Today is Tuesday; 9th of the Iranian month of Aban 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 11th of the Islamic month of Safar 1439 lunar hijri; and October 31, 2017, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1401 lunar years ago, on this day and the subsequent night in 38 AH, the famous Battle of Laylat al-Harir took place during the War of Siffin, near Raqqa in Syria, when the army of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS), pressed ahead with its decisive assault on the forces of the rebel, Mu’awiyya ibn Abu Sufyan, till the early morning hours. The Imam himself, with his flashing twin-bladed sword “Zulfeqar”, dispatched over five hundred enemies of humanity to the bowels of hell, while his commander Malek Ashtar displayed feats of bravery to reach within striking distance of the camp of Mu’awiyya, who was about to flee. At this crucial stage, when victory was in sight, the crafty enemy commander Amr ibn Aas ordered his troops to raise on spear-points what he said were copies of the holy Qur’an, pleading for peace, a ruse which made a band of hypocrites or more properly “khwarej” or renegades, to force the Imam to cease fighting.

1334 solar years ago, on this day in 683 AD, during the Siege of Mecca by the forces of the Godless Yazid Ibn Mu’awiyyah, the holy Ka’ba was attacked with flaming projectiles, caught fire, and was damaged. The Omayyad forces were led by Haseen Ibn Numayr, one of the notorious culprits of the tragedy of Karbala who desecrated the sanctity of the sacred Ka'ba. A month earlier on the 28th of Zil-Hijja, this very same Omayyad army led by the blasphemous general, Muslim bin Uqba al-Marri, had pillaged Medina, desecrated the Prophet's shrine, massacred some 10,000 persons in the Battle of Harrah including several hundred companions of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), and for three days mass-raped the women of the city, resulting in the birth of thousands of illegitimate children who had no clue about their fathers. Ibn Numayr took command of the ungodly Omayyad army when while proceeding for the attack on Mecca Muslim bin Uqba suddenly died and ended up in the bowels of hell. The siege of Mecca ended and bloodshed in the sacred precincts of Masjid al-Haraam halted, over a month-and-a-half later when news reached of the ignominious death in Syria of the tyrant Yazid. Thus, during his 3-and-a-half-year reign the ungodly Yazid committed three of the most sacrilegious acts – the killing of the Prophet's grandson Imam Husain (AS) at Karbala, the sack of Medina, and the storming of the holy Ka'ba.

1085 solar years ago, on this day in 932 AD, Muqtader Billah, the 18th self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid Dynasty, was killed by his slave guard after 25 years of misrule that bankrupted the state and increased the people's misery, while the Byzantines felt emboldened to attack at will and occupy large territories in Asia Minor or what is now Turkey. The killing of this caliph, who spent all his time drinking wine with musicians and dancers in the harem, had been foretold by the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS).

1018 lunar years ago, on this day in 421 AH, Sultan Mahmoud, the prominent ruler of the Ghaznavid Turkic dynasty who for 34 years ruled the eastern Iranian lands, died. He turned Ghazni into the capital of an extensive empire that covered most of today's eastern and southern Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, parts of Uzbekistan, as well as Northwest India. His initial campaign was the capture of Khorasan along with his father, Sebuktigin, a slave of Alaptagin, who in turn was a Turkic slave of the Iranian Samanid dynasty of Bukhara. On succeeding his father, Mahmoud invaded Sistan to end the Iranian Saffarid dynasty. He then turned towards the north to end the rule of the Samanid dynasty. He next invaded Punjab in the east and overthrew the Ismaili Shi'ite Muslim kingdom of Multan which was allied with the Fatemids of Egypt. Mahmoud massacred the Ismailis and then penetrated into India defeating the Hindu rulers of Lahore. He next crushed the Rajput confederacy, and in the subsequent years the Indian kingdoms of Nagarkot, Thanesar, Kannauj, Gwalior, and Ujjain were all conquered and left in the hands of Hindu, Jain and Buddhist kings as vassal states, since he never maintained a permanent presence in India. Despite his brutal nature, Mahmoud was a patron of arts and Persian poetry. He brought whole libraries from Rayy and Isfahan to Ghazni after raiding these Iranian cities. He demanded that the Khwarezmshahi court send its men of learning to Ghazni, such as Abu Rayhan Birouni, and Abu Ali ibn Sina. Birouni joined Mahmoud's court and accompanied him to India where he stayed, learned Sanskrit, and did valuable research on a wide variety of subjects such as astronomy, geology, anthropology, and history. Ibn Sina declined and fled to the Buwaiyhid courts in Rayy, Isfahan, and Hamedan. The famous Persian poet, Abu'l-Qassem Ferdowsi, after laboring 27 years, went to Ghazni and presented his monumental epic, the "Shahnamah", to Mahmoud. According to historians, Mahmoud had promised Ferdowsi a dinar for every distich written, but when he saw the "Shahnamah" was made up of 60,000 distiches, which required him to pay 60,000 dinars, he retracted and presented him a mere 200 dinars, which Ferdowsi declined and returned to Tous, where after writing a scathing satire against the Sultan, he died heartbroken. Mahmoud's last four years were spent contending with the influx of Oghuz Turkic tribes from Central Asia, and rebellions by Seljuqs. Mahmoud's tomb is located at Ghazni in what is now Afghanistan.

938 lunar years ago, on this day in 501 AH, the prominent narrator of hadith, Ja'far ibn Hussain ibn Ahmad as-Sarraj, passed away in the city of Tyre in southern Lebanon at the age of 82. He was an expert in jurisprudence, Qur'anic sciences, Arabic grammar, and linguistics, and traveled to numerous lands including Egypt. He has left behind a collection of poems. His books include “Nizam al-Manasek”.

237 solar years ago, on this day in 1780 AD, the Muslim principality of Arcot in southern India was overrun by the army of Nawab Haidar Ali Khan of Mysore and the fort surrendered on November 3. Haidar’s attack was provoked by British seditions in the Deccan, as well as the breach of promise by the Nawab of the Carnatic to handover Trichinopoly to him. Nawab Mohammad Ali Khan Walajah of Carnatic, whose mother was a niece of Seyyed Ali Khan Safavi Musawi of Iran, allied himself with the Nizam of Haiderabad and with British help, regained control of his dominions.

154 solar years ago, on this day in 1863 AD, the Maori Wars resumed as British forces in New Zealand led by General Duncan Cameron invaded Waikato on North Island. The British killed over 40,000 Maoris in the 19th century during which period, because of diseases spread by the European invaders, more than 40 percent of the native population died and their lands were seized by the white occupiers, who forcibly Christianized the survivors.

141 solar years ago, on this day in 1876 AD, a monster cyclone from the Bay of Bengal ravaged India, over the delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers in what is now Bangladesh. At least 220,000 people were killed and immense loss of crops and property was inflicted.

103 solar years ago, on this day in 1914 AD, during World War I, the Iranian government announced neutrality. The political fragility of the Qajarid dynasty and the chaotic state of internal affairs, coupled with the bellicose and expansionist policies of world powers, however, dragged Iran into the war. It was invaded by the British, Russian, and Ottoman forces, and major damages were inflicted.

92 solar years ago, on this day in 1925 AD, Iran’s parliament, under influence of the British and their illiterate agent Reza Khan, dethroned Ahmad Shah and announced dissolution of the 135-year old Qajarid dynasty. Ahmad Shah was in Europe at the time, having been reduced to mere figure-head four years earlier by Reza Khan, an illiterate military officer, who imposed himself, with British help, as the prime minister. A month after the dissolution of the Qajarid dynasty, the British instructed the Iranian parliament to declare Reza Khan as king of the new Pahlavi dynasty, which set the stage for further plunder of the national wealth and suppression of the Iranian people by Britain and the US.

61 solar years ago, on this day in 1956 AD, Britain and France joined together to bomb Egypt two days after the illegal Zionist entity had invaded Sinai, in a bid to force the reopening of the Suez Canal which President Jamal Abdun-Nassher had nationalized. On November 5, Britain and France landed paratroopers along the Suez Canal. The Egyptian forces were defeated, but they did block the canal to all shipping. It became clear that the Israeli invasion and the subsequent Anglo-French attack had been planned beforehand by the three countries. The Canal was now useless to shipping, and heavy pressure from the United States and the USSR forced the three countries to withdraw after a ten-day aggression.

59 lunar years ago, on this day in 1380 AH, Ayatollah Shaikh Mohammad Ali Ordubadi, the Source of Emulation for Muslims of Azarbaijan, the Caucasus and Soviet Union, passed away in holy Najaf. Born in Tabriz, northwestern Iran, he was the son of the prominent scholar Ayatollah Mirza Abu’l-Qassem, and travelled to the holy city of Karbala in Iraq for higher studies. After mastering jurisprudence, theology and philosophy, he moved to holy Najaf where he attained the status of Ijtehad. He was an authority on the biography of narrators and well versed in hadith, poetry and literature. He wrote over 52 books, including the Arabic works “al-Qabasaat fi Usoul ad-Din”, “Manahej al-Yaqin”, “ash-Shehab al-Mobin”, “ash-Shuhub ath-Thaqeba”, and “Rujoum ash-Shayatin”.   

55 solar years ago, on this day in 1962 AD, French Orientalist, Louis Massignon, died at the age of 79. He was profoundly influenced by Arabic and Islamic culture as a result of his sojourn in Algeria and later obtained a PhD in Arabic literature. As a fluent speaker of Arabic, from 1922 till 1954 he was entitled the Chair of Muslim Sociology created in 1902 at the College de France. He conducted valuable researches and concluded that in view of their common origin in Prophet Abraham (AS), Christians should always approach Muslims as brothers "united by the same spirit of faith and sacrifice". He opposed colonial policies such as oppression of the Algerians by France, and the displacement of Palestinians from their ancestral homeland by the influx of European Jews, considering the Balfour Declaration as a betrayal of Palestinians. Influenced by Sufism, his major works include “Annuaire du Monde Musulman” and the 4-volume “La passion de Hussayn Ibn Mansur al-Hallaj” – the last one on the Iranian mystic Hallaj who was executed by the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad on charges of heresy. Among his students were many scholarly luminaries, such as Professor Henry Corbin, whom he directed towards his major study of the Iranian Islamic Philosopher of Illumination, Shehab od-Din Suhrawardi (Shaikh al-Ishraq), and Eva de Vitray-Meyerovitch, who converted to Islam and became an authority on the Iranian Islamic Gnostic Poet, Mowlana Jalal od- Din Balkhi Roumi. Other students included Abdur-Rahman Badawi, the Egyptian scholar of Islamic philosophy and Abdul-Halim Mahmud, the Grand Shaikh of Cairo’s al-Azhar University. The Late Iranian sociologist, Dr. Ali Shari’ati, who met Massignon many times, was also highly influenced by him.

33 solar years ago, on this day in 1984 AD, Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi of India was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards at the age of 67. She was killed in revenge for launching of Operation Blue Star on the Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab State, to clear it of US-British-backed armed separatists calling for formation of an independent Sikh state called Khalistan. She was the daughter of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and was elected premier in 1966, two years after her father’s demise, following the sudden death of Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri during India-Pakistan peace talks in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. She was an independent-minded and staunchly nationalist politician who strongly resisted the US bid to interfere in India's affairs. Her surname should not be confused with that of M.K. Gandhi, the leader of India’s freedom struggle against British rule, but was adopted when she married Feroze Gandhi, a Parsi or Zoroastrian Indian citizen of Iranian ancestry. Her son, Rajiv Gandhi, was elected prime minister after her, before losing the next elections, and was assassinated by a Tamil separatist of Sri Lanka during re-election bid. His widow, Italian born Sonia, is president of the Congress Party and the power behind the present government.

31 solar years ago, on this day in 1986 AD, Iranian poet, Salman Qanbar Herati, died in a road accident at the young age of 27. Born in Marzdasht near Tonekabon in Mazandaran, he was a religious and committed revolutionary poet. He worked as a teacher. His poems written in simple language have a special appeal for the young generation. He focused on social issues, on the natural environment, and on the bond between God and mankind. He composed beautiful odes, elegies, couplets, and quatrains. He left behind three collections of poems for teenagers, titled "A Gateway to the Sun's House", “Green Sky” (Aseman-e Sabz), and “From this Star to that Star” (Az een Sitareh ta an Sitareh). 

25 solar years ago, on this day in 1992 AD, Vatican, the seat of the Catholic sect of Christianity, admitted its erring of over 359 years in condemning Italian scientist Galileo Galilei for disclosing scientific truths discovered centuries earlier by Islamic scientists, such as Iran’s Abu Rayhan Berouni that the Earth revolves around the sun. After 13 years of inquiry, the Pope's commission of historic, scientific and theological scholars admitted that Galileo was unjustly condemned and persecuted by the Church. In 1633, at the age 69, Galileo was forced by the Inquisition to repent and spent the last eight years of his life under house arrest.

6 solar years ago, on this day in 2011 AD, the global population of human beings reached seven billion. The United Nations calls it the “Seven Billion Day”.

AS/MG