi, an ancient pueblo people, built 150 rooms and 23 large, round kivas (used for rituals) within a large rock shelter, high on a cliff. Rooms, about 2×2.5 meters were made of sandstone blocks, with mortar made from soil, water and ash.

114 solar years ago, on this day in 1902 AD, the world’s first radio station was founded by the Italian inventor, Guglielmo Marconi, in Glace Bay, thereby paving the ground for transatlantic conversations between the US and Europe. At the time, radio was not used as an educational and entertaining device but as a telecommunications apparatus.

102 solar years ago, on this day in 1914 AD, during World War 1, Britain took control of Egypt and declared it as its protectorate, by severing the centuries-old connection between Cairo and Istanbul, on the pretext that the Ottoman Empire had aligned with Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire against the Allied Powers. The Egyptian people’s struggles against colonial rule forced Britain to recognize Egypt's independence in 1922.

78 solar years ago, on this day in 1938 AD, the Atomic Age started with the fission of the atom’s nucleus by the German Chemist, Otto Hahn, leading to release of a huge amount of energy, which was later misused by the US to build bombs and weapons of mass destruction. Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1944 and died in 1968. The US is the only country to have criminally used atomic bombs to devastate cities and population centres, as is clear by its unprovoked bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and massacre of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children in 1945.

43 solar years ago, on this day in 1973 AD, the religious scholar, philosopher, poet and outstanding orator of the subcontinent, Allamah Rasheed Turabi passed away in Karachi, Pakistan, at the age of 65. Born in Hyderabad-Deccan (southern India), after obtaining BA from Osmania University and MA in Philosophy from Allahabad University, he learned religious sciences, and mastered Urdu, Persian and Arabic literature. His Persian teachers were Mohsin Shirazi, Ali Hyder Nazm Tabatabai, and Mohammed Kirmani, while his Arabic language teachers were Tahir bin Mohammad, and Mawlana Sadeq Hussain Majjan. On the political side, he started his career as a member of the working committee of the Hyderabad Legislative Assembly. Later on, he was nominated by the founder of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, as a member of the working committee of All India Muslim League. In 1949, following the fall of Hyderabad-Deccan to Indian forces in 1948, a year after independence from British rule, he migrated to Pakistan, where he left active politics, and devoted himself to religious erudition, especially discourses on Imam Husain (AS) and the tragedy of Karbala. His great knowledge of hadith, jurisprudence, and exegesis of the holy Qur’an enabled him to deliver more than 5,000 religious lectures and speeches over a period of 57 years in the service of Prophet Mohammad’s (SAWA) Ahl al-Bayt. It also brought him Ijaza (permission to relate hadith) from Ayatollah Shaikh Mohammed Mohsin Tehrani, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Mohsin al-Hakeem Tabatabai, Ayatollah Seyyed Hibbatuddin Shahristani, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hadi Milani, and Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hussain Borujerdi. The most sought after Urdu public speaker of his times, he was indeed a persuasive and brilliant orator, who introduced many dimensions to the art of oratory. He was a prolific author as well, and among his works is the book, “Tibb-e Ma’soomeen” which is a composition of antidotes from Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) and the 12 Infallible Imams. He also wrote the 2-volume book "The Forests of Hyderabad" on the jungles of the Deccan. Another of his work is the idiomatic translation of Imam Ali’s (AS) famous Letter of Instructions to his governor of the then Christian-majority Egypt, Malik Ashtar. This epistle is a guiding light for just and fair governance. Turabi’s masterpiece on “Ilm Rijal” or biographical evaluation of narrators of hadith, which he titled "Wasl-e Qowl" was published after his death in Karachi.

34 solar years ago, on this day in 1982 AD, Saddam's Ba'thist forces targeted the southwestern Iranian city of Dezful with a large number of surface-to-surface missiles, martyring 60 civilians and wounding 287 others. Although, earlier Iraqi warplanes had bombarded different Iranian cities on several occasions, martyring many civilians, the attack on Dezful was the first wide-scale missile aggression by Saddam, who on US orders had imposed the 8-year war on the Islamic Republic Iran. The massive attack on Iranian cities and civilians by Saddam and his subsequent use of internationally banned chemical weapons, supplied by the US and Germany was because of the repeated failure of his forces at the war fronts due to the steadfastness of Iran's combatants.

13 solar years ago, on this day in 2003 AD, Dragan Nikolic, the Serb prison camp commander who allowed his troops to rape, torture and murder his Muslim prisoners, was sentenced to 23 years in jail at the UN war crimes tribunal in the Hague.

10 solar years ago, on this day in 2006 AD, Bahrain’s prominent religious scholar, Ayatollah Shaikh Abdul-Ameer al-Jamri, passed away at the age of 67 due to heart and kidney failure, while under house arrest. An outstanding preacher, who was a product of the famous seminary of holy Najaf in Iraq, he was an opponent of the repressive Aal-e Khalifa minority regime. He served in Bahrain's first parliament (1973-75), which was dissolved by the repressive ruler. Al-Jamri is most notable for his role during the 1990s uprising in Bahrain. As the leading figure, he succeeded in bringing Islamists, liberals and leftists together against the repressive regime. Due to his civil rights activity, he was imprisoned between April and September 1995, before being arrested again in January 1996 and imprisoned until July 1999, which was followed by a year and a half of house arrest by the regime. He wrote several books including “Women in Islam”, “Islamic Duties”, and “The story of my Life”.

5 solar years ago, on this day in 2011 AD, the last US occupation soldiers rolled out of Iraq across the border into neighbouring Kuwait at daybreak, after eight years of state terrorism that claimed the life of over 1.2 million Iraqis, either directly or indirectly. The US says it lost 4,500 soldiers and claims a burden of $800 billion incurred by the US Treasury during this period, but facts speak otherwise. The Americans lost more than double that number of soldiers because of resistant by the Iraqi Muslim people after the fall of the repressive Ba’th minority regime, while the US fleeced Iraq of trillions of dollars of the oil money in addition to destroying the infrastructure of the country and making millions of people homeless.

AS/ME