Today is Friday; 17th of the Iranian month of Shahrivar 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 17th of the Islamic month of Zi’l-Hijjah 1438 lunar hijri; and September 8, 2017, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1400 solar years ago, on this day in 617 AD, in the Battle of Huoyi, a Sui Dynasty army was defeated by Li Yuan, opening the path to his capture of the imperial capital Chang’an and the eventual establishment of the Tang Dynasty.

1189 solar years ago, on this day in 828 AD (according to the Gregorian calendar), Imam Ali an-Naqi al-Hadi (AS), the 10^th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), was born in Medina. As per the Islamic calendar his date of birth is 15^th Zilhijja 212 AH. His period of imamate or divinely-decreed leadership was 34 years during which he groomed a large number of scholars in different branches of sciences in those dark days of Abbasid tyranny. He had to spend the last few years of his life in the Abbasid capital Samarra in Iraq, where he was forcibly brought by Caliph Mutawakkel and placed under house arrest most of the time. He strengthened the system of "wikala" or representation around the world of Islam before his martyrdom through poisoning at the age of 42 years, and passed it on to his son and successor, Imam Hasan al-Askari (AS), for further consolidation during the crucial period of "Ghayba" (occultation) of his grandson, Imam Mahdi (AS), who will reappear as the promised savior of mankind to fill the earth with peace, prosperity and justice.

1135 lunar years ago, in 303 AH, Ali ibn Abdullah titled Saif od-Dowla (Sword of the State), the founder of the Hamdanid emirate of Aleppo which included northern Syria and western parts of Iraq, was born in Iraq to Abdullah Abi’l-Hayja, the ruler of Mosul. He was the younger brother of Hassan, titled Naser od-Dowla, the ruler of Mosul, and belonged to the Banu Taghlib Arab tribe. The family followed the school of the Prophet's Ahl al-Bayt and was famous for its patronage of scholars. Saif od-Dowla is famous for his military exploits against the Byzantine Empire, and is considered the epitome of the Islamic-Arab chivalrous ideal. He began his career as ruler of Waset in central Iraq and became involved in the power struggles of the Abbasid caliph, who ruled from nearby Baghdad. He realized that greater potential lay to the west, in Syria, then under the dominion of the Ikhshidid Turkic dynasty, which ruled Egypt as well. With the support of the local Banu Kilab tribe, he captured Aleppo and soon took Damascus. He then marched toward Egypt and took Ramla, but was unable to make further progress. His most important concern was with the Byzantine Empire. Almost every year he would mount raids into Asia Minor (western Turkey), and won a great victory near Germanikeia, killing Patrikios Leo Maleinos. He surrounded himself with prominent intellectual figures such as the celebrated Iranian-Islamic philosopher, Abu Nasr al-Farabi, and noted poets, including al-Mutanabbi and Abu Firas Hamdani – the latter was his cousin and brother-in-law and wrote the famous ode “ar-Rumiyaat” while in Byzantine captivity. Saif od-Dowla himself was a poet, and his delicate poem on the rainbow shows high artistic ability.

950 lunar years ago, on this day in 488 AH, the famous Spanish Muslim scholar, Mohammad Ibn Nasr al-Andalusi al-Humaydi, passed away in Baghdad at the age of 68. Born on the Mediterranean island of Majorca in a family from Cordoba (Qurtuba), he was a student of Ibn Abd al-Barr and later of Ibn Hazm, under whose influence he adopted the Zahirite School of jurisprudence, founded by Dawoud ibn Khalaf az-Zahiri of Isfahan (that was widespread among Sunni Muslims in Iran, Iraq, Syria, North Africa and Spain before the Turkic rulers forcibly replaced it with the Hanafi School – also founded by an Iranian, Abu Hanifa, the son of a Zoroastrian convert to Islam from Kabul). Due to persecution of Zahirites in Spain by the Malikites, Humaydi left his homeland for good. Initially, he went to Mecca to perform the Hajj, before traveling to Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and finally settling in Iraq. An outstanding scholar in hadith, history, Arabic grammar and lexicography, he wrote several books. Among his works is the biography of the notables of Islamic Spain, entitled “Jadhwat al-Muqtabis”, which is a mine of information on scholars who frequently travelled between the furthest points of the Islamic east and the west, such as the Iranian polymath, Ziryab who flourished at Cordoba at a time when Christian Europe was in the Dark Ages. Humaydi also wrote “at-Tafsir al-Ghareeb ma fi as-Sahihayn”, which is a linguistic commentary on the two “Sahihs” (canonical works of Sunni Muslims) of the Iranian hadith compilers, Mohammad bin Ismail Bukhari and Muslim Naishapuri.

882 solar years ago, on this day in 1134 AD, Alfonso the Battler, the king of Navarre in Spain, died at the age of 61 after a reign of 30 years, during which he seized from Spanish Muslims the city of Zaragoza and the province of the same name, with the help of mercenaries from France and other parts of Europe. He was notorious for his wars against both Muslims and fellow Christians. Known in Arabic as Saraqusta, the region which had witnessed 414 years of glorious Islamic rule, was renamed Aragon by Alfonso.

659 lunar years ago, on this day in 779 AH, Mujahid Shah, the 3rd ruler of the Bahmani Sultanate of the Deccan (southern India) was assassinated at the age of 22 in his capital Gulbarga after a rule of only three years, by his jealous uncle, Daud Shah, who in turn was killed a month later on the orders of his niece Rouh Parwar Agha (sister of the deceased Mujahid Shah) and replaced by her younger brother, Mohammad Shah II. The court language of the Bahmanis, who traced their origin to the pre-Islamic Iranian hero Bahman, was Persian, and they promoted Iranian culture, art and architecture.

637 solar years ago, on this day in 1380 AD, the Battle of Kulikovo was won by an alliance of Russian principalities under command of Prince Dmitri of Moscow against a Mongol-Tatar army of the Golden Horde Muslims led by Mamai, the regent for the immature Khan Mohammad Bolak, who was killed in the fray. Mamai fled to Crimea where he was assassinated. The victory did not end the vassalage of the Russian principalities to the Golden Horde and enabled the rise of Toktamysh as the Great Khan who would win battles as far as Lithuania until his defeat by the fearsome Turkic conqueror, Amir Timur.

353 solar years ago, on this day in 1664 AD, after a period of hostilities, the Dutch formally surrendered to English soldiers the whole of New Netherlands including the city of New Amsterdam founded in 1625 on Manhattan Island in North America. The British soon renamed New Amsterdam as New York and the New Netherlands as New York State, as part of the New England colonies.

257 solar years ago, on this day in 1760 AD the greater part of New France that spanned what is now Canada and the US, from Newfoundland to the Rocky Mountains and from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, was surrendered by Governor Vaudreuil to a British invasion force at Montreal. Earlier, the native Amerindian allies of the French had surrendered to the British on 25 August and the Huron tribe on 5 September. The colony was under military occupation until a formal treaty of peace was imposed on 10^th February 1763, thus ending the 7-year war involving Britain, France, and Spain. France ceded most of New France, except the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, to Britain, including the lands east of the Mississippi River and parts of Louisiana in what is now the US, while Spain received the territory to the west – the larger portion of Louisiana. Spain returned its portion of Louisiana to France in 1800 under the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso, but Napoleon Bonaparte sold it to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Canada thus became a British colony, and although, as per the 1867 constitution the Confederation of Canada was granted self-rule by London, its foreign policy and defence remained in the hands of Britain till formal independence was granted in 1931.

84 solar years ago, on this day in 1933 AD, Faisal I, the imported king of Iraq, died at the age of 50 in Baghdad and was succeeded by his son, Ghazi. Faisal, the son of Sharif Hussain, the British agent of Hejaz, was installed as king against the wishes of the Iraqi people, after the British suppressed the popular revolution led by Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Shirazi and Ayatollah Kashef al-Gheta. Earlier in 1920, Faisal had been installed as King of Syria in Damascus, but was forced to flee after only four months in power. For his younger brother, Abdullah, the British carved out a new country called Jordan from Greater Syria and placed him as king. In 1958, the hated Iraqi monarchy was overthrown by General Abdul-Karim Qassim and Faisal II was caught and killed while fleeing.

76 solar years ago, on this day in 1941 AD, German Nazi troops besieged the Soviet city of Leningrad (present day St. Petersburg), but met with stiff resistance for two years and four months that forced Adolf Hitler in January 1944 to lift the siege during which almost a million people died, mainly because of food shortage and diseases. The Russian resistance turned the tide of the Second World War against the Germans.

73 solar years ago, on this day in 1944 AD, eminent Iranian writer, Houshang Moradi Kermani, best known for children's and young-adult fiction, was born at Sirch, a village in Kerman Province. For his lasting contribution as a children's writer, he was a finalist in 2014 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books. Several Iranian movies and TV-series have been made based on his books. In 2006, Dariush Mehrjui directed “Mehman-e Mamaan” based on Moradi Kermani's novel with the same title. Some of his books have been translated into English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Arabic, and Armenian. His auto-biography was published in 2005, titled “Shoma ke Gharibe Nisteed” (You are not a Stranger). He has won many national and international awards which include Hans Christian Andersen Honorary diploma (1992) and University of San Francisco book of the year (2000).

42 lunar years ago, on this day in 1396 AH, Ayatollah Aqa Rahim Arbab Isfahani passed away in his hometown Isfahan at the age of 99. He was a student of leading ulema of the Isfahan seminary such as Abu’l-Ma’ali Kalbasi, Akhund Mullah Mohammad Kashi, and the Gnostic, Mirza Jahangir Khan Qashqai. He was a fellow student with Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hussain Boroujerdi.

39 solar years ago, on this day in 1978 AD, the Shah's despotic regime brutally attacked a massive rally in Tehran on Friday, the weekly holiday, killing as many as four thousand defenseless men, women, and children. The day is known as Black Friday or the Day of Martyrs. The Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA) from his exile in holy Najaf in Iraq, sent a message of condolences to the people of Tehran, saying: "This is the path of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS), and of his son, the Martyr of Karbala, Imam Husain (AS). The Iranian nation should be assured that, sooner or later, victory is yours."

28 lunar years ago, on this day in 1410 AH, the great scholar, Ayatollah Seyyed Morteza Ferouzabadi, passed away at the age of 81. Born in holy Najaf, he studied under such leading scholars as Seyyed Abu’l-Hassan Isfahani and Seyyed Ali Qazi Tabatabai. An avid researcher who wrote several books, his most important work is titled “Faza’el al-Khamsa min as-Sihah as-Sitta”. As the title suggests, in this authoritative 3-volume book, he has extracted from the six canonical Sunni hadith books the unsurpassable merits of the Five Peerless Personalities, that is, Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), Imam Ali (AS), Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA), Imam Hasan (AS) and Imam Husain (AS). Another of his well-researched work is titled “as-Saba’ min as-Salaf” on the dubious characteristics of seven of the leading Salaf or early converts, who are mistakenly revered by certain Muslim sects despite having caused the greatest sedition in Islam.

22 solar years ago, on this day in 1995 AD, Safa Abdul-Aziz Khulusi, Iraqi historian, novelist, poet, lexicographer, journalist and broadcaster, passed away at the age of 78. He is known for mediating between Arabic-and English-language cultures, and for his scholarship of modern Iraqi literature. He is also remembered for his theories on Arabic grammar, on Shakespeare, as well as his role in Islamic education and his work on the poetry of al-Mutanabbi. In Oxford in 1972, he became one of the editors of the “Concise Oxford English-Arabic Dictionary of Current Usage”. In his book “Islam Our Choice”, first published in 1961, Khulusi set out a collection of personal accounts from individuals who converted to Islam from other religions.

September 8: is marked as International Literacy Day, following the decision taken by UNESCO on November 17, 1965. Its aim is to highlight the importance of literacy to individuals, communities and societies. On International Literacy Day each year, UNESCO reminds the international community of the status of literacy and adult learning globally. Celebrations take place around the world. Some 775 million adults lack minimum literacy skills; one in five adults is still not literate and two-thirds of them are women; 60.7 million children are out-of-school and many more attend irregularly or drop out.

AS/ME