Important Events in the Contemporary Muslim World
Important Events in the Contemporary Muslim World
On September 16,1982 AD, the illegal Zionist entity along with its Phalangist agents in Lebanon massacred over 5,000 old men, women and children in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in southern Lebanon. The evil mind behind the bloodcurdling slaughter was Israeli war minister, Ariel Sharon. An ethnic German, born to Lithuanian parents illegally residing in Palestine, his crimes against humanity got him the post of prime minister of the usurper state of Israel. In January 2006, divine wrath struck him in the form of a brain stroke, and for almost eight years he is lying unconscious in limbo in what doctors call a persistent vegetative state, with most of the brain becoming fluid.
On September 16, 1931 AD, the leader of the Libyan people\’s struggles against colonial rule, Omar al-Mukhtar, was executed by his Italian captors at the age of 72, after 23 years of armed resistance against the European invaders. Born in the village of Janzour, near Tobruk in eastern Barqa, in Tripolitania Province of the Ottoman Empire, he was orphaned as a child and was adopted by Sharif al-Ghariani, a member of the political-religious Senussi Sufi Movement.
After early education at the mosque, he studied for eight years at the Senussi University at Jaghbub, and in 1899 was sent to Chad to assist Rabih az-Zubayr against the French. In October 1911, during the Italian-Turkish War, an Italian naval force appeared on the shores of Libya and demanded the surrender of the country.
The Turks and their Libyan allies withdrew to the countryside instead of surrendering, and the Italians bombarded the cities of Tripoli and Benghazi for three days, marking the beginning of a series of battles between the European invaders and the Libyan people of Cyrenaica led by Omar Mukhtar.
Skilled in desert warfare, he was a thorn in the side of the Italians until he was ambushed, wounded and captured on 11th September 1931. Five days later the terrified Italian occupiers having failed to subdue the Islamic spirit of this scholar of the holy Qur’an, hanged him.
On September 16, 2007 AD, American terrorists working for the notorious Blackwater Company shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad\’s Nisour Square, in addition to injuring scores of others. After a kangaroo trial in the US, following outrage in Iraq and the Muslim World, all criminal charges against the killers were dropped and they were freed.
On September 17, 1948 AD, UN mediator, Folke Bernadotte, was assassinated by Zionist terrorists in Bayt al-Moqqadas, before he could present his plan for resolution of the Palestinian issue and termination of the first Israeli war.
On September 17, 1970 AD, King Hussein of Jordan ordered a military assault on Palestinians to prevent them from carrying out operations against the illegal Zionist entity. The Jordanian army, led by General Zia ul-Haq, the military attaché at the Pakistani embassy in Amman, mercilessly martyred or wounded thousands of Palestinians. After the clashes, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees were expelled from Jordan. Seven years later, Zia seized power in Pakistan through a military coup against Prime Minister Zulfeqar Ali Bhutto.
On September 18, 1982 AD, Lebanon’s Phalangist Christian militia mercilessly slaughtered at least 600 Palestinians in southern Lebanon during the civil war, as part of the US-Israeli plan to weaken and terrorize Muslims.
On September 19, 1991 AD, the US imposed a military pact on the Persian Gulf emirate of Kuwait, for stationing troops and equipment on the claim of preventing a repetition of Iraq\’s military aggression and occupation that had ended some six months ago. A year later, the former colonial power, Britain, followed by France also imposed similar pacts on Kuwait, as part of the plot to militarize the Persian Gulf. In the next few years, the US, along with Britain and France, imposed similar military pacts on Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, in order to seize billions of petro-dollars by supplying obsolete military hardware which the Arab states cannot use. These pacts have led to a rise in the unwanted military presence of foreign powers and fueled insecurity in the Persian Gulf.
On September 20, 2011 AD, former Afghan president, Burhan od-Din Rabbani, was assassinated in a terrorist attack by the Taliban. An ethnic Persian-speaking Tajik and a scholar of Arabic, he was president of Afghanistan from 1992 until his overthrow by the Taliban militia in 1996.
On September 21, 1964 AD, the island state of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea gained its independence from British rule. Once part of the Roman Empire, it became an Islamic island for over three-and-a-half centuries, until its occupation by the Crusaders in the medieval era. Several times it was raided by the Ottoman Turks, and in 1798 was occupied by France, before falling to the British. Malta covers an area of 316 sq km. The official language is Maltese which is heavily influenced by Arabic, and is actually a variant of the now extinct Sicilian Arabic dialect, written today in the Latin alphabet.
On September 22,1960 AD, the northwest African country of Mali gained independence from French colonial rule. An ancient centre of civilization, Mali had accepted Islam over a thousand years ago and founded a glorious Muslim empire that lasted till the 16th century. The first attacks were made by Morocco that led to the disintegration of the Mali Empire and in the subsequent centuries paved the way for France to penetrate and occupy it by 1898. Mali which was called French Sudan gained autonomy in 1958 followed by independence in 1960. It covers an area of over 1.2 million sq km and shares borders with Algeria, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Senegal.
On September 24,1841 AD, the Sultan of Brunei was forced to cede Sarawak on the large Borneo Island to the British invaders, who installed a certain James Brooke as the White Rajah, and whose descendants ruled this land till 1946, a few years before the independence of Malaysia from Britain. Sarawak is now a province of Malaysia.
On September 24,1974 AD, Guinea-Bissau in West Africa declared its independence from Portuguese colonial rule. It was part of the Mali Muslim Empire, before its occupation by Portugal, which enslaved the people and sent hundreds of thousands of them to the Americas as slaves. In the mid-1960s, the uprising of the people against the Portuguese colonialists intensified and in 1970, the independence seekers took control of two-thirds of this land. Finally, in 1974, Portugal recognized the independence of Guinea-Bissau. Over 65 percent of the people are Muslim in Guinea-Bissau which covers an area of over 36,000 sq km. It lies on the coastlines of the Atlantic Ocean, sharing borders with Guinea and Senegal.
On September 25,1962 AD, the People\’s Democratic Republic of Algeria was formally proclaimed with Ferhat Abbas as the elected President of the provisional government. Abbas had acted in a provisional capacity during the years 1958 to 1961 as well, while Algeria was fighting the French occupiers. Algeria’s independence on July 5, 1962, followed the 8-year war that led to the death of a million and a half Algerian Muslims. For almost a year till September 15, 1963 Ferhat Abbas was president of the constitutional assembly that was rapidly sidelined by Ahmad bin Bella on being elected the presidency. He resigned in protest to Ben Bella’s decision to establish a one-party state, and was placed under house arrest from 1964 until Ben Bella’s overthrow in 1965. From 1976 to 1979, he was again placed under house arrest, after signing a statement opposing the country\’s powerful military-backed President, Colonel Houari Boumedienne. He died in 1985.
On September 25, 1969 AD, the charter establishing the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) was signed. OIC, which was set up following the arson attack on al-Aqsa Mosque in the Zionist occupied Islamic city of Bayt al-Moqaddas, now has 57 Muslim states as members.
On September 26,1962 AD, a coup led by Colonel Abdullah Sallal, and supported militarily by President Jamal Abdun-Nasser of Egypt, ended the monarchic system in North Yemen, although with the escape of the Zaidi Imam, Mohammad al-Badr, to Saudi Arabia, the civil war continued to rage till 1970 between the republicans and the royalists. In May 1990, North Yemen and the former British protectorate of South Yemen became united in one single country under the dictatorial rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was finally replaced in February 2012 by his vice president, Abd Rabbo Mansour al-Hadi. The popular uprising still continues in Yemen, where Shi\’ite Muslims belonging to the Zaydi branch make up half of the population of 24 million, and are concentrated mainly in the north. There is sizeable minority of Ismaili and Ithna Ash’ari (Twelver) Shi’ite Muslims in Yemen. The ancient land of Yemen with a civilization dating several thousand years ago, embraced the truth of Islam when Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) dispatched his dear cousin and son-in-law, Imam Ali (AS) to invite the people to the true religion. Yemen, which shares borders with Saudi Arabia and Oman, is strategically situated on the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, opposite the Horn of Africa, guarding entrance to the Red Sea. It has a large coastline on the Indian Ocean as well.
On September 27, 1996 AD, the Taleban militia, which was formed in Pakistan, funded by Saudi Arabia and armed by the US, occupied the Afghan capital, Kabul after ousting the legal government of President Burhan od-Din Rabbani. The Taleban unleashed a reign of terror in Afghanistan by implementing medieval European laws, in a bid to tarnish the image of Islam. In October 2001, the Taliban were ousted by their own godfather, the US.
On September 28, 1970 AD, Egyptian president, Jamal Abdun-Nasser, died at the age of 54. He participated in the first war imposed by the illegal Zionist entity on Arab states in 1948. In 1952, he along with General Mohammad Najib staged a coup against King Farouq to end the monarchy and two years later after ousting Najib, he became president. He was a staunch anti-colonialist and in 1956 he nationalized Suez Canal, a measure that prompted France, Britain and the Zionist entity to attack Egypt. In the 1967 war against the usurper state of Israel, he suffered a shattering defeat and lost the Sinai Peninsula, mainly because of his miscalculation in committing as many as 70,000 Egyptian troops to the civil war in Yemen, when the greatest enemies of Arabs and Muslims were the Zionists and their godfathers in the West.
On September 28, 1996 AD, The UN Security Council issued a resolution, calling for an end to excavation of a tunnel underneath the courtyard of the al-Aqsa Mosque by the illegal Zionist entity. The US, however, lobbied for removal of this clause from the resolution. The excavation at al-Aqsa triggered bloody confrontations between the Zionist regime forces and Palestinians, resulting in the martyrdom of hundreds of Palestinians and wounding of thousands. Israel, because of US support, continues its excavations in the surroundings of this sacred mosque.
On September 28, 2000 AD, the al-Aqsa Intefadha of the Palestinian people started following the desecration of this sacred mosque by Ariel Sharon, the ringleader of the Likud party and the mass murderer of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila Camps. The people of Palestine continue their steadfastness against the usurper Israeli regime, while Sharon for the last several years is in a state of coma, having lost all senses, which is a sign of divine wrath that has struck him.
On October 1, 1901 AD, with the death of Amir Abdur-Rahman Khan, the Pashto ruler of Afghanistan, the plight of the Hazara people neared its end. Although he is credited with what is called the unification of Afghanistan, his principal aim was to make the rule of ethnic Pakhtouns paramount by cruelly suppressing other ethnic and lingual groups such as the Tajik, Uzbek, Balouch and Hazara. He used to treat the Persian-speaking Hazara Muslims as slaves, because of their adherence to the path of Prophet Mohammad’s (SAWA) Ahl al-Bayt. In 1880, the Hazara rose in revolt but were savagely crushed and many of them were forced to seek refuge across the borders in British India, especially in Quetta, as well as in Khorasan and the city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran. The Hazaras remained de facto slaves with no rights, until King Amanullah Khan declared Afghanistan\’s independence in 1919.
On October 1, 1960 AD, Nigeria gained independence from British colonial rule. Islam entered Nigeria a thousand years ago and various Muslim dynasties emerged in the northern parts culminating in the Fulani Empire or the Sokoto caliphate which the British conquered in 1903. The southern parts of Nigeria were mostly animists and since the 17th century were used by the Portuguese, the Spanish, the French, and the British as major centres of slave trade to the Americas. The British merged the north and the south before independence. Some 65 percent of the 155 million population of oil-rich Nigeria is made up of Muslims including 10 million Shi’ites or followers of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt. Nigeria covers an area of 923,768 sq km. it is located in West Africa and has a large coastline on the Atlantic Ocean, sharing borders with Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Benin.
On October 1, 1985 AD, warplanes of the illegal Zionist entity pounded the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Tunis, martyring seventy people and injuring hundreds of others. The PLO headquarters were shifted to the Tunisian capital following Israel’s invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon in 1982. The UN failed to condemn this blatant act of state terrorism because of US veto at the Security Council.
On October 2,1958 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.
On October 2, 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.
On October 5, 1864 AD, the Indian city of Calcutta was almost totally destroyed by a cyclone originating from the Bay of Bengal, resulting in the death of at least 60,000 people.
On October 5, 1948 AD, a massive earthquake devastated Eshqabad city, the capital of what is now the Republic of Turkmenistan, resulting in the death of at least 110,000 people.
On October 6, 1930 AD, Hafez al-Assad, the statesman who as president brought political and economic stability to coup-wracked Syria for three decades, was born in poor Alawite family in Qardaha village of the Kalbiyya tribe. After finishing high school he joined the air force in 1950 and through hard work and dedication was promoted to the rank of major-general and chief of the air force. At the same time, his resentment against the West for its plots against Syria and the Arabs made him join the Arab Ba’th Party. In 1966 he was named Defence Minister, and in 1970 took over the reins of government as prime minister, before being elected to the presidency the next year. He held the post of president till his death in 2000 AD. As an astute politician, he kept the US at bay and maintained his country’s independence by cultivating friendly ties with the Soviet Union and the Islamic Republic of Iran. He refused to yield to the designs of the illegal Zionist entity, and continued to demand the return of the occupied Golan Heights to Syria. At the same time, he backed independent Palestinian and Lebanese groups, and never recognized Turkey’s occupation of what is called Hatay Province including the cities of Iskendurun and Antakiya (Antioch). His son Bashar al-Assad was elected president after him, and because of his resistance policies against US-Zionist plots, Syria has for the past two-and-a-half years has become exposed to organized acts of terrorism supported by the West, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia.
On October 6,1973 AD, the 4th war broke out between Arabs and the illegal Zionist entity Israel. On this day, the Egyptian army caught the Zionist forces off guard in a military operation on the other side of Suez Canal and entered the Israeli-occupied Sinai Peninsula. In the initial days of the war, the Egyptian and Syrian troops dealt heavy blows to the Zionist army and downed a large number of Israeli warplanes. But, with the swift assistance of the US to the usurper state of Israel, Zionist troops advanced against both Syria and Egypt, forcing the acceptance of ceasefire. This war broke the myth of invincibility of the Zionist entity.
On October 6, 1981 AD, while reviewing a military parade in Cairo on the anniversary of the 1973 war against the illegal Zionist entity, Egypt\’s President Anwar Sadaat was executed in a revolutionary manner by a group of officers of the Islamic group “al-Jihad” led by the 27-year old Lieutenant Khaled Islambouli, for signing of the scandalous Camp David Accord with the usurper state of Israel in 1978. As his section of the parade began to approach Sadaat\’s platform, Islambouli, along with Abdul-Hameed Abdus-Salaam, Ata Tayel Hameeda Raheel, and Hussein Abbas, leapt from the truck and ran towards the stand while lobbing grenades toward where the Egyptian President was standing with other dignitaries. Islambouli entered the stands and emptied his assault rifle into Sadaat\’s body. Khalid Islambouli and his companions were sentenced to death and attained martyrdom.
On October 6, 2011 AD, youthful Bahraini protestor, Ahmad Jaber al-Qattan, was killed in cowardly manner by the US-Saudi-backed forces of the repressive Aal-e Khalifa minority regime. In a desperate bid to avert the inevitable, the Bahraini Shaikh, who for the past decade has been styling himself king, has hired mercenaries from Pakistan, Jordan and other places, to savagely kill, injure and torture Bahrainis, destroy mosques, and desecrate husseiniyyas, in a bid to crush the popular uprising, which has gathered further momentum.
On October 7, 2001 AD, the US invaded Afghanistan and occupied it after ousting its agents the Taleban militia by accusing it of collaboration with the al-Qa\’eda outfit – also created by the CIA to spread terrorism. The US wrongly accused the Afghan-based groups of being involved in the implosion of New York\’s 110-storey-high Twin-Towers. The US, which along with its NATO accomplices has killed hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians and destroyed the country, is still in occupation of Afghanistan. Over the past 12 years, the US-NATO troops have killed well over a hundred thousand Afghan civilians and destroyed the country.
On October 8, 1990 AD, Zionist troops attacked Palestinian worshippers at the al-Aqsa Mosque, martyring 20 and wounding scores of others. The blind US support for Israel\’s crimes against humanity, prevented the passing of any UN resolution against the illegal Zionist entity.
On October 8, 2005 AD, a 7.6-magnitude quake hit Kashmir killing thousands of people in parts of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. The epicenter was Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. As many as 90,000 people were killed in the border regions of the three countries while 3.3 million people lost their homes and hearths.
On October 9, 1981 AD, Palestinian revolutionary Majed Abu-Sharaar was martyred in Italy by agents of the illegal Zionist entity. The usurper state of Israel pursues a policy of terrorism against Arabs and Muslims around the world in a vain bid to prolong its illegal existence on the soil of Palestine.
On October 10, 1970, Fiji gained independence from 90 years of British rule, and was declared a republic. The Fiji Archipelago covers an area of 18274 sq km and is situated in the Pacific Ocean. Almost 40 percent of the 850,000 population is made up of descendants of Indians brought by the British as contract labourers in the 19th century. Muslims number 85,000 or 10 percent of the national population, while Shi’ites or followers of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt are estimated around 30,000.
On October 13, 1923 AD, Ankara in central Anatolia, replaced Istanbul as the capital of Turkey. Istanbul served as capital of the Ottoman Empire for 470 years, since its capture by Sultan Mohammad Fateh in 1453. Established in the 4th century AD by the Roman Emperor, Constantine and known as Constantinople, it had previously served as capital of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire for over a thousand years.