Today is Saturday; 2nd of the Islamic month of Moharam 1434 lunar hijri; and November 17, 2012, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.
1373 lunar years ago, on this day in 61 AH, Imam Husain (AS), the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), stepped on the fateful field of Karbala where he was to be eventually martyred on the 10th of Moharram by the enemies of humanity. Invited by the people of Kufa to help them against the tyrannical rule of the Godless Yazid, he was met with a battalion of troops led by the regime’s general, Horr, on entering the land of Iraq from Arabia. The Imam pitched his camp besides the fresh flowing waters of the River Euphrates, from which place he was evicted with the arrival of more enemy forces. The Prophet's grandson refused to endorse the illegitimate rule of Yazid and preferred martyrdom in unequal combat for the cause of justice and humanitarian values, which has immortalized his movement.
829 lunar years ago, on this day, in 605 AH, the noted scholar Shaikh Warram ibn Abi Farres, passed away in his hometown Hillah in Iraq. He was a descendent of the celebrated Islamic general, Malik Ashtar, whom Imam Ali (AS) had appointed as governor of Egypt and written for him the famous epistle on the most efficient way of governance, which is regarded till this day as the finest ever charter of human rights. Shaikh Warram is the author of the book "Tanbihat al-Khawater" and was the maternal grandfather of the renowned scholar Seyyed ibn Tawous.
90 solar years ago, on this day in 1922 AD, with the exile to Italy of the 36th Ottoman Sultan, Mohammad VI, after a 4-year reign, following the Turkish Grand Assembly’s decision on November 1 to abolish the monarchy that was declared independent of Seljuqid rule in 1299 by Osman Khan Ghazi, came to its end after six centuries of rule over the regions overlapping Asia, Europe and Africa. The Sultan who was also stripped of his dubious role as caliph, which was handed to his cousin, Abdul-Majid II for the next year-and-a-half before its abolishment in 1924, died in exile in 1926 at the age of 65. Osman was the son of Etughrul Beg, a Turkic chieftain of Central Asia, who fleeing the Mongol onslaught had sought refuge in Asia Minor in the Seljuqid Sultanate of Roum, which appointed him Amir of a border principality to fight the Byzantine Empire with the help of Ghazis (holy warriors) streaming into what is now Turkey from different Islamic lands.
30 solar years ago, on this day in 1982, Iraqi parties in exile met in Tehran to form the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SAIRI) to free their homeland from the tyrannical rule of the Ba'th minority regime of Saddam. SAIRI was active in political and military circles against the Ba'thists during the 8-year war the US had imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran through Saddam. After the US and Britain turned against their protégé Saddam and dislodged him from power in 2003, SAIRI relocated its headquarters to Iraq, where a few months later, its charismatic leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Baqer Hakeem was martyred shortly after leading the Friday Prayer in Najaf in the holy shrine of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS). It has now changed its name to Supreme Islamic Assembly of Iraq, and is led by Hojjat al-Islam Seyyed Ammar Hakeem, nephew of longtime leaders, Seyyed Baqer Hakeem. The group is an active member of the ruling coalition of Iraq.
