Today is Tuesday; 10th of the Iranian month of Mehr 1397 solar hijri; corresponding to 22nd of the Islamic month of Muharram 1440 lunar hijri; and October 2, 2018, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1189 solar years ago, on this day in 829 AD, Theophilos succeeded his father, Michael II, as Byzantine Emperor. He was the last emperor to support iconoclasm. In 831 until his death in 842, he was engaged in lifelong war against the Muslims, beginning with the loss of Sicily to the Arabs who took Palermo and established the Muslim Emirate on this island off the coast of Italy. In Anatolia (present day Turkey), he had to face armies of the Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad and was defeated several times, losing many fortresses. In 831, he led a large army into Cilicia and captured Tarsus. In the autumn of the same year, however, he was defeated in Cappadocia by the Muslims, followed by another defeat in the same province in 833 that forced him to sue for peace with Mamoun by offering 100,000 gold dinars for the return of 7,000 prisoners. In 834 he gave asylum to the Persian Nasr, who along with his 14,000 Khorramites (Khorramdinas), converted to Christianity and took the name of Theophobos, thereby bolstering the Byzantine army with the formation of the "Persian Tourma" made up of Iranian and Kurdish apostates. In September 837, when 16,000 more Khorramites crossed into the Byzantine Empire and joined the “Persian Tourma”, swelling the ranks of the army, Theophilos invaded Muslim lands with a 70,000-strong force, capturing Melitene and Arsamosata (in Turkey), and then taking Zapetra (Zibatra), which was brutally sacked by Theophobus and his Khorramites. The next year, however, Theophilos suffered a shattering defeat, along with his Kurdish and Persian Khorramites, in the Battle of Anzen – also known as Dazimon (Dazman in Turkey). The Muslim army was led by the Iranian general, Afshin Khaydaar bin Kavous, who a year earlier as governor of Azarbaijan and Armenia had crushed the rebellion of Babak Khorramdin and captured him. Unable to withstand the assault of Afshin's horse-archers, Theophilos and his European and Asian contingents including the elite “Tagmata” broke ranks and fled. A few weeks later the Muslims captured Amorion – ruins located near the village of Hisarkoy, Turkey. In 841, the Republic of Venice sent a fleet of 60 galleys (each carrying 200 men) to assist the Byzantines in attacking the Muslims in Crotone in Calabria in southern Italy, but failed. The next year while on his deathbed, Theophilos executed Theophobus the Persian Khorramite who had converted to Christianity.

1086 lunar years ago, on this day in 354 AH, prominent Muslim scientist and polymath, Abu Ali Hassan Ibn al-Haytham – Latinized by medieval Europe to Alhazen – was born in Basra in the Iraqi province of the Persian Buwayhid Empire. He made vital contributions to the principles of optics, as well as to medicine, physics, astronomy, mathematics, visual perception, ophthalmology, philosophy, and various other sciences, and is the inventor of the telescope. He wrote insightful commentaries on the works of Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Euclid. Ibn al-Haytham was active in both Basra and Baghdad and after visiting Islamic Spain he settled in Fatemid Egypt where he died at the age of 77 in Cairo. He was a follower of the school of the Ahl al-Bayt, and was associated with the famous academy of al-Azhar, which derives its name from the “az-Zahra” (The Radiant), the epithet of Hazrat Fatema (SA), the noble daughter of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). In Egypt he took up the project of controlling the floods of the Nile. He is said to have written over 200 books and treatises, the most famous of which is “Kitab al-Manazer” on Optics that was extensively used by later European scholars such as Roger Bacon and Johannes Keppler. Among his works, mention could be made of the Configuration of the World, On the Form of Eclipse, On the Milky Way, The Model of the Motions of Each of the Seven Planets, and Treatise on the Influence of Melodies on the Souls of Animals. Among his students were Sorkhab, an Iranian scientist from Semnan and Mubashir Ibn Fatek, an Egyptian.

980 lunar years ago, on this day in 460 AH, famous scholar and Founder of the Islamic Seminary of holy Najaf, Abu Ja'far Mohammad Ibn Hassan Tousi, popular as Shaikh at-Taifa, passed away at the age of 75 and was laid to rest near the shrine of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS), in his home which is now a mosque known as Jame' at-Tusi. Born in 385 AH in Tous in Khorasan, northeastern Iran, after completing studies in his homeland, he left for Baghdad for higher studies at the age of 23 to study under the celebrated scholar Shaikh Mufid, who died five years later in 413 AH. Leadership of Shi'a Muslim scholars then fell to the renowned Sharif Murtaza, who remained in this position for 23 years until his death in 436 AH. During this time Shaikh Tousi was closely associated with Sharif Murtaza, and subsequently succeeded him as head of the community. So impressive was his knowledge that the Abbasid caliph, al-Qader used to attend his lectures. Eleven years later in 447 AH, when the Iranian Buwayhid dynasty was in a state of decline, sectarian riots erupted and his house in the Karkh locality, along with his library that contained some 90,000 books, was burnt down. Since remaining in Baghdad was risky, he moved to holy Najaf and transformed it into the leading centre of Islamic scholarship. He passed away 13 years later and was succeeded by his son Shaikh Hassan Tousi, known as “Mufid-e Thani” (Second Mufid). He authored over 50 books on various topics such as jurisprudence, exegesis of the holy Qur’an, hadith, theology, history and biography of narrators. Of the four authoritative resources of hadith, two were compiled by Shaikh at-Taifah Tusi. These two basic reference books are: “Tahzeeb al-Ahkaam” and “al-Istibsaar”. His exegesis on the holy Qur'an is titled “at-Tibyaan”. On the Lord of the Age, Imam Mahdi (God hasten his reappearance) he wrote the book “al-Ghayba” (Occultation). His another work is “Mukhtasar Akhbar al-Mukhtar” which is concise history of the uprising of Mukhtar ibn Abu Obaydah Thaqafi to avenge the martyrdom of Imam Husain (AS).

831 solar years ago, on this day in 1187 AD, a memorable event occurred in Islamic history. A united Muslim army of Arab, Turks, Kurds, and Iranians, under command of the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt and Syria, Salah od-Din the Kurd, liberated the Islamic holy city of Bayt ol-Moqaddas after 88 years of occupation by the Christian Crusaders of Europe. He thus ended the illegal existence of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, which the European occupiers had set up in Palestine after massacring as many as 70,000 Muslim men, women, and children in Bayt al-Moqaddas in 1099 while seizing it from the Ismaili Shi'ite Fatemid Dynasty of Egypt-North Africa. The anniversary of this great day is a constant reminder to the Palestinians and world Muslims that God Willing, the day will soon come when Bayt al-Moqaddas will again be liberated and the illegal Zionist entity will cease to exist.

648 lunar years ago, on this day in 792 AH, prominent Iranian Hanafi scholar, Sa'd od-Din Mas'oud ibn Omar Taftazani, passed away in Samarqand at the age of 70 years and was buried in Sarakhs. He was born in the northeastern Iranian town of Taftazaan in Khorasan, in what was then the Sarbederaan Shi’a Muslim state. He traveled to Herat, Khwarezm, Samarqand and Sarakhs to acquire sciences from prominent scholars, and mainly resided in Sarakhs, which presently straddles the Iran-Turkmenistan border. He was active during the reign of fearsome Turkic conqueror, Amir Timur (Tamerlane), who was his patron. Taftazaani was a prolific writer and has left behind a large number of books, mostly in Arabic, on various sciences, such as logic, theology, rhetoric, law, linguistics, etc. He completed “Sharh-e Zanjani” which was his first and one of his most famous works at the age of 16. He also wrote a commentary on the holy Qur'an in Persian and translated into Turkish the poems of the famous Iranian poet, Sa'di Shirazi. His books were taught for centuries in the seminaries of the Ottoman Empire.

466 solar years ago, on this day in 1552 AD, Kazan, the capital of Tataristan, was occupied after a long siege by Russia's Ivan the Terrible, who massacred as many as 110,000 Tartar Muslims, and forcibly converted to Christianity many others, after destroying mosques or turning them into churches. The fall of Tataristan was the culmination of almost a century of sea-saw struggle for domination of the region by the Muslims and Christians. The Tartar Khan Yadegar Mohammad was captured by the Russians. By 1593, mosques in the area were destroyed and Russia forbade the construction of new mosques, a prohibition that was not lifted until the 18th century. Today Tataristan is an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation and the overwhelming majority of its people are Muslims.

300 lunar years ago, on this day in 1140 AH, Shah Sultan Hussain, the 9th and virtually the last powerful ruler of the Safavid Empire, was brutally martyred in detention in Isfahan by the Afghan rebel, Ashraf, a year after he usurped power by killing his cousin Mahmoud Hotaki, who four years earlier had dethroned and imprisoned the Iranian monarch. Nader Qoli Afshar – who would later seize power from Shah Tahmasp II and declare himself Nader Shah – ended Ashraf’s 4-year reign of terror by defeating him and driving him out of Iran. Shah Sultan Hussain (the son and successor of Shah Sulayman Safavi), ruled Iran, the Caucasus and western Afghanistan for 29 years. Groomed by the famous Islamic scholar, Allamah Mohammad Baqer Majlisi, he was a peace-loving monarch of scholarly pursuits, who misread the dangers of the Afghan rebellion and failed to decisively crush it when he had adequate power. As a result he lost his throne and his life, thereby bringing the curtain down on two-and-a-quarter centuries of glorious rule by the Safavids to whom Iran is indebted to this day for its religious identity, national unity, and cultural affinity, although the weak dynasties that followed lost almost half of Iranian territories to the Russians, to the Turks and to the Afghans.

218 solar years ago, on this day in 1800 AD, Nat Turner, the black Afro-American who led the so-called "slave revolution" in the US, was born. In August 1931 after assembling the freedom-seeking black people of Africa who were enslaved in the US, he started an uprising in Southampton County, Virginia, by freeing many African people from slavery. The uprising was brutally crushed after a few days by the White racist government. Turner survived in hiding for over two months afterward, but was seized and executed. The white Americans then massacred over 200 black people in the southern states, where state legislatures passed new laws prohibiting education of the so-called slaves as well as free black-coloured people, as well as restricting rights of assembly and other civil rights for them.

149 solar years ago, on this day in 1869 AD, leader of India's struggle for independence from British rule, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was born in Por-Bandar seaport of Gujarat. He went to London and trained as lawyer and also lived for sometimes in British-ruled South Africa where he was discriminated against by the white authorities because of skin color. On returning to India, he joined the Congress party and soon led the civil-disobedience movement for independence, as part of his policy of non-violence. Gandhi used to say and also wrote that the factor which inspired him to struggle against heavy odds was the immortal epic of Imam Husain (AS), the Martyr of Karbala. In 1948, a year after India’s independence he was assassinated by a Hindu terrorist.

114 solar years ago, on this day in 1904 AD, English author Graham Greene was born. His books are always the scene of confrontation between good and evil. In his famous book "The Power and the Glory", Greene has introduced patience, and hardship, as the path to salvation. He has left behind numerous books, including "The Third Man", and "The Gun for Hire". He died in 1991.

121 solar years ago, on this day in 1897 AD, the famous Persian poetess of the Caucasus, Khurshid-Banu Natavan, passed away in Shusha at the age of 65. Daughter of Mahdi Quli Khan, the last ruler of the Qarabagh khanate, she is considered the best lyrical poet of what is known today as the Republic of Azerbaijan and which throughout history has been part of Iran, until its occupation by the Russians in the first half of the 19th century. Her ancestor Panah Ali Khan was appointed governor by the Safavid Emperor of Iran. She taught Azeri, Persian and Arabic to her children, some of whom became scholars.

77 solar years ago, on this day in 1941 AD, Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler launched a second offensive on the Soviet Union during World War 2. In its first offensive, started on June 22, 1941, Germany occupied parts of the Soviet Union's soil. The goal was to break resistance of Red Army, and seize more regions, especially the capital Moscow, prior to the onset of winter. The Soviet people and the army stoutly defended and foiled Hitler's bid. The Germans were driven out from Soviet soil by late 1944.

60 solar years ago, on this day in 1958 AD, Guinea gained independence from French rule. In late 15th century it was occupied by the Portuguese, followed by the French in early 19th century, becoming a colony in 1849. In 1946, it gained autonomy. Finally, following a referendum, Guinea announced its independence, and Ahmed Sekou Toure was elected the first president of this Muslim majority country. The Republic of Guinea covers an area of 245875 sq km. It is situated in West Africa and shares borders with Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea Bissau.

26 solar years ago, on this day in 1992 AD, a bloody massacre of prisoners took place in Carandiru Penitentiary in Sao Paulo, Brazil, when military police stormed it following a prison revolt because of bad conditions. It left 111 prisoners dead and is considered a major human rights violation in the history of Brazil. The police made little if any effort to negotiate with the prisoners before attacking the unarmed inmates. Survivors said police also fired at inmates who had already surrendered or were trying to hide in their cells. The officer in charge of the operation, Colonel Ubiratan Guimaraes, was initially sentenced to 632 years in prison for his mishandling of the revolt and subsequent massacre, but his surprise acquittal several years later resulted in his assassination in 2006 as an act of vengeance. Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), one of Brazil's feared gangs, was formed in 1993 as a response to the event. This group is believed to be responsible for the death of Jose Ismael Pedrosa, director of the prison at the time. The notorious prison was demolished on December 9, 2002. In April 2013, 23 policemen involved in the massacre were sentenced to 156 years in jail each for the killing of 13 inmates, while a further 25 policemen involved in the massacre were sentenced to 624 years in jail each for the deaths of 52 inmates in August 2013.

6 solar years ago, on this day 2012 AD, Bahraini activist, 24-year old Mohammed Mushaima, attained martyrdom due to torture and medical negligence by jailors of the repressive Aal-e Khalifa minority regime, prompting the international Human Rights Watch to call for an investigation. He was detained illegally in March 2011 for taking part in a peaceful rally and had been hospitalized since August 2011 because of acute torture. His lawyers’ request to the kangaroo courts in Bahrain for his release because of his bad health, were rejected. After his funeral, clashes erupted in Manama as protesters took to the streets demanding an investigation into the circumstances of Mushaima’s death.

AS/SS