History Behind News Program

S3E11: Persian or Iranian New Year? How Muslim Arabs Conquered Iran & China's Historic Alliance With Iran.


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Although news about Iran doesn't deluge our headlines any longer, as it did the days and weeks after Ms. Mahsa Amini's murder, we continue to hear and see trickles of news about Iran and Iranians. And it's a good time to talk about it, because it's the Persian New Year on March 20th - just 3 days from now. 

In this episode, my guest, Dr. Khodadad Rezakhani of Leiden University, takes us from the Black Sea to the Iranian plateau to talk about Persians & Iranians. Are these terms interchangeable? He also tells us which one is more appropriate: the Persian or Iranian New Year? From there we talk about Eranshahr, and why that important term developed during the Sasanian Empire as opposed to earlier empires, namely the Achaemenid and Parthians. Dr. Rezakhani describes the importance of the Sasanian Empire in history, and how this mighty empire pummeled the Byzantine Roman Empire and then, suddenly, fell to the Arabs and Islamization of Iran. Throughout our conversation, he debunks many myths about Iran and world history. 

To learn more about Dr. Rezakhani, you can visit his academic homepage

In addition, below are links to other episodes about Iran:

S2E42: An Islamic state pretending to be a republic. CIA’s 1953 coup & the 1979 Revolution. Dr. Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi

S2E34: Iran's History of Hijab & Women's Rights, Dr. Janet Afary

S2E33: Iranians of the 1979 Revolution, Dr. Naghmeh Sohrabi

S2E25: Iran-U.S. Diplomacy, Dr. Vali Nasr

S1E25: Iran's Leadership, Government Structure & Religion, Dr. Vali Nasr

Adel

Host of the History Behind News podcast


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  1. 🎵 attribution, links and license for the theme music in this podcast: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon. Music
  2. promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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  4. map image attribution: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Sasanian_Empire_expansion_(prototype).jpg

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