Today is Friday; 9th of the Iranian month of Tir 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 5th of the Islamic month of Shawwal 1438 lunar hijri; and June 30, 2017, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1402 lunar years ago, on this day in 36 AH, the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS), started from his capital Kufa in Iraq towards Syria with a force of 90,000 to meet the threats of the rebellious governor, Mua'wiyyah ibn Abu Sufyan. The result was the protracted War of Siffeen in the place of the same name, in the vicinity of Aleppo near Reqqa that exposed the hypocrisy of the Omayyads and proved the righteousness of Imam Ali (AS), as the First Infallible Successor of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).

1378 lunar years ago, on this day in 60 AH, Muslim Ibn Aqeel, the cousin and emissary of Imam Husain (AS), the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), arrived in Kufa and was warmly welcomed by the people, with as many as 18,000 giving him oath of allegiance and reaffirming the letters they had sent to the Imam in Mecca, inviting him to come to Iraq to deliver the ummah from the tyrannical and Godless rule of the Omayyad usurper, Yazid bin Mua'wiyyah. Muslim wrote to the Imam of the situation and called on him to come to Iraq to lead the people. Two months later, however, when Yazid dispatched to Kufa as governor, the bloodthirsty Obaidollah ibn Ziyad, who immediately resorted to threats and bribes, the majority of the Kufans broke their oath of allegiance and betrayed Muslim, as a result of which he was martyred. When Imam Husain (AS) arrived in Iraq he was prevented from entering Kufa and cruelly martyred in the plain of Karbala by the forces of Ibn Ziyad that also included the majority of those who had written letters to him, inviting him to come to Iraq and deliver them from Omayyad oppression.

723 solar years ago, on this day in 1294 AD, following the murder of a Christian boy in Bern, several Jews were executed and the survivors expelled from Switzerland. In the 1620s Jews were banished from Swiss towns, and from 1776, they were allowed to reside only in the two villages of Lengnau and Oberendingen, in what is now the canton of Aargau.

675 solar years ago, on this date in 1342 AD, Zafar Khan, the founder of the Muzaffarid Dynasty of Gujarat, was born in Delhi to Wajih ul-Mulk, who before embracing Islam was a Rajput of the Tanka clan by the name of Sadharan. Wajih ul-Mulk’s sister was married to Sultan Feroze Shah Tughlaq, who in 1391 appointed his wife’s nephew Zafar Khan as governor of the western province of Gujarat. When after the death of Feroze Shah, the subcontinent was invaded by the fearsome Turkic conqueror, Amir Timur in 1398, and the Tughlaq Sultanate collapsed, Zafar Khan declared himself sultan of Gujarat with the title Muzaffar Shah I. He died in 1411 after a 20-year reign. His son, Ahmad Shah I built the city of Ahmadabad as the new capital. The dynasty ruled for almost 200 years, until the conquest of Gujarat by the Mughal Empire. The sultanate reached its peak of expansion under Mahmoud Shah I Begara, reaching east into Malwa and west to the Gulf of Kutch. During the Muzaffarid rule, Ahmadabad grew to become one of the largest and wealthiest cities in the world, and the sultans were patrons of a distinctive architecture that blended Islamic elements with Gujarat's indigenous Hindu and Jain architectural traditions. The court language was Persian and the Sultans of Gujarat maintained infrequent ambassadorial relations with Iran.

438 solar years ago, on this day 1579 AD, the prominent Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, Mohammad Pasha Sokolovich, was assassinated at the age of 73. A Serb by birth who converted to Islam at an early age he was raised among the special Jan-Nisari Corps. His rapid rise through the ranks of the Ottoman imperial system, eventually brought him positions as Head of the Imperial Guard, High Admiral of the Navy, Governor-General of Rumelia, Third Vizier, Second Vizier, and as Grand Vizier – a position he held for over 14 years under three Sultans: Suleiman, Selim II, and Murad III. In addition to his native Serbo-Croat, he was fluent in Turkish, Persian, Arabic, and Venetian-Italian. He had taken part in wars against Safavid Iran as head of a force of Serbs and Greeks, but later, due to Shah Tahmasp's diplomacy and proposal of a lasting peace accord, he advised the Ottoman Sultan to accept it. He was a great builder and constructed many mosques, schools, musafer-khanas (inns) and bridges in Istanbul, Belgrade, Sarajevo, and Mecca.

124 lunar years ago, on this day in 1314 AH, the  pan-Islamist thinker and pioneer of the anti-colonial struggles, Seyyed Jamal od-Din Asadabadi, attained martyrdom in Istanbul at the age of 59; being poisoned on the orders of the Ottoman Sultan, Abdul-Hamid II. Born in Asadabad near the western Iranian city of Hamedan, he honed his skills in religion, philosophy, astronomy, and history. Well-versed in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, English, French, and Russian languages, he strove for Islamic solidarity and strongly opposed colonialists. At the age of 17, he started his travels abroad, first studying theology in Iraq, and then visiting India at a crucial period in its history – shortly after the British crushed the 1857 Uprising by massacring Muslims and exiling to Burma, the last king of the once mighty Timurid Mughal Empire, Bahador Shah Zafar, a year after they overthrew Wajed Ali Shah of the Naishapuri kingdom of Iranian origin of Awadh. The young Jamal od-Din was profoundly affected by the events, and lived for several years in the semi-independent Muslim state of Haiderabad-Deccan under patronage of its famous prime minister, Salar Jung Mokhtar ol-Mulk. Here he countered through pamphlets and treatises the “naturist” views of the pro-British Sir Seyyed Ahmad Khan, the founder of the Anglo-Mohammadan College that later became Aligarh Muslim University. These were published in book form in Haiderabad in 1881 under the title “Haqiqat-e Madhhab-e Naychari wa Bayan-e Hal-e Naychariyan” (Truth about the Nature Sect and an Explanation of Naturists). After a brief detention in Calcutta, he had to leave India under pressure from the British, and after performing the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, he returned to Iran. A few years later in 1866 he left for Afghanistan to serve as advisor to Amir Dost Mohammad Khan. Expelled from Kabul by the next ruler, Sher Ali Khan, he went to Egypt in 1871, where until his expulsion in 1879, he won several admirers and students – including Shaikh Mohammad Abduh, who wrote a commentary on the “Nahj al-Balagha” (Collection of Imam Ali’s [AS] sermons, letters and maxims). Forced to leave Egypt, he went to Istanbul, from where he travelled around Europe, visiting Paris, London, Munich, Moscow and St. Petersburg. From France in 1884, he published the daily “al-Orwat al-Wosqa” and from Britain “Zia al-Khafeqin” to awaken the Muslims. He was invited back to Iran by Nasser od-Din Shah Qajar to serve as political advisor, but soon fell out with the autocratic king and took refuge in the holy shrine of Seyyed Abdul-Azim al-Hassani, before being expelled seven months later in 1891 to Iraq. He informed the leading marja’ of the time, Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi of the ruin brought on Iranian economy by granting of the tobacco concession to the British. The Ayatollah’s fatwa against tobacco consumption saved Iran. In 1892, he was invited by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Hamid to Istanbul, where several of his disciples visited him, including Mirza Reza Kirmani, who assassinated Nasser od-Din Shah in 1896. Jamal od-Din Asadabadi eventually fell out with the Ottoman Sultan and was poisoned to death. His reformist and pan-Islamist ideas were opposed by colonial powers and the repressive Muslim regimes. Among his works is “ar-Radd ala ad-Dahriyyiin” (Refutation of the Materialists), in answer to Darwin's absurd theory of evolution titled “On the Origin of Species”. Seyyed Jamal od-Din, who at times called himself ‘Afghani’ in order to conceal his Iranian and Shi’a Muslim identity, profoundly impacted many thinkers of his age and the subsequent generations. Among these were the famous Persian-Urdu poet Mohammad Iqbal Lahori, Mohammad Ali Jinnah (Founder of Pakistan), and prominent Indian Muslim educationist, Abu’l Kalaam Azad. In Egypt, besides Abduh, he deeply influenced Rashid Redha, and Ali Abdur-Razeq, while in Turkey: Namik Kemal, Said Nursi and others. The Constitutional Movement that triumphed in Iran in 1905 was also influenced by him.

109 solar years ago, on this day in 1908 AD, a massive explosion occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Central Siberia in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. The explosion (epicentre 60.886°N, 101.894°E), is believed to have been caused by the air burst of a large meteoroid or comet fragment at an altitude of 5-to-10 km above the Earth's surface. It is the largest impact event on or near Earth in recorded history. In 2013, a team of researchers led by Victor Kvasnytsya of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine published analysis results of micro-samples from a peat bog near the blast epicentre showing fragments possibly of meteoric origin. Estimates of the energy of the blast range from 3 to as high as 30 megatons of TNT — roughly equal to the United States' Castle Bravo thermonuclear bomb tested on March 1, 1954; about 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan; and about two-fifths the power of the Soviet Union's Tsar Bomba (the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated). The Tunguska explosion knocked down an estimated 80 million trees over an area covering 2,150 square km. It is estimated that the shock wave from the blast would have measured 5.0 on the Richter scale. An explosion of this magnitude is capable of destroying a large metropolitan area.

100 solar years ago, on this day in 1917 AD, Zoroastrian intellectual, Dadabhai Naorozji, known as Grand Old Man of India, died at the age of 91 in his hometown Bombay (Mumbai). Of Iranian origin, he was an educator, a cotton trader, and a political and social leader, who was the first Asian to become a British MP. He was a founding father of the Indian National Congress. Ordained as priest in 1851, he founded in India an organisation to restore the Zoroastrian religion to what he considered its original purity and simplicity. In 1854, he launched a fortnightly publication “Rast Goftar” (Truth Teller), to clarify Zoroastrian concepts. In 1855, he was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at the Elphinstone College in Bombay. He travelled to London, established the cotton trading Dadabhai Naorozji & Co in 1859 and later became professor of Gujarati at University College, London. Elected to the House of Commons as a Liberal Party member between 1892 and 1895, he refused to take oath on the Bible as he was not a Christian, and was allowed to take oath of office in the Name of God on his copy of “Khordeh Avesta”. In his political campaign and duties as an MP, he was assisted by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the future Muslim nationalist and founder of Pakistan, who was then a student in London. Naorozji set up the association to counter the theory that Europeans were intellectually superior to Asians, and his book “Poverty and Un-British Rule in India” brought attention to the draining of India's wealth into Britain. He estimated a 200–300 million pounds loss of revenue to Britain that is not returned. He described this as “vampirism”, with money being a metaphor for blood, which humanised India, and he called Britain's actions as “monstrous”. Naorozji returned to India, and was re-elected president of the Indian National Congress in 1906. He died in Bombay on 30 June 1917, at the age of 91. Books written by him include: “The Manners and Customs of the Parsees (Zoroastrians)” and “The European and Asiatic races”.

97 solar years ago, on this day in 1920 AD, the Iraqi people, led by Ayatollah Mirza Mohammad Taqi Shirazi, rose against the British occupiers. The British after initial defeats resorted to treachery by martyring Ayatollah Shirazi through poisoning and exiling Shaikh Mohammad Hussain Kashef al-Gheta to Iran. They then deprived the Shia Muslim majority of Iraq of representative rule, by installing in Baghdad an imported king – Faisal, the son of the British agent, Sharif Hussain of Hejaz.

87 solar years ago, on this day in 1930 AD, the prominent poet and religious scholar, Seyyed Ahmad Peshawari, known as “Adib Peshawari”, passed away in Tehran at the age of 86. Born near Peshawar in what is now Pakistan, in his youth his father and several relatives were killed in the wars between the British and the Afghan tribes of the Subcontinent. As a result, he moved to Kabul and then to Ghazni, where he completed his education. In 1877 he migrated to Iran to study under the philosopher Mullah Hadi Sabzevari in the city of Sabzevar in Khorasan. He settled in Tehran, where he lived till his death. He also studied literary and philosophical books and wrote Persian poetry. His firm faith in Islam and indifference toward worldly matters are clearly evident in his poems. Adib’s output of poetry comprises about 20,000 couplets, and mainly consists of ghazals (lyrics) and qasidas (panegyrics). He also wrote a lengthy mathnavi (ode) titled “Qaysar-Namah”, which was dedicated to Kaiser Wilhelm II and extolled Germany’s role in World War I. Although Adīb belonged to the older generation of poets, he espoused, like some of his younger contemporaries, new social and political ideas. Thus he helped pioneer patriotic trends in Persian verse. His importance is that of a forerunner, whose early poems indicate tendencies which gained prominence during the constitutional period. He also wrote a “marthiya” (elegy) in Arabic on the martyrdom of Ayatollah Sheikh Fazlollah Noori.

83 solar years ago, on this day in 1934 AD, the Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, took place. Also called Operation Hummingbird, the 3-day bloody purge resulted in a series of political murders, including Hitler’s one-time ally Ernst Roehm. Leading figures of the left-wing Strasserist faction of the Nazi Party, along with its figurehead, Gregor Strasser, were murdered, as were prominent conservative anti-Nazis (such as former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and Gustav Ritter von Kahr, who had suppressed Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in 1923). Hitler used the purge to attack or eliminate critics of his new regime, especially those loyal to Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, as well as to settle scores with old enemies. At least 85 people died during the purge, although the final death toll may have been in the hundreds, and more than a thousand perceived opponents were arrested. The purge strengthened and consolidated the support of the Reichswehr for Hitler. It also provided a legal grounding for the Nazi regime, as the German courts and cabinet quickly swept aside centuries of legal prohibition against extra-judicial killings to demonstrate their loyalty to the regime. The Night of the Long Knives was a turning point for the German government. It established Hitler as "the supreme judge of the German people," as he put it in his July 13, 1934 speech to the Reichstag.

73 solar years ago, on this day in 1946 AD, the US, within a year of its state terrorism of dropping atomic bombs on the unsuspecting Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a field test to gauge how many million people would be annihilated, and the effects of deadly radiation on land and water resources,  criminally dropped an atomic bomb from an airplane over the Bikini Lagoon in the Pacific Ocean onto a target group of 73 ships moved there for the purpose. Named "Able," the explosion caused a 520-foot burst. The Gilliam and Carlisle transport ships were sunk, and 18 other ships were damaged, in addition to the radiation that wiped out marine life in the region. The US is the world’s most dangerously armed nuclear power.

57 solar years ago, on this day in 1960 AD, the Democratic Republic of Congo declared independence from Belgium, with Joseph Kasavubu, and Patrice Lumumba, elected as president and premier respectively. In 1965, US agent, General Mobutu Sese Seko seized power through a coup, and started to brutally suppress the people. In 1970, he renamed the country as Zaire and declared himself president for life. In 1997 following his ouster, the country reverted to its original name of Democratic Republic of Congo. It covers an area of 2.3 million sq km, and shares borders with Zambia, Angola, Tanzania, Central Africa, Sudan, Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda.

42 solar years ago, on this day in 1975 AD, Ayatollah Seyyed Hassan Musavi Bojnourdi, passed away in holy Najaf, Iraq at the age of 80. Born in Bojnourd in Khorasan, after initial studies in holy Mashhad, he left for Iraq at the age of 27 to study under such leading scholars of the Islamic seminary of Najaf as Seyyed Abu’l-Hassan Isfahani, Mirza Hussain Na’ini, and Ziya od-Din Iraqi. He reached the status of Ijtehad and soon became an authority in theology, jurisprudence, exegesis of the holy Qur’an, hadith, philosophy and Arabic and Persian literature. As a leading teacher of the Najaf Seminary he was devised a new method for Ijtihad courses, and wrote the book “al-Qawa’ed al-Fiqhiyya” on it. He was in contact with Islamic centres around the world, including Egypt’s al-Azhar Academy.

31 solar years ago, on this day in 1986 AD, Operations Karbala-1 was launched by Iran’s Muslim combatants for liberation of the western border town of Mehran and its surroundings from the occupation of Saddam’s Ba’th minority regime. Mehran had fallen to the Ba’thists in the early stages of their unprovoked invasion of the Islamic Republic of Iran in September 1980, and was liberated two years later. In May 1980, the Ba’thists again occupied it but were forced to retreat a month and a half later during this victorious operation.

28 solar years ago, on this day in 1989 AD, General Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir toppled the elected government of Sadeq al-Mahdi in Sudan, through a coup, and by enticing Islamist leader, Hassan at-Turabi, formed the Sudan National Congress Party to install himself as executive head of the new government. In 1999 Bashir turned against Turabi and subjected him to frequent bouts of imprisonment lasting several years till 2010, especially after he called on the dictator to surrender himself to the International Court of Justice for crimes against humanity in Darfur where Bashir’s brutal Janjaweed militia tortured and massacred thousands of ethnic African Muslims. Bashir, who has betrayed the aspirations of the Sudanese people, has currently sold himself to Saudi Arabia and sent troops to Yemen in the US-Israeli directed campaign against the popular Ansarullah Movement.

26 solar years ago, on this day in 1991 AD, the curtain came down on the apartheid regime of South Africa, with the collapse of white minority rule that since 1948 had brutally discriminated against the black majority. Although the US, Britain, and other western states maintained close relations with the racist regime; the overwhelming majority of world countries had severed their ties with South Africa. The UN General Assembly issued a total of 52 resolutions against racism and termed it as a crime against mankind and a flagrant violation of human rights. Finally, the struggles of the indigenous black people, led by Nelson Mandela brought the racist regime to its end. On December 1993, the new Constitution based on equality of rights of blacks and whites was ratified by the parliament of South Africa and the next year in April 1994 the first fair and free elections saw Nelson Mandela chosen as president.

AS/MG