Scholars Unravel Middle East
217 scholars (and counting) distill decades of research into an hour conversation, to unravel the misperceptions that divide East and West and clarify our common misconceptions about the Middle East - from its ancient past to its present developments. I am Adel Aali, your host. This program is a production of History Behind News podcast (now in its 5th season). Subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/@ScholarsUnravelMiddleEast?sub_confirmation=1
Episodes
Iran—a nation shaped by imperial memory and modern vulnerability.
Not too long ago, Iran was far larger than it is today. European expansion and colonial intervention cut away at its territories—provinces and realms that had long been part of Iran… or were imagined to be.
This is the history of how Iran’s shifting borders shaped the modern state—and how, in turn, the idea of the Iranian homeland continu...
Who were the Iranians of the 1979 Revolution? Was it an Islamic revolution?
🚩About My Guest:
Dr. Naghmeh Sohrabi is a professor of Middle East History and the Director for Research at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University.
This interview was initially published in our History Behind News Channel in October 2022, during the Mahsa Amini protests in Iran. She is the author of the book "Taken for Wonder: Nine...
Is Jordan a stable country? Where do Jordanians practice politics? In protests? Or in the polls and parliament?
In this interview, I discuss the following with my guest:
▶️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?
▶️W...
Who was Timur? How did he manage to conquer much of Asia? Did he exercise brutality beyond the imagination of even the Mongols?
What was his vision for his conquered lands? And why is it that the West hardly remembers him in contrast to Genghis Khan, whom the West remembers?
🚩About My Guest:
Prof. Peter Jackson is Emeritus Professor of Medieval History at Keele University in Staffordshire, England. His scholarship covers the Mongo...
A secretive religion? A cohesive & strong community spread across several Middle East nations. This is the history of the Druze.
🚩In this interview:
►Who are the Druze?
►Do they practice a secretive religion?
►Can you convert to become Druze?
►Druze in IDF. Druze in Hezbollah. Druze in Asad's army.
►Druze during the Fatimid period.
►Who founded the Druze religion?
►Stories of Druze reincarnations.
►Druze connection to the land...
A secretive religion? A cohesive & strong community spread across several Middle East nations. This is the history of the Druze.
🚩In this interview:
►Who are the Druze?
►Do they practice a secretive religion?
►Can you convert to become Druze?
►Druze in IDF. Druze in Hezbollah. Druze in Asad's army.
►Druze during the Fatimid period.
►Who founded the Druze religion?
►Stories of Druze reincarnations.
►Druze connection to the land...
From major league baseball to major league Middle East.
🚩In this interview:
►An all-American guy
►Tommy Lasorda & baseball's nerve-racking lesson for a scholar of Middle East
►It's important to cry!
►Does empathy compromise objectivity?
►Alamo & Middle East
►Clash of civilizations
►Pres. Trump's letter to Pres. Assad
►Dr. Lesch's relationship with Pres. Assad
►Pres. Assad in Russia.
►A scarred championship ring and its lesson...
Does Iran need reform or another revolution? History of Iran's two & half 20th century revolutions answers that question.
🚩In this interview:
►Iran's Constitutional Revolution, 1905-11
►Clergy vs. intellectuals
►Iran's fundamental law
►Dividing Iran into two - Russian and British empires
►Russian 1905 Revolution & the Young Turk Revolution of 1908
►"Innocence" of Iran's Constitutional Revolution
►Comparing Iran's 1979 Islamic ...
Alone in the Middle East! Imperial Iran… Safavids, Qajars, and even the Pahlavis - alone in the Middle East. And then, the Ayatollahs. Again, Iran alone in the Middle East.
🚩In this interview:
►What is it about Iran and its history that separates it from the rest of the Middle East?
►Who was Reza Shah and why is he so important to Iran's modern history?
►What was the last Shah's primary national security fear?
►Have the Ayat...
The Mongols built the largest contiguous land empire in history, yet their story is often reduced to conquest and destruction. In this interview, Dr. Timothy May examines how the Mongols transformed tribal societies into a unified empire, why their armies consistently defeated larger opponents, how they governed the lands they conquered, and what their rule meant for the Middle East. The conversation also explores how later generat...
Did you know that up to the Partition of India in 1947, Kashmiri Muslims lived in conditions that very much resembled serfdom? Exploitation of Kashmiri Muslims was particularly notable during the Dogra Dynasty, which ruled the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1846 to 1947.
In this interview, I bring historical perspective to conflicts and crises about Kashmir by asking my guest scholar the following questions:
►Is Jammu...
Why do great civilizations weaken—and how do tribal peoples rise to build new empires? Dr. Jack Weatherford explains Ibn Khaldun’s theories of civilization, tribal solidarity, and the forces that bring powerful societies down. We then turn to Genghis Khan: his conquests, his protection of individual religious freedom, and the women who helped govern the Mongol Empire.
About My Guest
Dr. Jack Weatherford is an American ant...
Did you know that Allah had daughters? Did you know that before Muhammad, tribes of Arabia already believed in Allah? And if so, then, what did Muhammad offer them?
In this interview, I discuss the following about pre-Islamic Arabia:
►a hotbed of monotheistic religions
►What is Henotheism?
►the high God and the intermediary gods
►Allah and his daughters
►Kaaba's history: water, idols and a meteor
►Kaaba - a big business
►Quraysh - po...
The Turkic peoples did not descend from a single, unified ethnic population. Their history is largely the story of how Turkic languages spread across Eurasia—and how diverse peoples became Turkic-speaking over centuries.
In my interview with Dr. Peter Golden, we trace this history from the first Turkic empires and the migrations of the Oghuz and Seljuks to the Khazars, Mamluks, Safavids and Ottomans.
We also examine how languag...
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 confli...
►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...
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