 Ladies and gentlemen, Khonum Hovaoghoyon and Darnesh Juyana Azizam, my darling students who have joined us tonight. How wonderful to see so many old and I hope some new friends of the Center for Iranian Studies and for Iran Society who have joined us this evening. My name is Nargis Farzad. I'm the Senior Lecturer in Persian Studies at the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at SOAS and the current Chair of Center for Iranian Studies. Tonight, we are delighted to host the Iran Society who have organized what will be a splendid conversation between an old SOAS colleague and friend, Professor Ali Ansari, before St Andrews University snatched him away from us and Tom Holland, the award-winning historian and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. The full introduction of our two distinguished guests will be given by Anthony Nguyen, the Chairman of Iran Society, who I'm sure is known to the rather wonderful number of Iran Society members who are here tonight. I have not been privy to the ideas that Ali and Tom may discuss tonight, but when I think of how the Persians could have had a much more conspicuous presence in the world in perhaps a little less invidious way than currently done, I think of the letter that Frederick Engels wrote to Karl Marx on 6th of June 1853 from Manchester. Engels had been trying to learn Persian, it seems, and with palpable excitement, he tells Marx, in this long letter, that Persian is as close as can be to the language universal tut-truvi, the universal language if ever found. Imagine how much larger my classes would be in such a utopia. I now invite Mr Anthony Nguyen to tell you a little more about our guests tonight. Thank you very much, and our guests. The Iran Society, which I chair, were extremely grateful to so ask for allowing us to use this room this evening. I'd like to congratulate you all for coming in so punctually. The last time I had to get a large crowd in was in Istanbul. There were 600 Scottish Highlanders. We had to move them from the reception room to the dining room, and the chef was very temperamental and said, you've got to get them in on time, otherwise the food will be cold. Now you try moving 600 Highlanders. You know what we did? We got a belly dancer. We couldn't afford a belly dancer this evening, but anyway, so thank you for coming in on time. Now this evening, we've got two people here. We've got Elian Sarri, who is a member of the Council of the Iran Society. Now the guest is also a member of the Council of the Iran Society. The Iran Society, for those of you who don't know, was founded originally in 1911 as the Persia Society. It was then refounded in 1935 as the Iran Society, and we've been going pretty much ever since with the odd gap for wars and things like that. What we do is, we promote the knowledge of Iranian history and culture and art and architecture and archaeology and all that sort of thing, but we do keep away from contemporary politics simply because there are plenty of other places for that. So this evening, we have in the blue corner, Elian Sarri, Professor Elian Sarri, Professor of Modern History at St Andrews University. He is, for those who don't know, he's the go-to man for radio and TV when they want an instant comment on Iran. Ali Zuman. He's the author of Modern Iran, the Politics of Nationality, and he's all written the book on Iran, a short introduction, and he's got another book in a work in progress. And he joined up with Tom Holland on a radio program, which you've probably come across called The Rest is History, which had a fascinating conversation which lasted 50 minutes. We had had, I don't know, how many thousands of followers. And which gave the idea for this meeting. So that brings me neatly on to Tom Holland, who needs absolutely no introduction. Thank goodness because his Wikipedia entries extends to six pages. But suffice it to say that he is a polymath. His principal interest in life was dinosaurs, which, well, that'll bring us conversation, I think, can come from that. Radio programs, TV documentaries on classical Greece, the origins of Islam, ISIS. But the thing about his books, if you haven't read them, they are immensely accessible and really rattling good yarns. And the book that's brought us about this evening is his book, Persian Fire, which has a rather disparaging Greek view of the Persians, which Ali Ansari might help him to put right. Over to you. Thank you very much, Anthony. And we were told as we were coming in that we're going to have to sit here with microphones. If for any reason this slips, do alert me. And for those of you who are sitting on this side, I will try and turn regularly, obviously, Juniors, here, is to see you there to make sure that you're not ignored. Now, there are two small things that I wish to just start the evening with. One is to just a little bit on the semantics. It is what have the Persians done for us. Obviously, I'm using the term, and we are using the term Persian in its European sense. You will find that we will use Persian and Iran interchangeably throughout the discussion. British sea English. That's right. So we don't want the Iranian sea Persian. We will, we will. But you might also find that we're spreading a little bit further in the Persianate world. The other thing for those of you who have listened to this superb podcast that Tom co-hosts, we probably won't be able to reach all the many and varied contributions that the Persians have made to world civilization. So if you're disappointed at the end of this, I do apologize. We only have a limited amount of time, as I had actually on the podcast. And I'm still waiting for part two, but in any case, without further ado, I want to continue, we're going to kick off now with Tom is going to lead the conversation really about how we see Persia's contribution to wider civilization. Now, I wanted to ask you, Tom, first of all, I think Anthony hinted at some of these things that you've obviously had a great interest in Iran and Persia. But how did this develop? Well, he said that Persian fire had a very negative take on the Persians. I don't think so at all. I think I make the case, certainly in the introduction, that Persia is at least, if not more, as influential on world history as Athens. I mean, certainly more than Sparta. But I should say that talking of Sparta, I mean, this is how I first became interested in Persia. It was as a boy. And I'm afraid, Ali, that all the darkest suspicions of the Iran society will be confirmed by this. So this is a book called The Armies of the Greek World. And this is an illustration by Peter Connolly. And I adored it. And I must have drawn it a million times. And I became obsessed by the great drama, as told by Herodotus of the Persian invasions of Greece first under Darius. The expedition defeated at Marathon. And then 10 years later, the great invasion force led by Xerxes, who wins at Thermopylae, which this is showing, and then defeated at Salamis and Plataea. And for me, as a young boy reading all this stuff, I was completely on the Greek side. I totally bought into the idea of Persia as an evil empire. But what kind of started to muddle it for me was actually reading Herodotus. Because I became so obsessed by it that I realized that if I really wanted to get to grips with this story, I was going to have to read a Greek classic. And it was the first classic I'd ever read. It was the first time I'd been in our local library that I went to the kind of the grown-up section. And what struck me when I read Herodotus and astonished me was that actually, Herodotus was often incredibly complimentary about the Persians. He admired them. Certainly is. I mean, there's a lot more mutual respect than I think the popular history would allow us to think, really. Well, I mean, Herodotus was a subject of the Persian Empire. And it's evident that he knew aspects of it quite well. I mean, he has this famous line that the Persians teach only three things to shoot the bow, to ride a horse, and to tell the truth. And it was that telling the truth that kind of stuck with me. And so one of the things that always I came to wonder about was, well, why is there no Persian equivalent of Herodotus? As a child, my assumption was, well, how ridiculous the Persians didn't write history. And they wonder, well, you have to, you know... Too busy making it. Well, yeah, exactly. Well, yes, yes, making it. But then I think basically kind of emancipating themselves from it. Because this was the conclusion that I came to, was that actually what makes the Persians distinctive in the course of world history and why their impact has been so seismic is that they are the first people, I think, to cast a vast global empire in overtly moral terms. And to say that their empire, in a sense, is the end point of history. Long before Francis Fukuyama, I think the Achaemenid kings had come to see their empires embodying the end of history. And to illustrate this, this is the exception that proves the rule. This is really the kind of the principle, Achaemenid Persian narrative that we do have. And it's authored by the guy on the far left, Darius, the great, who is standing on a prostrate foe, who, according to Darius, is a liar king. It's someone who's pretending to be of royal blood, but isn't, and has been smoked out by Darius. And all the guys in front who are kind of tethered and cringing before him, they are also liars. They are liar kings, which obviously establishes Darius as the guardian and the teller of the truth. Now, the reality may well be, I suspect almost certain years, is that Darius is protesting too much and that actually he staged a coup and that the king who he claims is a liar was in fact the legitimate king. But what Darius is doing here is casting himself, not just as the rightful true king, but as a king who is a defender of truth in a cosmic sense, that the order of the Persian empire is synonymous with the truth that is locked in a great cosmic battle with the lie, light and darkness, good and evil. And that sense of an imperial order that can define itself in those terms is obviously going to be hugely, hugely momentous. And that's why I think this is such a kind of a crucial text because you start to see all kinds, just like little acorns being dropped that you know will grow into huge trees inscribed on these texts. So there is a people called the Elamites who keep breaking out against Darius' rule, and Darius ends up so impatient that he condemns them for not worshipping Ahura Mazda, the great God who embodies truth and order and light and everything that Darius is identifying himself with. He condemns the Elamites for not worshipping them, not worshipping him. And that's a really kind of radical. So it's not so much just, and I think this is a very important and distinctive point I think which you've raised before, it's not simply this idea of constructing universal empire, but universal empire based on a moral order and good and evil are very clearly defined. And so what you find is an empire that's not founded on the principle necessarily of force but of authority, which I think is quite a distinctive sort of achievement and maybe contribution. Yes, and that essentially, if Darius is launching punitive expeditions against barbarians in distant mountainous lands, then it's for their own good and it's for the good of the moral order of the universe. So actually when I was writing Persian fire, the Americans were getting ready to launch their campaign in Afghanistan, a remote mountainous back quarter. And it seemed to me very clear that actually the line of descent from the ancient world, it was the Americans who were the Persians. The Americans were not really playing the role of the Athenians in this battle, however much they might pretend to. And the reason why the Persian kings distract themselves from history is that after this, Darius and his heirs are able to cast themselves as kind of figures of absolute moral power. There is no place for personality, there is no place for history because the Persian empire is the embodiment of everything that is good and true and correct. And those who oppose him are agents of darkness, agents of demons, agents of the lie. And this reflects a Zoroastrian ethic in a sense, a new type of faith? So the question of whether the Darius and the Achaemenid kings are Zoroastrian is furiously debated, I think probably not because I think the idea of a Zoroastrian kind of institutional structure is much later, but it's drawing on these traditions. And that kind of dualism which is so kind of fundamental to the way that the ancient Persians see the world and which is so influential, of course on the Jews, on Christians, on Muslims, I think that this stands as almost like a kind of buried spring from which all the great momentous globe-changing religious traditions rise from. And again, you can see it in this because not only is Darius condemning the Elamites, say, for failing to worship his god, and by the standards of the age, why should they? I mean, it's not a Persian god. The Elamites worship their own gods. I mean, that would be accepted. But you see there a kind of glimmering of Crusade and Jihad, just a kind of foreshadowing. But you also get Darius promising his troops that if they fight well, then essentially they will go to heaven. And again, these are very, very momentous straws in the wind, I think. You see them reflected in obviously the other great religions that emerge. Yes, and of course... Not that we want to claim the Persian origins of all the Abrahamic faiths, but let's go for it. Well, except that you will know that the king who reigns too ahead of Darius, Cyrus the Great, he is hailed by Isaiah, Deutero, Isaiah, as the anointed one, the Christos, the Messiah. So the portrait of the Persian kings in the Old Testament is a very positive one. And I think reflects the way in which trace elements of Persian influence are definitely to be found there. And over the course of Christian and Muslim history as well, that sense that dualism answers many of the problems that an all-powerful, good God presents to religious believers. That is a way out. Explains the origins of evil, basically. In that sense, in a much easier way. I think the other thing which I find quite striking about that sort of faith system, in a way, is that the Persian kings and the Persians as a whole, in that religious view, they are part of a struggle for achieving Ahura Mazda's aims, in a sense. They're not simply the playthings of the gods. They are part of the process of trying to achieve the good order. Now, how you define good and evil is another matter, clearly. The king does that. But on the other hand, it's quite an interesting, I would say certainly an interesting contribution that the Persians make to that longer sense of universalism, that ability to define a moral order. And I think explains why the Greeks and the Persians so often seem at cross purposes. Because for the Persians, the idea of gods who just lie as a matter of course, which the Greek gods do, of course it seems incomprehensible. And likewise, when you read Herodotus writing about the Persian devotion to truth, he's framing it in a kind of a Greek way. He doesn't properly get a handle on what, you know, the cosmic significance of the idea of truth for the Persian kings. So there's, you know, there's a very kind of fertile but inevitably kind of prone to kind of generating miscomprehension in that relationship, I think. And these Persian religious traditions will, again, because of their influence on the Christian and Muslim traditions in the long run, when you trace back fairly fundamental notions like the idea of time having a direction, time having a purpose, that time begins and it ends. Which is very contrary to the way that most ancient civilizations understand the nature of time. I mean, that's pretty fundamental. So you could say that the idea of progress is ultimately a Persian idea. And certainly the idea that, you know, eschatology, the idea that the world will come to an end, so you could say that, you know, our panic about climate change is Persian as well. Well, I think it's all stacking up. Because of our interest in green issues, which will come on to later, I think. Well, I think we should come on to them right now. Or should we come on to them now? I mean, the Persians are, yes. Ah, here we are, some very fetching footwear. So the Persians would be very, you know, the ancient Persians would be very worried about climate change because they loved their gardens. They loved their gardens. And so when, according to Herodotus, when Xerxes' advisors were trying to persuade him to invade Greece, the clinching argument was to say, well, there are amazing plants there that you haven't got. And Xerxes goes, brilliant. There's a tree he's after. Yes, kind of plants. And there's this amazing story about how he's approaching Sardis, the capital of Lydia, you know, with his invasion force. And there's a plain tree of such exquisite beauty that he hangs it with golden ornaments and sets guards on it. And this is what, in spite of, you know, over a long process of repeating the story, is what you get in Handel's great opera. You know, the great Aria about Xerxes falling in love with the tree. And it's, I mean, I picked this slide of the ward garden in a way to at least give that impression of how significant this sort of ordered sort of beauty is. Well, yes, because what is the, what is that, walled garden called? Yeah, well, yes, paradise. And there you are in paradise. Well, paradise is a Persian word, and obviously we like to think it's Persian in origin. But maybe not in destination at the moment. But the idea being that it's a sort of a man's, I suppose in some way man's not dominance, but certainly engagement with nature in a way. Well, the freeze in the previous slide of the king fighting, I think it was a lion, wasn't it? Well, it's sort of the beast of some sort, isn't it? The previous slide, sorry. So this is a sepanus, and it's meant to be a beast, which is sort of, that's the sort of the lie. So there is the idea that nature has to be termed, tamed, so that's the beast. But with plants and with... That's right. You know, this is, and the king casts himself as a gardener. So there's the... I'm a very keen gardener by the way. I just want people to be aware. I wouldn't doubt it. I wouldn't doubt it. But there's the famous anecdote of Cyrus the Younger. Yes, that's a great story. Who gets visited by a Spartan and gets shown around his paradise, again at Sardis. And the Spartan compliments Cyrus on the expertise of his slaves. And Cyrus says, no, no, it's me, my green fingers. And that's that idea that the world is a garden. He's shocked, isn't he? He's shocked, yes. Yeah, but the idea that the world is a garden to be tended, I mean, that's very much an idea that... Well, I think the Persians can make a claim to being the first environmentalists, to be honest. So I think that's... Certainly they were much more connected to nature and I think they understood the power of nature. I think I don't know whether we're going on the right-hand side at the moment, but do you want to go on... So you said something else that the Persians have offered the world, is their incredible sense of fashion. Yes, very great. The Persian kings were famous for their platform heels. And high heels was obviously a tradition that passed down the many centuries, because it became an influence in the 17th century on European fashion. It did, it did. And of course, one of the reasons, and those are much later, you'll be pleased to know, those are not our community high heels. These are actually Safavid, but it's basically because of the Persian love of horseback riding, and therefore these high heels are comfortable with the stirrups. But these then become a fashion accessory really in Europe by the 17th century and become part of the fashion that's brought over from Persia. We use that word, Persia, very deliberately, because Persia, of course, in the western imagination in this period is something that's both familiar and slightly exotic. So it's got a certain cachet to bring things over from Persia and to adopt Persian fashion. But I think you get a sense, again, right the way back to Herodotus, that the Persians are very keen on wearing the correct footwear and it's not just about the riding. Unlike the Kaiser. Unlike the Kaiser. Unlike the Kaiser. Unlike the Kaiser. But so there's a story that when Cambyses, who was the son of Cyrus who dies just before Darius stages his coup, that when he conquers Egypt, he allots a town each to one of his sisters, which are responsible purely with keeping the royal sisters in suitable footwear. So imagine being given a town and their entire job is then to provide you with shoes. Sensible policies for a happier Persia. The other major fashion innovation, I have to say, is the trouser, which I'm very pleased to say, which I'm glad to say most of us are acquainted with. And of course, but the trouser was seen, was it not by the Greeks? Is it effeminate? Hilariously effeminate. Yes, hilariously effeminate. Yes, so a Greek coming here would be appalled by the unmanly quality of our dress. So I think that's another way in which the Persians have influenced our... And there we have the meads, obviously the meads are the ones that bring in the trousers. And then there's a Parthian priest for those of us who are interested in Parthians. So yes, with some very good leather chaps. So these are all great. These are all the springs, the kind of small streams that over the course of the centuries and the millennia have become mighty flowing rivers of influence. One other, which before we move on from the Kymenids into more recent times, is slightly darker. So people may recognise this as the Marquis de Sade. The Marquis de Sade saluted the Persians as the people who had most expertly mastered the art of torture. And he derived this from classical texts in which the Persians were celebrated for their ability to kill people in very refined and sophisticated ways. And the Romans, of course, who were incredibly famous for crucifying people, they believed the Persians for having given them the idea. I have to say that when Tom was writing his book Dominion on the influence of Christianity on the Western imagination and Western consciousness, he said to me, he said, you're going to like this book, he said, because I'm going to send you the introduction. It starts with Darius, and it starts with the Persians, he said. And I got very excited and thought, yes, Zoroastrianism is the foundation of Christianity. Of course, the chapter opens with crucifixion. And the way in which the Persians had basically, or certainly the Romans felt, that the Persians had invented crucifixion and this was a particularly vile method of, such a vile method of killing someone, it couldn't have been a Roman invention. Yes, that's right. But anyway, so the Marquis de Sade big fan of Persia as well. So going right the way back, the ancient beginnings of so much that we take for granted. I mean, and I think the Marquis de Sade is a good, well, probably not the best segue for me, but on the other hand, I'm willing to take this and run with it. Partly as a sort of a transition to the modern period in a way. Although, you know, one of the things to recap is I think that what we have in the Persian contribution, quite apart from fashion, quite apart from environmentalism and gardens, is I think something much more profound which is really the nature of power and authority in the ancient world with that notion of a moral empire. And I think that's a very significant contribution which emanates also from that sort of Zoroastrian heritage, however much it's a much more fluid Zoroastrian heritage. But this idea that even Nietzsche comments on, on the fact that the Persians are the ones who contribute to this idea of good and evil, I think this is a profound one which many other people take up. And of course for me, I think one of the interesting things if we go forward is that sadly, yes, I don't know why I put these slides, but it is mainly this bit like Tom, a bit like Tom. So Tom, you know, as he said, he grew up and I was also very fond of that Peter Connolly. I had that book too for some reason. So you, I mean, you were born in Iran, but then... Well, they're not born in Iran actually, born in Europe, but basically my schooling is very cosmopolitan as we said. But not so much, I have to say, one of the interesting things about learning, about Iranian history or Persian history is that really for a long period of time, certainly Persian history was seen very much as a subsidiary of the Western narrative if you could put it that way. We were always seen there as sort of bit part actors really. Those on the margins in a sense. So basically they had to be defeated actually, which was a bit of a shame really. I mean, I found that irritating. But also the fact that, you know, the great project of kind of resurrecting the ancient Persian Empire, the Kaimanid, has been a massive scholarly project. Exactly. For decades now. But also with the Sasanians, the great empire that is the great superpower rival of Rome in late antiquity, that it gets destroyed by the Arabs in a way that Byzantium's rival doesn't. And so, in a sense, the process by which the Sasanian legacy survives is occluded because the Persians become Muslim, but their pride in their legacy, the pride in their history is such that in a way they kind of do a reverse takeover, don't they? Well, it is one of my favourite phrases, and I never know who to credit this with, but feel free to. Captive Persia took prisoner, her conquerors. And I think captive Persia is constantly taking prisoner, her conquerors. It's a fascinating dynamic, you're quite right. And I think one of the issues for me is I was going through my own education and my own understanding of Persia's influence in world history was certainly this question of the Sasanians and the legacy of the Sasanians, but also the legacy of the Parthians, to be honest. Largely, you know, occluded not only even in mythological and traditional Persian history that we have in the Shahrama, the Book of Kings that many of you know, but also in terms of the rediscovery of that narrative in the writing of Iranian history over the last 100 years. My own view is that actually there's been a real revolution in our understanding of Sasanian history and late antique history over the last 20 to 30 years, actually. There's a lot more information has come to light. A number of you here actually have been participants in a number of workshops and other things we've had, which show actually that far from a little bit like this idea that when the Archimedes Empire forced to Alexander, you know, that's the end of it and there's the Hellenisation of the East. Actually, you know, I'm increasingly of the view that Alexander was the last of the Archimedes Kings. Yeah. You know, I mean, if you look at it, I'm increasingly of the view that Alexander wanted to inherit the Persian mantle. And again, you see that with the fall of the Sasanians, that there's a huge influence of Sasanian politics, culture, history, art on the subsequent Arab caliphates that emerge. And the need on, you know, the very fabric of Islam. That's right. Yeah. Absolutely. Much more than people think. There are three prayers that are prescribed. Yes. But the idea of five prayers seems to derive from Zoroastrian influence. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And basically, because the Sasanian Empire has absorbed wholesale into the new Muslim polity, a lot of the administration, a lot of the attitudes towards government and it all seemed to come from that, you know, the Sasanian model that they adopt. I mean, we see similar things which will come to later, obviously, in India later, but we'll talk about that a little bit later in terms of imperial structures. I mean, the influence of Persian ideas of empire and of the cosmos, it is, I think, reflected in the way that the caliphate emerges. I think so. And certainly in the Abbasid Caliphate. Yeah. And certainly in the Abbasid Caliphate. I think it's very clear. I think it's very clear there. And you can see the legacy, certainly, in the first several hundred years, actually, of the early Muslim period. But I think also, I mean, now I guess, is sitting here as well. I mean, we can see also the wide influence in language. We tend to see a lot of the time the argument being that, you know, Persian and New Persian has a lot of Arabic influence, which obviously it does. But I think there's a greater acknowledgement that there's also a lot of continuity between Middle Persian and New Persian. So that influence, I think, continues. And I think it's very influential even in the modern period when the West becomes also reacquainted with that Persian history, when they start to travel to Safafid, Iran, and when they start to reacquaint themselves also with older texts. And a lot of that has to do also with the British in India, the British and French in India, where they start to uncover texts that deal with Zoroastrian and other things. But what I was fascinated with is really that when the Europeans approach Persia, they don't approach Persia as complete they're not completely ignorant of this, of course. They have an understanding through the Bible and through the classics. But what they then do is they then become also reacquainted and attached to many of the things that they see in Persia as... And in India, right? And in India. Because the Mughal administration in India is Persian. And one of the things that we have to remember is the Persianate world is obviously faster than Iran itself. So the Persianate world in the language of government and politics in a lot of these areas. Certainly stretching from the Ottoman Empire. I always like to claim the Ottoman Empire, by the way. Any Ottomanist here, go read Toinbi. He'll tell you it's all part of Iran civilization. But the stretch of that, the influence of Persian ideas, I think, is very, very strong there. And say British administrators who had studied in Greek in their schools but are then going out to India and are playing the part of Persian civil servants often. I mean, they're kind of slipping into roles that had been established and draw on Persian traditions and are having to learn Persian up until... This is my catch point for those of you who serve in HMG. I was always struck by the fact that during elections the civil service goes into Perda and I was wondering what on earth they were doing going into Perda. But of course, Perda is a nice Persian word and, you know, Padir. So basically, you're going behind the veil. Effectively, you're going quiet and you're not going to talk about things. And you won't mention politics. Now, where does this influence come from? This influence comes from, really, from the Indian civil service and the Indian civil service. I mean, what's fascinating, really, when you look at it, is that Persian as a language taught to examination level I think was probably first taught in this country, ironically, for the Indian civil service and to learn the means and methods of sort of government. So many of these British civil servants were learning Persian means of administration and they quoted, you know, the works of Saudi, for instance, in terms of ethical poetry, how it is to approach, you know, the governance of peoples. And does this then influence the way the civil service is structured back in London? Could we say... Well, I think so. The civil service is actually Persian. I think so. I mean, I think at the end of the day and you see, you thought we were being serious. So, yes. So the argument here, and I think we can take it a step further tonight, Top, as a little bit of a bonus. Go for it. I think it's not simply the fact that the civil service is really a product of the Indian civil service, which owes its debt to the Mogul civil service, which then owes its debt, obviously, to Persian ideas of government, ultimately, to Dizam or Mulk, actually, to be honest. But there you are. There is a strong lineage there of debt. But I think also in some ways, you know, we were talking about the sort of the ideas of the Persian empires and stuff as being moral orders. Moral orders are good, and even you hinted at this also in terms of the Americans in the start of the global war and terror, but we could go back to some of the European empires, too. It seems to me that actually in some ways the British and other empires were not modelled on the Roman Empire at all, but were really modelled on the Persian Empire. Well, so the guy who recognises that was Cursan, who, as a young man, travelled through Persia, visited Persepolis and was terribly impressed by it. I mean, kind of... He was overwhelmed by it. And he was the viceroy who was, perhaps one might say, most like Darius in his approach to imperial administration. I mean, he loved... He loved all the swagger and the colour and the... He did. He did. And also the match... Well, that's the other thing we can add to, but since we're coming up to the coronation, we can talk about, you know, Persian concepts of majesty, actually, and the pomp and circumstance that goes with that. And certainly, the ceremony that we see in this country is drawn really... It's quite late, I mean, it's 19th century and it's drawn very much from a sort of a... It's a sort of a part of India and these are essentially modeled on Persian ideas of kingship. So it's... I mean, I think we can lay claim to that. I don't think that's too far. And certainly, in this sympathetic audience, I think I will. Yeah. And Ali, just on the topic of the civil servant, of course, traditionally, the uniform of the civil servant has been the suit. So we've already identified trousers as being... This I want to hear, actually, because I want to see the suit. Well, so trousers, obviously, we owe to the leather trousers with the beads, ultimately. But the jacket, this is also Persian, isn't it? Well, actually, yes, that is true that the Persian coat was adopted in the courts of Europe in the 17th century. Yes, and they called it the Persian coat. It's not quite the nice suit that we find today, but the Persian coat was definitely, if you look at the distinctive change in fashion from the early to the late 17th century, you can see that something happens and it follows on from the court of Louis XIV and then other courts follow suit. Yeah. And they call it the Persian coat. I'm not sure how Persian it was, but I'll take it. But in a very real sense, I have come here dressed... You have? You have? You pay my homage... ...to the great tradition of Persia, that the suit would be unthinkable without that Persian. I think one of the things that's also quite interesting is why the West and why Westerners were so keen to adopt and absorb many of the ideas from Persia. And I think one of the things that I was working on and discovered really is because it's not simply the idea that Persia is part of the Biblical or the classical inheritance. It's also because in a curious and a very distinct way, Persia is seen as part of this civilised world and a civilised world that produces many of the things that a civilisation does, including gardens, of course, but also great poetry and we're not short of great poets in Persia, are we nagging? So the Europeans were very keen on the sort of engagement with the great literature of Persia as a literary land. The Rubai of Omachiam, which leads us nicely into the achievements of science. Nice segue there by Tom. So Omachiam, of course, who's very much celebrated by Edward Fitzgerald and others as a great poet is, of course, known in Iran really as a great scientist, and this is another thing that I think the great contributions of the Persians to world civilisation is in the realm of science, albeit in the classical age, in the medieval and classical age, but nonetheless, as I never tire telling people, Omachiam was able to calculate the length of the year to a more finite point, I think to a more exact point back in the 11th century that hadn't been bettered until the 20th century, which is quite an achievement for a medieval scientist, I have to say, and something that I think, along with many of the other scientists of that period in the Persianate world that made quite distinct contributions not only to astronomy but also to geography and mathematics. So what you're saying is that years of Persian as well? Yeah, it's not only time, years, end of time, messiahs, let's go for it. I haven't got to ice-cream yet, I'm not going to touch spaghetti so don't worry about that. Can you not go for ice-cream? We can go for ice-cream, I think. I mean, I had started with spaghetti in the podcast and was roundly told off by a number of people who said this is simply not true. Although, you know, I sort of think... But tall stories as well. Because in the Chardonnay, isn't it the origins of Iran go back 80 billion years? No, no, no, that was a no, that was a rather enthusiastic, if I may say so, nationalist historian from the early 20th century who thought he would calculate the length of the reigns of all the kings in the Chardonnay and calculated the length of the kingdom of Persia to be some 10 billion years. Which, as someone pointed out, was far longer than the length of the planet. Well, there you go. But obviously, as I said, that means that everything originates in Persia then, clearly. Well, yes. So that would, yeah, tall stories like that. I distracted you from ice-cream. Ice-cream? No, no, I think there is a certain amount of evidence for ice-cream. And I actually think there's a certain amount of evidence for noodles, because obviously I don't believe... Marco Polo never got to China. Let's be honest about it. He got stuck in Persia and that's where he went. Yeah, I think we're coming to the final slide, which means that I think... But you just got to tell about ice-cream. Well, ice-cream, you know... I don't know much about it, really, apart from the way we invented it. We'll chalk that up. And it's very good. So these are actually just... I mean, really, to go back, these are... This is from the Chelle Soutoon Palace in Isfahan, for those of you familiar with that. It's one of the earliest depictions of Europeans in Iran from the 17th century. And as you'll see on the walls there, what is quite interesting is not only the early 17th century dress, but also the depiction of dogs, which is quite interesting for the society, the Muslim society of the time. But it shows the growing engagement of Europeans with Iran in this period, trade, politics, literature and others, and then basically the systematic growth of relations from the 19th century onwards. And I think, you know, from then, that exchange, and as I was saying earlier, the way in which knowledge of Persia and knowledge of the Persian language grows exponentially, I think, certainly in western countries and certainly in this country. So if we just kind of try and sum up, one of the things that's evident from the influence that Persia has had for thousands of years is its geographical centrality, that it abuts all kinds of other major cultures, and therefore is a kind of a melting pot. Crossroads, you know. Crossroads, I know, cliche, I know, all that kind of stuff. But also, you know, as you said, it's also very vulnerable to invasion, but it always seems able to kind of cannibalize the culture of the invaders and turn them into Persians, and then to export its culture again. So it's a kind of constant process. I suppose modern Iran in the form of the Iranian Revolution, again, I mean, its influence has been seismic on modern history. I mean, the influence of the Iranian Revolution has been stupendous. I mean, and all the more so, surprising when you consider that it's not a sunny country. That's probably because also, as a revolution, and I don't want to get too much into the influences it may or may not have. But it certainly, what it does is it also borrows very heavily from western traditions, regurgitates it, then reproduces it. And I think one of the interesting things, of course, throughout history, is one of the great strengths of Persian culture has been that ability, that cosmopolitanism that has turned things, taken things, invented them, and reproduced them, and put them out. And you see this right, you know, Herodotus, of course, says that no one is keener to adopt the way of others than the Persians. So you see this, and you see this even in the 19th century as British travelers to Iran say that the Persians are amongst all the oriental peoples the most willing to really explore, investigate and adopt the means of others. And to learn. While remaining Persian. Yes. The interesting thing, when you think about it, the continuities are stupefying. I mean, it's possible to trace the idea of a Persian nation back. It's certainly possible to identify a sort of a Persian identity. Maybe Armenia would be the other. Well, Armenia is really Persian. Yeah. So it's, yeah, we don't want to go. I mean, it's part of that. China perhaps. But I mean, obviously, Persia's top nation. There it is top nation. It is red. So basically big it up for Persia. Woo. I think it's, I think it's a, I think we can safely say that in terms of religion and ideas, power and authority, fashion, clothes, environmentalism, language, I mean, I think Marigos actually have the best quote at the beginning with the language. And it is quite true. It's a great quote with Marx and Engels. I think Marx was trying to learn Arabic and he found it very difficult. And Engels said, you should try this. It's so much easier. And I think Marx actually gives up with Arabic and says, yeah, I think I'll go for this. It's the level of influence. And this is, for me, I think, one of the most important things part of my own career, what I've tried to do, and I think what you've tried to do as well in many ways, is to bring Persia, Iran, but Persia, Persian culture, a much more center stage of our study of global civilization, our study of world civilization, for far too long. And I think this is something, as Andy says, with the Iran Society, but many other societies that work, the idea is really not to, we don't want, I mean, yes, we have fun in terms of saying, what have the Persians ever done for us? We're not saying that it's all positive. It's warts and all, yes, torture is there, yes, different and rather gruesome means of execution are there. But I think the most important thing is to sort of understand that Persia and Persian civilization deserves, I think, a much more central focus in the curricula of our broader education than it has hitherto seen. I mean, at the moment, really, we struggle very much to sort of see Persia and Persian civilization on a par with, you know, European and other civilizations in terms of curricula. So I think that's something that, we would understand the Greek world better. We would understand the Roman world better. We would understand the western inheritance better. I remember talking to the late great Fred Halliday many, many years ago and saying that, you know, really the concept of the west is really predicated on the concept of the Persian empire, the identification of the west and the west comes of the age or the birth of the west is really part of a sort of a, it's a foundation myth of which Persia is integral to. Yeah, but again, complicated because it originates with essentially Herodotus, who describes the war of Europe against Asia despite the fact that Herodotus himself is a Greek from Asia. Yes. So the currents are scrambled and complex and fascinating. They are indeed. Now, I don't know, do we want to should we head for questions if the audience have questions? Although to be fair, I shall be selecting the questioners so if I think you're going to ask me a difficult one I shall ignore you. That's particularly for you two over there. We have got some roving mics. Where are we going, Elia?