Today is Thursday; 14th of the Iranian month of Tir 1397 solar hijri; corresponding to 21st of the Islamic month of Shawwal 1439 lunar hijri; and July 5, 2018, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1347 lunar years ago, on this day in 92 AH, the Muslim forces, led by Tareq Ibn Ziyad won a decisive victory in the Battle of Guadalete by routing the Visigoth Christian army of King Roderick and rapidly conquering much of southern Spain. Soon all of Spain and Portugal were liberated by the Muslims, who subsequently crossed the Pyrenees Mountains into France. Tareq had earlier, after crossing the Mediterranean from the northwestern African coast, landed on the island known ever since as Gibraltar (corruption of the Arabic "Jabal at-Tareq" – Rock or Mount of Tareq). He was governor of Tangiers under Musa Ibn Nusayr, the conqueror and Emir of the Province of Ifriqiya (western Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco).Tareq was made governor of Spain by Musa, but was called to Damascus by the jealous Omayyad caliph, Walid I, who also relieved Musa of the overall charge of Ifriqiya, Spain and the islands off the coast of France. There are three different accounts of the origins of Tareq given by Arab historians – he was a Persian from Hamedan; he was an Arab of the Sadf tribe; he was a Berber from North Africa. Musa Ibn Nusayr is also said to be the son of an Iranian Christian, according to the historian Tabari; while others say he belonged to the Lakhmid Arab clan who were Sassanid clients.

1085 lunar years ago, on this day in 354 AH, the Iranian Sunni Muslim compiler of hadith, Abu Hatem Mohammad ibn Hibban al-Basti, from Bast in Khorasan, passed away. He was a Shafe'i, and the actual name of his compilation is "at-Taqasim wa'l-Anwa", which is commonly referred to as "Sahih ibn Hibban". Many Sunni scholars regard it next only to the "Sahihs" of the two other prominent Iranian Sunni Muslim hadith compilers, Bukhari and Muslim, while the Egyptian scholar, Jalal od-Din Suyuti, places it fourth after Ibn Khuzayma Naishapuri's “Sahih”, and above the hadith collection of the five other Iranian Sunni Muslim authorities – i.e. Ibn Maja Qazvini, Abu Dawoud Sijistani, Abu Isa Tirmizi, Ahmad ibn Shu’ayb Nasai, and Hakem Naishapuri. It is worth noting that despite mentioning some of the unsurpassed merits of the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), all these Sunni Muslim hadith authorities, who were Iranians, failed to have any direct contact with the Infallible Imams or their disciples, because of the fears of the Abbasid regime.

989 solar years ago, on this day in 1029 AD, Abu Tamim Ma'ad al-Mustanṣir-Billah, the 8^th self-styled caliph of the Fatemid Ismaili Shi'ite Dynasty of Egypt-North-Africa-Syria-Hijaz, was born in Cairo. As a 7-year old he succeeded his father, Abu'l-Hassan Ali az-Zaher, and ruled for 58 years until his death at the age of 65. During his early years, his mother administered state affairs. The Iranian philosopher-poet, Hibatullah ibn Musa Mu'ayyad fi'd-Din ash-Shirazi, served him as the "Da‘i" (chief missionary), eventually attaining the highest rank of "Bab al-Abwaab" (Gate of Gateways). Son of Musa Ibn Dawoud, the chief Ismaili missionary in the Fars region of Iran, he was the main ideologue and was also in charge of the "Dar al-Ilm" (House of Knowledge) in Cairo, where missionaries from both inside and outside the Fatemid Empire were trained. In the last twenty years of his reign, following the death of Mu'ayyad Shirazi in 1078, the caliph's Grand Vizier and head of the armed forces, the Armenian Muslim, Badr al-Jamali, became the supreme temporal authority in the realm, and succeeded in taming the turbulent Turkic Mamluks, who through constant infighting, had drained the treasury and destroyed the famous library of the Fatemids, scattering precious books and even using them to light fires. Many Iranians served in various capacities in the Fatemid court in Cairo, including the Arabic Grammarian Ibn Babshaad.

817 solar years ago, on this day in 1201 AD, a series of earthquakes and aftershocks started in Upper Egypt and the adjoining Syrian region southern parts of Palestine, resulting in the death of some 1.1 million people over a period of several months.

248 solar years ago, on this day in 1770 AD, the naval Battle of Chesma took place in the bay of the same name, in the area between the western tip of Anatolia and the island of Chios, between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire. It was the greatest naval defeat suffered by the Ottomans, who until then were masters of the seas. The victory inspired great confidence in the Russian fleet and allowed the Russians to control the Aegean Sea for some time. The defeat of the Ottoman fleet also sped up rebellions by minority groups in the Empire, especially the Orthodox Christian nations in the Balkan Peninsula, who helped the Russian army in defeating the Turkish Muslims.

243 solar years ago, on this day in 1775 AD, the Olive Branch Petition was adopted by the Continental Congress and professed the attachment of the American people to Britain’s King George III. It expressed hope for the restoration of harmony and begged the king to prevent further hostile actions against the 13 New England colonies – later the United States of America (USA). The following day, Congress passed a resolution written by Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson, which rejected independence but asserted that American colonists were ready to die rather than be enslaved. King George refused to receive the Olive Branch Petition, and on August 23 proclaimed the New England colonies to be in open rebellion, resulting in deterioration of relations with the colonists, declaration of independence a year later and the subsequent 7-year war that saw the birth of the USA.

207 solar years ago, on this day in 1811 AD, Venezuela gained independence from three centuries of Spanish rule, during which the European colonialists wiped out almost the entire native population of the land in addition to plundering its natural resources. The Venezuelan people started their struggle under the leadership of Francisco de Miranda in 1806, and finally under the famous South American freedom fighter, Simon Bolivar, they vanquished the Spanish in 1811. Venezuela covers an area of 91,2050 sq km and shares borders with Colombia, Brazil, and Guyana.

185 solar years ago, on this day in 1833 AD, French inventor, Joseph-Nicephore Niepce, who was the first to make a permanent photographic image, died at the age 68. In 1807, with his brother Claude, he invented the pyreolophore, an internal combustion engine fueled by lycopodium powder. Although never practical, the engine was able to move a 2-m model boat upstream. By 1813, Niepce had taken up lithography, which led to his invention of photography. By letter, in May 1816, he told Claude of an apparatus that produced a (negative) image using a paper coated with silver chloride fixed with nitric acid. After further experimentation, by 1826, he achieved the first fixed positive image. Approaching bankruptcy, in 1829, he signed an agreement of cooperation with Daguerre.

124 solar years ago, on this day in 1894 AD, British archaeologist and politician, Austen Henry Layard, whose excavations in Mesopotamia (Iraq) revealed the palaces of the great Assyrian kings, Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal, yielding much evidence of both the antiquity and the cultural achievement of the ancient civilizations, died in London at the age of 77. After wondering for many months, mostly in Iran, he began excavations at Nimrud in 1845, making detailed drawing of his discoveries. In Niniveh, near Mosul, he uncovered in 1851 the library of Ashurbanipal. “The Planiform” he found at Nineveh – likely a 700 BC copy of the astronomer's notes – described in cuneiform the crashing of an asteroid, with the words: "white stone bowl approaching" that "vigorously swept along." The asteroid probably crashed into the Austrian Alps, leaving a swath of cataclysmic damage such as, for example, the Genesis destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Levant. The artifacts Layard uncovered included huge winged bulls, hawk-winged lions with human heads, many other statuary reliefs, and alabaster slabs with cuneiform inscriptions. He shipped immense sculptures and other finds back to England – although a cultural loot of a foreign nation that unintentionally saved these unique relics of the past from the vandalism of Takfiri outfits which are currently destroying museums, libraries, mosques and shrines in Iraq and Syria. Later in life, Layard abandoned archaeology and turned to politics.

87 solar years ago, on this day in 1931 AD, Ismail Mohammad, Chief Justice of South Africa as well as of Namibia, was born in Pretoria into a Muslim family of Indian merchants. Educated at the Indian School, he became a qualified lawyer, but was refused admission to the Pretoria Bar Association as it was reserved for white lawyers during the apartheid era. Later he succeeded in joining the Johannesburg Bar Association. In the 1960s he served as a lawyer in Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. In 1974 he became the first non-white in South African history and co-authored the constitution of Namibia. In 1984, he was made an English Barrister. In 1991 he became Chair of the Convention for a Democratic South Africa, and the country's first non-white judge of the Supreme Court. He became a judge of the Constitutional Court in 1995. In 1996 he was made Chief Justice of South Africa by President Nelson Mandela. Ismail Mohammad passed away in 2000 at the age of 69.

56 solar years ago, on this day in 1962 AD, Algeria gained independence following years of struggle against the French occupiers and the martyrdom of over a million Algerian Muslims. On the weakening of the Ottoman Empire, the French set foot in Algeria in 1830, which led to intense struggle with Amir Seyyed Abdul-Qader al-Hassani, who resisted for 17 years, before his surrender. In early 20^th Century, all of Algeria was dominated by France and the city of Algiers was capital of the French interim government during World War II, after which the Algerian people started their struggle for complete independence, under Ahmad bin Bella, who became the first president. Algeria covers an area of 2.38 million square km and shares borders with Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Niger, Mali, Mauritania, and Western Sahara.

42 solar years ago, on this day in 1976 AD, Iran’s master calligrapher, Mirza Taher Khoshnevis Tabrizi, passed away at the age of 88. Born in Tabriz, he studied jurisprudence and Arabic grammar before embarking on mastering his skills in calligraphy under the experts of his days. He was famous for his beautiful hand-writing and during his fruitful life, besides several copies of the holy Qur’an, he made unique copies of such books as “Nahj al-Balagha”, “Sahifat-as-Sajjadiyyah”, “Mafatih al-Jinan”, and “Montahi al-Aamaal”.

41 solar years ago, on this day in 1977 AD, General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq staged a bloody coup to topple the elected government of Prime Minister Zulfeqar Ali Bhutto and seize power. Two years later he executed Bhutto and a number of his opponents, after closing the parliament and prohibiting the activities of parties and the press. In 1985, Zia orchestrated elections and elected himself as president with US blessings. In 1988, he once again dissolved the national and state assemblies, dismissing the premier with vague promises of another election. On August 17, 1988, Zia ul-Haq was killed, along with several Pakistani army commanders and the US ambassador, when a military plane they were travelling exploded in midair. The present state of anarchy and rampant terrorism in Pakistan is because of General Zia’s dubious policies and his unholy alliance with the US and Saudi Arabia to tarnish the image of Islam.

AS/ME