Today is Monday; 17th of the Iranian month of Mehr 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 18th of the Islamic month of Muharram 1439 lunar hijri; and October 9, 2017, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1125 solar years ago, on this day in 892 AD, the renowned Iranian Sunni Muslim authority on hadith, Mohammad ibn Eisa Tirmizi, passed away. He was born and died in Bagh, near Tirmiz in Greater Khorasan (now in Uzbekistan). At the age of twenty, he travelled to Kufa, Basra and the Hijaz, in pursuit of knowledge. His teachers included Mohammad al-Bukhari, Muslim Naishaburi and Abu Dawoud Sijistani – all three of whom were renowned Iranian Sunni Muslim compilers of hadith.  Tirmizi, who became blind in the last two years of his life, is the author of the "al-Jame' as-Sahih", popularly called "Sunan at-Tirmizi", one of the six canonical hadith compilations of Sunni Muslims. He has included in his compendium authentic narrations on the unrivalled merits of the blessed household of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). He has said the term Ahl al-Bayt as used by God in the holy Qur'an and by the Prophet in several hadith, is exclusive for Imam Ali (AS), Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA), Imam Hasan (AS) and Imam Husain (AS), and does not include the Prophet's wives, as some allege. Tirmizi's grave is in Sherobad, 60 km north of Tirmiz, where he is called Tirmiz Baba.

961 lunar years ago, on this day in 478 AH, the Iranian Shafe’i scholar, Abdul-Malik Ibn Abdullah Ibn Yusuf al-Juwaini, died in his hometown Naishabur, Khorasan. Known as Imam al-Haramain, because of his four years of teaching in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, he was the teacher of the famous Iranian Sufi theologian, Shaikh Abu Hamed Ghazali.

743 solar years ago, on this day in 1264 AD, the Spanish Muslim Ta’efa of Jerez (Sheresh in Arabic) in southern Spain, along with its capital of the same name, was occupied by Christian mercenaries of the kingdom of Castile after over five-and-a-half centuries of Muslim rule. In the 12th and 13th centuries Jerez underwent a period of great development, building its defense system and setting the current street layout of the old town.

423 solar years ago, on this 1594 AD, a 20,000-strong army of the Portuguese Empire was annihilated by the Kingdom of Kandy in Sri Lanka, bringing an end to the Campaign of Danture, and marking a turning point in the indigenous resistance to Portuguese colonialism. The Portuguese, led by Pedro Lopes de Sousa, invaded Kandy on 5 July 1594, and after three months, severely depleted by guerilla warfare, the Portuguese army was completely annihilated by the forces of King Vimaladharmasuriya. With this victory, the Kingdom of Kandy emerged as a major military power; it was to retain its independence until 1815, against Portuguese, Dutch, and British armies.

309 solar years ago, on this day in 1708 AD, Sweden was decisively defeated by Peter the Great at the Battle of Lesnaya in Belarus when it attacked Russia. Given the freezing weather and shortage of food, over half of the Swedish soldiers lost their lives.

277 solar years ago, on this day in 1740 AD, Dutch colonists and various slave-trading groups began massacring ethnic Chinese in Batavia, eventually killing 10,000 and leading to a two-year-long war throughout Java.

257 solar years ago, on this day in 1760 AD, Austrian and Russian troops entered Berlin and began burning structures and looting during the “7-Year War” that involved most of the big powers of the time and affected Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines. The two major opponents were Britain and France. In the historiography of some countries, the war is named after combatants in its respective theatres: “The French and Indian War” in the United States. In French-speaking Canada, it is known as the “War of the Conquest”, while it is called the “Seven Years' War” in English-speaking Canada, the “Pomeranian War” (with Sweden and Prussia, 1757–1762), “Third Carnatic War” (in the Subcontinent, 1757–1763), and “Third Silesian War” (with Prussia and Austria, 1756–1763). “The Seven Years' War” is retrospectively regarded as one of the first true world wars, having taken place almost 160 years before what is commonly known as World War I.

146 lunar years ago, on this day in 1293 AH, the Islamic scholar, Haydar Qoli Khan Afghani, known as Sardar Kabuli, was born in Kabul. He travelled to Iran and Iraq to attend the classes of the leading ulema, and among his teachers in holy Najaf was the authority on Hadith, Ayatollah Mohaddith Mirza Hussain Noori. Besides his native Persian, Sardar Kabuli also mastered Arabic, Urdu, English and Hebrew languages, and became an authority in logic, mathematics, astronomy, history, geography, jurisprudence, hadith and Arabic literature. He obtained the “ijaza” or permission to relate hadith from prominent authorities in this field such as Mohaddith Shaikh Abbas Qomi, Ayatollah Seyyed Hasan Sadr, and Ayatollah Shaikh Aqa Bozorg Tehrani. He settled in Kermanshah in western Iran where he enlightened people with the teachings of the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). He wrote a valuable book on the virtues of the Prophet’s 1st Infallible Heir, Imam Ali (AS). He translated into Persian, the famous book “al-Muraja’at”, on exchange of letters between Allamah Seyyed Abdul-Hussain Sharaf od-Din of Lebanon and Dean of Egypt’s al-Azhar Academy, Shaikh Saleem al-Bishri. He gave it the title “Monazeraat”. He also translated from the Hebrew the “Gospel of Barnabas”. Sardar Kabuli passed away at the age of 79 and was laid to rest in the holy shrine of Imam Ali (AS) in Najaf.

133 lunar years ago, on this day in 1306 AH, the prominent Gnostic and philosopher, Hakeem Mohammad Reza Sahba Qomshei, passed away in Tehran at the age of 65 and was laid to rest in the mausoleum of famous scholar, Shaikh Sadouq ibn Babawaih Qomi in Rayy. Born in the town of Shahreza (Qomshe) he was a product of the seminary of nearby Isfahan, where after mastering Islamic sciences, he groomed several students who later became scholars in their own right. He was an authority on the works and commentaries of such great philosophers as the Spanish Sheikh Mohy od-Din Ibn al-Arabi and Mullah Sadra of Shiraz. It could be said that his shifting from Isfahan to Tehran, transferred the gnostic and philosophical heritage of the former capital of Iran to the current capital. He wrote several books and treatises, and was an excellent poet as well.

130 lunar years ago, on this day in 1309 AH, the prominent jurisprudent, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Khwansari, was born. At the age of 20 he left for Iraq to study at the famous seminary of holy Najaf, where his teachers were Ayatollah Mohaqqeq Khorasani, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Kazem Yazdi, Ayatollah Shaikh as-Shari’a Isfahani, and Ayatollah Mirza Hussain Na’ini. On his return to Iran, he taught at the seminary in Arak, and assisted Grand Ayatollah Shaikh Abdul-Karim Ha’eri Yazdi in re-establishing the seminary in holy Qom. He was prayer leader of the Faiziyyeh religious school, and later shifted to Tehran where he led the prayers at the Seyyed Azizollah Mosque, until the last years of his life.

116 lunar years ago, on this day in 1323 AH, the prominent Iranian religious scholar, Ayatollah Shaikh Mohammad Hassan Mamaqani, passed away. He lived a life of piety, having attained the status of Ijtehad – or independent reasoning based on the Holy Qur’an and Prophet’s Hadith. He has left behind a large number of valuable compilations in jurisprudence, including “Zara'eq al-Ahkaam” and "Mujalladaat al-Bashari". He has also written an annotation on the famous jurisprudential book "al-Makaseb" of Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Morteza Ansari Dezfuli.

55 solar years ago, on this day in 1962 AD, Uganda gained independence after 74 years of British rule. Over 15 percent of the population of Uganda is Muslim. Situated in East Africa, the Republic of Uganda covers an area of almost 235,880 sq km and shares borders with Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Its capital is Kampala.

53 solar years ago, on this day in 1964 AD, prominent Iranian researcher, writer and translator, Dr. Mohammad Ibrahim Ayati, passed away at the age of 50 in what was described as a road accident. Born near Birjand in Khorasan, he studied in holy Mashhad under prominent scholars, such as Adib Naishapuri, Shaikh Hashem Qazvini, and Shaikh Mojtaba Qazvini, and for a decade taught and preached in his hometown. He then enrolled at Tehran University, obtained PhD in philosophy and for years taught at the same university. As a conscious religious scholar, aware of the political conditions of the time, he became a close assistant of two of the prominent ulema of the era – Ayatollah Seyyed Mahmoud Taleqani, and Ayatollah Shaikh Morteza Motahhari. Dr. Ayati, who played a key role in the monthly journal “Goftar”, has left behind valuable works, such as “A Probe into the History of Ashura”, and “History of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA)”. He also edited the exegesis of the holy Qur’an written by Sharif Lahiji, in addition to translating several books into Persian.   

51 solar years ago, on this day in 1966 AD, South Korean forces, operating under US command in South Vietnam, massacred hundreds of Vietnamese men, women and children, in two separate incidents in the regions of Dien Nien and Phuoc Binh. In Dien Nien, the massacre lasted two days and as many as 280 unarmed civilians were killed in cold blood in Tinh Son village of Quang Ngai Province. In Phuoc Binh hamlet, the victims of the massacre were mostly 180 children and elderly women who were butchered in a schoolyard. The South Koreans acted upon the orders of the US.

50 solar years ago, on this day in 1967 AD, prominent Latin American revolutionary, physician, author, and military theorist Ernesto Che Guevara of Argentina, was executed by the US-installed regime of Bolivia, along with many of his comrades at the age of 39. Born of mixed Basque and Irish descent in a well-to-do household, he learned chess from his father and began participating in local tournaments by age 12. During adolescence and throughout his life he was passionate about poetry, especially that of Pablo Neruda, John Keats, Antonio Machado, Federico Garcia Lorca, Gabriela Mistral, Cesar Vallejo, and Walt Whitman. He could also recite Rudyard Kipling's works and Jose Hernandez's from memory. The Guevara home contained more than 3,000 books, which made him a voracious reader interested in the works of Karl Marx, William Faulkner, Andre Gide, Emilio Salgari and Jules Verne. He also read the works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, Vladimir Lenin, and Jean-Paul Sartre; as well as Anatole France, Friedrich Engels, H. G. Wells, and Robert Frost. He kept notebooks of concepts, definitions, and philosophies of influential intellectuals, which included composing analytical sketches of Buddha and Aristotle, along with examining Bertrand Russell on love and patriotism, Jack London on society, and Nietzsche on the idea of death. Sigmund Freud's ideas also fascinated him topics such as dreams and narcissism. As a medical student, Guevara traveled throughout South America and was shocked by the poverty, hunger, and disease he witnessed. His burgeoning desire to help overturn the capitalist exploitation of Latin America by the US prompted his involvement in Guatemala's social reforms under President Jacobo Arbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow solidified his political ideology. Following his meeting in Mexico with Cuban leader, Fidel Castro in the 1950s, the two teamed up to lead the Cuban revolution to victory in 1959 by overthrowing US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. He was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal manual on guerrilla warfare, along with a best-selling memoir about his youthful continental motorcycle journey. His experiences and studying of Marxism–Leninism led him to posit that the Third World's underdevelopment and dependence was an intrinsic result of imperialism, neocolonialism, and monopoly capitalism. 1959, Castro sent Guevara on a three-month tour of 14 mostly Bandung Pact countries (Morocco, Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Yugoslavia, Greece) and the cities of Singapore and Hong Kong. He also visited China, the Soviet Union, and Palestine. In 1965, Guevara left Cuba to plan revolution abroad, first in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia to form a guerrilla group to bring down US-installed regime. He was cornered by the CIA, imprisoned and executed

37 lunar years ago, on this day in 1402 AH, the great philosopher and famous exegete of the holy Qur’an, Ayatollah Allamah Seyyed Mohammad Hussain Tabatabaei, passed away at the age of 82, and was laid to rest in the mausoleum of Hazrat Ma’sumah (SA) in Qom. He was born in an academic and religious family in the city of Tabriz, northwestern Iran. His previous 14 ancestors were well-known scholars of Tabriz. Following completion of preliminary studies, he learned Islamic sciences and Arabic language, and after studying in holy Najaf, Iraq, where he attained the rank of Ijtehad, he returned to Iran and taught at Islamic seminaries. He studied under well-known scholars in Najaf, such as Ayatollah Mohammad Hussain Na'ini, Ayatollah Mohammad Hussain Gharawi Isfahani, Ayatollah Seyyed Abu’l-Hassan Jilwa, and the famous gnostic, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Qazi Tabatabaie. He was an innovative philosopher, an expert mathematician, and an active farmer, in addition to being an Islamic Gnostic. He was also well versed in literature and theology and steeped in spiritual values. He wrote several works in philosophy and Islamic sciences, including “The Principles of Philosophy and the Method of Realism” and the famous 20-volume exegesis in Arabic titled “al-Mizan fi Tafsir al-Qur’an”, which has been translated into English language as well. His sessions with French philosopher, Henry Corbin, were held every autumn for 20 years, from 1959-to-1979, in the presence of other scholars and seminarians. Vital issues about religion, philosophy, and also the challenges of the present world for those who seek truth and spirituality were discussed. The result was the writing of an interesting book by the Allamah titled “Musahibat ba Ostad Qorban” (Dialogues with Professor Corbin). His students include such famous personalities as Martyr Ayatollah Morteza Motahhari, Martyr Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Hussaini Beheshti, Martyr Ayatollah Ali Qoddousi, Martyr Ayatollah Mohammad Mufatteh, Imam Seyyed Musa as-Sadr, Ayatollah Abdullah Jawadi Amoli, Ayatollah Hassan Hassanzadeh Amoli, Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi, Ayatollah Ja’far Sobhani, Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi, Ayatollah Ibrahim Amini, and Grand Ayatollah Hussain Noori Hamedani.

36 solar years ago, on this day in 1981 AD, Palestinian revolutionary Majed Abu-Sharaar was martyred in Italy by agents of the illegal Zionist entity. The usurper state of Israel pursues a policy of terrorism against Arabs and Muslims around the world in a vain bid to prolong its illegal existence on the soil of Palestine.

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