Today is Sunday, 29th of the Iranian month of Mehr 1397 solar hijri; corresponding to 11th of the Islamic month of Safar 1440 lunar hijri; and October 21, 2018, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1683 solar years ago, on this day in 335 AD, Roman Emperor Constantine I, following his conversion to Christianity – the cult invented by Paul the Hellenized Jew and falsely attributed to Prophet Jesus (AS) – enacted rules against Jews. One of the laws stated that if a Jew buys and circumcises a Christian slave (or of any other sect), he shall on no account retain the circumcised in slavery, but he who suffered this shall acquire the privileges of liberty. It is forbidden for a Jew to harass or attack on anyone who converts to Christianity from Judaism. The insult should be punished according to the nature of the crime committed.

1402 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.

1019 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.

939 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”.

922 solar years ago, on this day in 1096 AD, Sultan Qilij Arsalan of the Seljuq Sultanate of Roum (in Asia Minor), soundly defeated the first attempt by a large army of Christians of Western Europe to invade Muslim lands in the east. Known as the People's Crusade or the Peasants Crusade, a 40,000 strong force of thugs, robbers and killers from France, Germany, Italy and other lands marched overland towards and through the Byzantine territories, pillaging, killing, and robbing towns that lay in their path. The main reason for this military march of the marauders, calling themselves ‘pilgrims to Palestine’ was drought, famine, and plague afflicting France and Germany for many years, and most of them seemed to have envisioned the crusade as an escape from these hardships. The trek to the east started in April 1096 and the first victims of these killers were the Jews that had ventured out of the safety of Muslim lands to settle among Christians. Some 4,000 Jewish men, women and children were slaughtered, while the remaining were driven to suicide or forced to convert to Christianity. Then they killed 4,000 Hungarian Christians living under the jurisdiction of the Byzantine Empire, a crime that brought swift wrath upon them from the emperor’s forces who massacred 10,000 of these marauding crusaders. The Byzantines then thought of a plan to use them against the Turks and transported the remaining 30,000 Germans, French, and Italians to Asia Minor. Here, near the village of Dracon, in what is now southwestern Turkey, these crusaders were completely routed by the Muslim defenders, and of those captured and wished to remain alive, Sultan Qilij Arsalan spared their life on condition of becoming Muslims and sent them to Khorasan in northeastern Iran.

921 solar years ago, on this day in 1097 AD, the first organized Crusade made up of Christian knights and experienced warriors under the joint command of Godfrey of Bouillon, Bohemund of Taranto, and Raymond IV of Toulouse, began the siege of the Syrian city of Antioch, which is now in Turkey. This military expedition led by Catholic Europe was organized by Pope Urban II with the goal of responding to an appeal from Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, who requested that west European Christians come to his aid to fight the Seljuq Sultanate of Asia Minor. The organized force caught the Muslims by surprise and besieged Antioch, which fell to them some 8 months later, because of the over-confidence of the Turkish defenders, who viewed this batch of experienced warriors as another of the Peasants’ Army that they had defeated a year earlier. In brief, the Crusader invaders marched south along the coast, occupying several cities, and in 1099 seized the Islamic holy city of Bayt al-Moqaddas from the Ismaili Shi’ite Fatemid Dynasty of Egypt-North Africa, massacring some 70,000 Muslim men, women and children, including local Christians and Jews.

690 solar years ago, on this day in 1328 AD was born in a peasant family, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, who in 1368 established the Ming Dynasty and went on to liberate China from the rule of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. Known as Hongwu, he rose to command the forces that seized the Mongol capital Khanbaliq (modern Beijing). During his 30-year rule, he transformed China into a major power, and although born a Buddhist, he embraced the Confucian doctrine, and showed inclination towards Islam. He ordered construction of several mosques in Nanjing, Yunnan, Guangdong, Xijing and Fujian, and had inscriptions praising the Prophet of Islam placed in them. He rebuilt the Jinjue Mosque in his capital Nanjing, and large numbers of the Muslim Hui people moved to the city during his rule. He had some ten Muslim generals in his military, including Chang Yuchun, Lan Yu, Ding Dexing, Mu Ying, Feng Sheng and Hu Dahai. He personally wrote a 100-word praise (called baizizan) on Islam, Allah and Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).

246 solar years ago, on this day in 1772 AD, English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born. He and his friend William Wordsworth were among the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and later identified, along with Robert Southey, as the Lake School of poets. Coleridge’s work included "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", "Frost at Midnight" and "Kubla Khan". In his later life he authored the "Bibliographia Literaria", a work of literary theory.

228 solar years ago, on this day in 1790 AD, French poet, Alphonse de Lamartine, was born. He is famous in regard to poetic delicacy and his major book is “Poetic Imaginations”. He traveled to the east and stayed a while in Beirut, and later penned a book titled Eastern Journey. He died in 1869.

213 solar years ago, on this day in 1805 AD, the Battle of Trafalgar took place near the Strait of Gibraltar, in which the British fleet, commanded by Horatio Nelson, defeated the combined French-Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain under Admiral Villeneuve. It signaled the end of French maritime power and left Britain's navy unchallenged until the 20th century. Though Nelson died in the battle, this was the first major defeat for French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte.

185 solar years ago, on this day in 1833 AD, Swedish chemist and inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel, was born. He invented dynamite for the purpose of exploration. Contrary to his expectations, when European powers used dynamite in wars, which led to the massacre of a large number of people, Nobel resented the misuse of his invention and allocated all his wealth to a peace prize. He intended to hand over this prize to those who render valuable services in literary and scientific domains, and promote global peace. But, in violation of his wishes, today the Nobel Peace Prize has been politicized and turned into a means for promotion of the West’s domineering, divisive, exploitative and murderous policies.

139 solar years ago, on this day in 1879 AD, Thomas A. Edison successfully demonstrated the first durable and commercially practical electric light bulb at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. This model lasted 40 hours before burning out. The idea of electric lighting was not new; several people, including Joseph Swan, had worked on and even developed forms of electric lighting. However, nothing durable had been developed that was practical for home use. The difficulty was finding a suitable material for the filament. Edison tested over 6,000 vegetable growths (baywood, boxwood, hickory, cedar, flax, bamboo) as filament material. After one and a half years of work, after spending $40,000, and performing 1,200 experiments, success was achieved when an incandescent lamp with a filament of carbonized sewing thread was made.

60 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”.   

40 solar years ago, on this day in 1978 AD, workers and personnel of Iran’s oil industry went on a nationwide strike against the Shah’s despotic regime. As a result, Iran’s oil exports came to a halt, depriving the regime of its most important revenues. Moreover, the severance of Iran’s oil exports led to sharp oil price hikes. The Shah’s regime through its scaremongering policies, tried to force the oil industry workers to return to their jobs, but they refused to do so. The strike of Iran’s oil industry personnel continued until the ouster of the British-installed and US-backed Shah, thanks to the people’s revolutionary zeal and their tolerance of oil shortages.

32 solar years ago, on this day in 1986 AD, commander of Palestine’s naval units, Brigadier General Mundhir Abu-Ghazalah, was assassinated by agents of the Zionist spying agency, Mossad, through a car bomb blast in Athens, Greece.

31 solar years ago, on this day in 1987 AD, Indian ‘Peace-keeping Forces’ attacked Jaffna Hospital in Sri Lanka, massacring 70 ethnic Tamil patients, doctors and nurses.

23 solar years ago, on this day in 1995 AD, Iranian poet and scholar, Javad Qawwampour, passed away at the age of 77. Born in Semnan, he learned Islamic eschatology and has left a 2-volume collection of poems, titled “Niday-e Dil” (Voice of the Heart).

4 solar years ago, on this day in 2014 AD, Head of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani passed away at the age of 83. As a disciple of the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA), he strove against the despotic regime of the Shah, and after establishment of the Islamic Republic, he served as Acting Prime Minister from 2 September until 29 October 1981. Before that, he was Minister of Interior and Minister of Justice in the cabinets of Mohammad-Ali Rajai and Mohammad-Javad Bahonar. He was the leader of Combatant Ulema Association and founder and president of Imam Sadeq (AS) University.

AS/SS