Today in Ramadan History

a) 2 AH (624 AD): is the first Ramadan Muslims fast; it's said that fasting was enforced a month earlier in Shaban


b) 114 AH (732 AD): Battle of Tours in the reign of Ummayad caliph Hisham bin Abdul Malik between Abdul Rahman Al Ghafigi Charles Martel. Muslims' defeat in this battle resulted in their loss of final attempt to inject Islam in the western world, and it was named Balat Al Shuhada because of its massive Muslim casualties

c) 1286 AH (1869 AD): Shakaib Arsalan was born. He was a major icon in advocating Arabic nationalism and was a strong opponent of occupation. He was the first to call for the establishment of the Arab League, an organization of the 22 Arabic states that was established 77 years later on 1946 AD. He also advocated the proposition that the survival of the Ottoman Empire was the only guarantee against the division of the ummah and its occupation by the European imperial powers

AH 82 (624 AD): Muslim general Al Hassan ibn Al Numan conquers the whole of the Moroccan lands against the Berbers


AH 132 (750 AD): Abdulla Abu Al Abbas seizes Damascus, in turn establishing the Abbasid caliphate over the Umayyad caliphate


AH 732 (1332 AD): Ibn Khaldoun is born. He was a famous historian, scholar, theologian, and statesman born in North Africa in present-day Tunisia. He is considered the forerunner of several social scientific disciplines: demography, cultural history, historiography, the philosophy of history, sociology, and modern economics. He is sometimes considered to be a "father" of these disciplines, or even the social sciences in general, for anticipating many elements of these disciplines centuries before they were founded. He is best known for his Muqaddimah (known as Prolegomenon in Greek), the first volume of his book on universal history, Kitab al-Ibar

AH 65 (685 AD): Marwan ibn Al Hakam, founder of the second Umayyad dynasty dies. Marwan's short reign was marked by a civil war among the Umayyads as well as a war against Abdullah ibn Zubayr who continued to rule over the Hejaz, Iraq, Egypt and parts of Syria. Marwan was able to win the Umayyad civil war, the result of which was a new Marwanid line of Umayyad caliphs. He was also able to recapture Egypt and Syria from Abdullah, but was not able to completely defeat him


AH 1307 (1890 AD): The Muslim general Rabih az-Zubayr dies. Az-Zubayr established an Islamic kingdom in Chad, but was later taken over by the invading French army


AH 1362 (1943 AD): Italy surrenders to the Allied forces in World War2. Italy became involved in the war after its alliance with Germany in 1940, however after its successive defeats a surrender to the British and American forces was inevitable

1073 AH 1073 (N/A): The Ottoman empire declares war on Germany 56 years after the Sitfaturk treaty that brought a halt to the previous war between the two states; which was sparked due to the Germans building a fortified tower near its border with the Ottoman empire


AD 1032: People of Cordoba convened to elect their leader after they've eliminated their previous Barber leader Al Qassim bin Hammod. The Umayyad Abdul Rahman bin Hisham was elected their caliph after three weeks of none-leadership status


AH 927 (1521 AD): Suleiman the Magnificent conquers Belgrade, a key to central Europe and home to the strongest towers near the Ottoman Empire. Ottomans besieged this city three times in the past, in 1441, 1456 and 1492, but were only able to seize it in Suleiman's reign

AH 666 (1268 AD): The Mamluk general Baibars conquers Antioch after repelling the Crusaders. This historic victory caused ripples that toppled the Crusader states one by one


AH 1367 (1948 AD): A Zionist commando unit led by Moshe Dayan massacres 426 Palestinians in the city of Lud


AH 1409 (1989 AD): A border crisis between Senegal and Mauritania breaks out; the crisis is attributable to farming interference between the two countries

AH 223 (838 AD): The Abbasid caliph Al-Mu'tasim captures Amorium, after a Muslim woman abused by some Romans called 'Wa Mu'tasima', to which Al-Mu'tasim responded, "Wabayki Ya Ukhtah". The poet Abu Tamam recorded this incident in a wonderful poem


AH 1208 (1794 AD): American President George Washington obtains increased jurisdictions to pour 688,000 $ in order to built a fortified ship that can withstand attacks from the Turk pirates in the Mediterranean Sea


AH 1300 (1882 AD): The Ottoman prime minister Mahommd Nadeem Pasha orders '6th of Ramadan Decisions', which reduced the empire's foreign debts to half; a decision which angered both France and England

AH 89 (N/A): Mohammed ibn al-Qassim al-Thaqafi invades Sindh, armed with numerous catapults


AH 361 (971 AD): Al-Azhar University opens in the reign of the Fatimid caliphate and remains up until now biggest center in the world for Islamic civilization radiance. The university's mission includes the propagation of Islamic religion and culture. To this end, its Islamic scholars (ulemas) render edicts (fatwas) on disputes submitted to them from all over the Islamic world regarding proper conduct for Muslim individuals or societies


AH 1300 (1882 AD): The naval Ottoman general Taghar Bek seizes control of Sicily after he extricated 7,000 captive Muslims. He then transferred the island to France, which couldn't hold it for long as Spain seized it in the same year