Scholars Unravel Middle East

This is the story of (1) the king who invented Nowruz for the Guarded Domains of Iran, (2) the calendar system that survived the demise of religions and destructions of empires, (3) the solar calendar with the most accurate calculation of spring equinox before the atomic calendar, (4) the Book of Kings that narrated the mythology of Nowruz, and (5) nostalgia for Iran's pre-Islamic Persian glory.

In this interview, we discuss Nowruz...

Turkic peoples have dominated Middle East history since the fall of the Sasanian Persian Empire. But where did they come from? Do they all essentially speak the same Turkic language? How is it that Turkic languages remained in the Middle East, when languages of many other conquering peoples faded from Middle East history, such as the Mongols?

🚩About My Guest:

My guest is Dr. Kagan Arik, a Lecturer in Modern Turkish and Turkic lang...

Mani wrote his own gospel. He performed miracles. And he claimed to be the true prophet - the final prophet!

He told the Sasanian Emperor that his religion is better than all the other religions. Mani eventually, and perhaps predictably, ran into conflict with powerful Zoroastrian priests. His religion was persecuted in the Sasanian Iranian Empire and also in the Byzantine Roman Empire. Despite this, Manichaeism survived and spread ...

►Christian refugees to Sasanian Empire, or double agents for Byzantine Empire?

►Clash of the Sasanian and Armenian empires

►Were Nestorians treated better than Armenians in Sasanian Empire?

►Nestorian hospitals, schools and governing institutions in Iran

►Why Zoroastrian priests pushed to persecuted Nestorians

►Did a Sasanian king kill 150,000 Nestorians?

►How Nestorians succeeded in spreading Christianity from Middle East to C...

►Georgia is a country between two civilizations - Europe & Asia, and Islam and Christianity

►Until the Russians came, Georgia had maintained its status as an independent state. ►Georgia has punched above its weight under Russian and Soviet rule - prime example: Stalin, the most powerful Soviet leader, was Georgian!

In this conversation, Dr. Jones takes us from the ancient and Medieval history of Georgia, including its conf...

►Did you know that the Arabic language has more than 60 words for 'love'?

►And did you know before Islam, Arabs had love poetry competition, and the best poems were written in gold and hung from the Kaaba?

►But what about love after the advent of Islam? Did you konw that romantic love is discussed in the Qur'an?

▶️Podcast: 🎧https://bit.ly/UME-S1E45

🚩About our guest:

My guest is Dr. Abla Hasan, a Fulbright Scholar, a professor and...

The long history of coexistence of between Muslims and Jews, which defies our common understanding of the Middle East, is the subject of this episode.

My guest describes the long, intertwined history of Muslims and Jews, and how in comparison to Christian Europe, for several centuries Jews lived in relative peace in the lands of Islam and even thrived. He ends our conversation by asking us all to remember what we forgot.

🚩About o...

The story of the Flood told before the Bible! Gilgamesh caused an uproar in Europe.

Translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh in 1872 riled up Christian Europe - embroiling Prime Minister Gladstone and Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Gilgamesh, which was written in cuneiform, is an ancient story that was told and taught in Mesopotamia for 3,000 years. But it was lost to history for more than 2,000 years until 1854.

It's an ancient tale of gods and...

How Ariel Sharon defied and deceived Israel's government to expand war in Lebanon - a former IDF Major shares his Lebanon War stories

►How did Israel get entangled in Lebanon?

►What was Israel's original plan for the 1982 Lebanon War and how did it change?

►How did Ariel Sharon trick the Israeli government into a military confrontation with the Syrians in Lebanon? ►Dr. Bregman's eyewitness account of the Lebanon War, including a...

Israel’s “Enlightened” occupation was the brainchild of Moshe Dayan. But Likud's 'revolutionary' 1977 election victory changed that.

In this interview, we discuss the following:

►Why was Israel's 1967 victory "cursed'?

►What id Mosheh Dayan mean by an "invisibl occupation"?

►How did the Likud Party's 1977 election victory change the Occupation? ►Did Israel draw lessons from past occupations in history? Or did it start the occu...

►Are U.S. sanctions on Iran working?

►Are U.S. sanctions against Iran actually working against the United States?

►Have sanctions empowered and emboldened Iran's Revolutionary Guard… to the point that they were ready for war with the United States? ►Did sanctions help Iran's regime crush the Mahsa Amini protests? ►Are sanctions a one-way ratchet - easy to impose, hard to lift? ►Iran's economic decline - due to sanctions or mis...

►What is Armenian feminism?

►Was there such a thing as Armenian feminism without Armenian nationalism?

►Why did Armenian feminism flourish in Istanbul? And why after the Armenian genocide? ►Were Armenians more educated than their Muslim counterparts? ►Was the Armenian feminist movement similar to its Western counterparts? ►Why does the denial of the Armenian genocide persist in Türkiye? ►How was the past, with all its dark ch...

►Fear - fabricated and real fear, nd how it caused the Armenian genocide

►Was the Armenian genocide a Holocaust?

►Why didn't the Ottomans kill all Armenians? ►What are the three ways to "eliminate" a people? ►Would the Armenian genocide have happened without WWI? ►Why does the denial of the Armenian genocide persist in Türkiye? ►What is a Greater Armenia? What is the Wilsonian Armenia? ►Is it legal in Türkiye to study the Ar...

►What is Kurdish nationalism?

►What is Ottoman nationalism with Kuridsh colors?

►Were Kurdish people expose to European ideas of freedom, indepedence and nationalism?

►What is one major obstance to Kurdish independence? 🚩About my guest:

⁠Dr. ⁠⁠⁠Djene Bajalan⁠ is a professor at Missouri State University. He is a historian of the Middle East specializing in the rise of nationalism and the evolution of the Kurdish question.

He ...

►Who are the Kurdish people? ►Is Kurdish related to any other Middle Eastern language? ►What religions do Kurdish people practice? ►Did Kurdish people ever have their own polity? 🚩About my guest:

Dr. ⁠⁠⁠Djene Bajalan is a professor at Missouri State University. He is a historian of the Middle East specializing in the rise of nationalism and the evolution of the Kurdish question.

He is the ⁠⁠⁠author and/or editor of the follo...

►Ancient theology vs. mythology ►How drunken gods created incapicitated people ►Humans were created to toil for gods ►Polytheism set the stage for monotheism ►Unlike monotheism, polytheism was tolerant 🚩About my guest:

⁠⁠Dr. Jillian Schwedler⁠⁠ is a professor of political science at the City University of New York’s Hunter College and the Graduate Center, and also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Crown Center at Brandeis Uni...

►Before Monotheism, what were the big religions of the ancient Middle East? ►What are the 4 constitutive elements of religion? ►In polytheism, there is no individual choice or belief. Regardless, polytheism is tolerant. ►Does the term 'religion' make sense in the context of Ancient Middle East? ►Does the term God make sense in the context of Ancient Middle East? ►Monotheism is very much tide to the rise of empires - pa...

►Why do Jordanians protest about water? ►Does Jordan coordinate its budget with the U.S.? ►How do protests in Jordan compare to other countries, such as protests in Iran or the U.S.? ►Why does the government of Jordan promote images of stability and instability? ►Why are cartoonists getting arrests in Jordan for alleged terrorism? ►Is Jordan essentially a U.S. protectorate? ►Is Jordan forever on the brink of a revolution?

🚩...

►Were the Hashemite royal family foreigners in Jordan? ►Did Jordan’s Hashemites belong to a larger, transnational royal family? ►How does the Hashemite royal family’s history impact Jordan’s national identity and nation-building efforts now? ►Why Jordanian protesters and cartoonists poke fun of King Abdullah II’s Arabic ►How were tribal protests in Jordan during Ottoman and British rules different than now? ►If Jordan is not a d...