Art of Persia (Full Documentary)

[Music] this is a land known by two names the first is persian ancient mysterious [Music] a place of adventure of mighty temples and palaces built by powerful kings a land of unimaginable beauty [Music] the other is iran isolated proud defiant especially of foreign interference western documentary teams are seldom given access but i'm a british journalist and i've been granted a rare opportunity to travel across this vast country and discover its complex history and culture for myself the persians can seem like a mystery at the edge of the western imagination in the old testament or battling alexander and the romans in classical history but the ripples of persia's art and language have traveled outwards throughout the world transforming culture across europe and asia if you think you know the persians think again in this first episode i'm going to start at the birthplace of persian civilization at one of the world's first cities and discover the mysterious writing of its people persia's great kings built a vast empire and a rich culture that became the envy of the ancient world [Applause] i'll find out how they defeated no less than three roman emperors and how the arab armies eventually conquered the persians to build a new islamic empire so come with me on a magical journey to reveal iran's fascinating ancient past and its impact on the world [Music] to most people iran is a closed book and our understanding of it has been largely driven by the last 40 years when in 1979 revolution came to iran and ayatollah khomeini transformed it into an islamic republic the country has been locked in conflict with the west ever since when you look at modern iran when you see it surrounded by hostile forces by countries that are hostile to it iran would like to remind them that there was a time that we were not only we stopped at the top table we were the hosts of the top table and look at this [Music] and look how much it has actually influenced your literature your art if you like the persian civilization and the art and culture it produced was once the envy of the ancient world but over the centuries persia was invaded again and again by brutal conquerors greedy for her lands and treasures they brought with them new laws new languages and a new religion [Applause] but persian culture survived even thrived today iranian sense of who they are is as strong as it was when their story began [Music] they are the only people in the middle east to preserve their identity and language despite waves of invasion and revolution [Music] if you look at the people of north africa they used to speak latin now they speak arabic if you look at the syrians they used to speak greek now they speak arabic so do the egyptians it's the persians who have kept their language and by the way only the persians there's something special going on there [Music] that special thing that allowed persian language and culture to survive was remarkably this book it's called the sharpening bay [Music] a collection of tales about iran's pre-islamic kings the characters are part mythical and part historical and the book tells of their heroic deeds against divine and human forces it's a poetic rendition of these supernatural tales historical tales romances it's really a most magnificent grown-up storybook shahnameh is the soul of iran it's the absolute essence of being iranian [Music] it's a masterpiece of persian literature and history and language and to most iranians certainly to me it's like a bible although it was written in the 10th century the characters and tales are still much loved today because they provide a link between the present and three thousand years of persian culture i'm starting my journey here in tehran because i want to get a taste of this magical storybook i'm in a south tehran tea house where a thousand-year-old storybook is about to come alive on stage the sharname the persian book of kings is part myth part epic history and iranians can't get enough of its adventures it's central to their sense of identity if you want to understand the story of the persians you need to dive into the sharname the performance is about to begin [Applause] [Music] in theaters and tea houses all over iran and the man who wrote it would have been astonished to learn his life's work would still be performed and read a thousand years later [Music] he was called abu kasim ferdowsi handed down from one generation to the next his epic book became iran's national myth fardoci took 30 years to write the shahnameh but its storytelling power has lasted a thousand and traveled far beyond the borders of persia i am of north indian heritage with a persian name samira and was raised speaking urdu a language closely related to farsi and in the indian comics i read as a child there were all these stories about the persians as conquerors as bringers of culture as religious refugees i want to find out how ferdocy's stories protected persian language and culture from repeated attempts to destroy them but first i'm going to explore the fabled civilizations that emerged in this region [Music] and find out how the persian empire was born [Music] our story starts over 3000 years ago with some ancient plumbing this is the end of a canal an underwater tunnel that was dug to bring water down by the force of gravity from the mountains right here to where people needed it to drink and irrigate their fields and it's still icy cold when you touch it cannots made life possible they made barren landscapes fertile they allowed people to put down roots [Music] to start making art crafting beautiful objects such as this ornamental axe head [Music] adorned with the tiny figures of two wrestlers or this figurine of a mysterious stocky warrior dressed in snakeskin archaeologists have nicknamed him scarface but the skills of these early people went far beyond the ability to fashion bronze and gold [Music] they also made extraordinary monuments [Music] like this [Music] i've come to explore the ziggurat of cho'ga zambil in iran's southwestern desert the people who built it were called the elamites and they attached great spiritual importance to mountains where there were no mountains they built their own this was constructed over 3 000 years ago [Music] this place is such a beautiful mystery a relic of a lost world and i'm trying to imagine it as it was bustling with temples to the many elamite gods and goddesses and the brickwork burnished with gold and silver a statement of power by its king [Music] time wind and sun has since taken their toll but the temple was once full of beautiful objects and statues devoted to the elamite gods the bull was central to elamite culture in early iranian creation myths it was the first animal in the world the elamites worshipped a bull god called in shushinak and their kings constructed ziggurats like this to worship him in its shadow archaeologists found this blue quartz pendant polished and etched with two elamite figures this is a really remarkable and absolute unique piece of stone working because it depicts an image of of the king and then his daughter and we we rarely see women coming to the fore of course in elamite sources unfortunately so here we have one and she she's she's named as well as baobi and there she is uh standing diminutively she's depicted in a much smaller scale in front of her father uh but the fact that she's there at all her presence is really quite remarkable in an age really where women just get bypassed in the royal record we know very very few elamite queens or princesses archaeologists made other finds too taking us even closer to the people who once worshipped here this footprint is over three thousand years old it's tempting to believe it belongs to bar uli the daughter of king shillak in shushinak who gave her the pendant perhaps she came here with her father to worship to watch the bloody sacrifices carried out by priests to gratify the elamite gods but choga zanville is much more than a temple it's a book designed to be read by future generations this is the writing of the elamites called cuneiform there are thousands of engraved bricks only nobody knew what the writing meant until the 19th century when archaeologists unlocked their secrets the choga sambile inscriptions are very repetitive in many respects but they're important because what they do is quite literally stamp the authority of the king onto the the building itself so every brick essentially is saying i am the king of elam the king of kings the ziggurat of cho'ga zambil is testimony to the sophistication of the elamite civilization a civilization that was not only literate but gave rise to one of the world's first urban cultures i'm now traveling a few miles north of cho'gazanville to explore what remains of the elamite capital city [Music] souza [Music] if you want to understand the complexities of persian culture then you couldn't come to a better place than susa i'm really aware of the hum of the modern city of shush in the background and the ruins of this elamite city are known to archaeologists as the 15th city because they're the earliest of 15 distinctive sets of eras and ruins on this site dating back to at least 1500 bc excavations first started here during the 19th century among the finds this bronze of two elemite worshippers in her left hand the woman clutches a bird whose significance is unknown to [Music] it's us how rich the land around here is with these pieces of elemite culture so just lying on the ground we've spotted stuff and picked them up like this piece of blue glazed pottery which is this amazing color and then this you can see the grooves in it and we've been told by the guide it's the lid of a storage jar that would have contained something like rice stories about the wealth of sousa spread throughout the ancient world and soon her enemies began to circle to the north the medians and to the east the war-mongering persians led by king cyrus this glazed relief shows a persian warrior ready for battle it was during the 7th century bc that king cyrus led his mighty army to first overthrow the medeans and then the elamites after he captured their capital with the defeat of both kingdoms cyrus became cyrus the great and his descendants built a new capital here at caesar the elamites were now subjects of a new empire the persian empire the centuries have been unkind to what cyrus and his successors built here souza eventually disappeared into the sands of time until it reemerged after archaeologists started digging here in 1850 what they discovered here was vast i want to give you an idea of exactly how vast those buildings were [Music] i know what you're thinking this building looks remarkably well preserved is it a fortress is it a palace this is the chateau de souz [Music] the chateau was built in the 1890s on the orders of a french archaeologist jean-marie jacques de morgan morgan needed somewhere secure for his excavation team and their fines while they worked on the caesar site he thought what could be safer than a french castle and he decided to use the ancient bricks from all around here at caesar and from the ziggurat at cho gazanville to build this place from 15 different buildings up to 3 000 years old and once you know you start seeing it everywhere like this one these are bits of glazed ceramic probably from a temple or a palace it's not just glazed bricks if you look carefully many bear the language of cuneiform from the elamite capital of souza to the city built by cyrus to replace it right through to the early islamic period this single building contains the span of persian ancient history the bricks have all ended up in this pastiche of a french medieval fortress a fitting symbol of how colonial era archaeologists saw themselves as superior protectors of civilization while desecrating ancient sites like souza so if you can put the archaeological vandalism aside for a moment imagine the palaces and temples once constructed from this enormous quantity of bricks it would have looked truly monumental sousa was once one of the persian empire's greatest capital cities after souza cyrus the great conquered the city of babylon in 539 bc and we know this because of what archaeologists found there the world's earliest example of political spin this is known as the cyrus cylinder and it's an exact copy but the original is kept in the british museum and here inscribed in all these tiny lines of cuneiform is a piece of propaganda a kind of compact trophy which describes how cyrus overcame his enemies not through violence but through showing tolerance towards the people and their gods my vast army marched into babylon in peace i did not permit anyone to frighten the people and sought the welfare of babylon and all its sacred places so this is very clearly some persian spin it was a conquest but presented very much as a liberation of peoples and it's come to affect how for generations we've regarded cyrus the great we absolutely bought into his propaganda campaign the cyrus cylinder is one of the world's earliest examples of propaganda but cyrus's policy of tolerance did have an impact on different religious populations one in particular the jews the jews who were brought to babylon by the previous babylonian king were allowed to go back to their homeland so cyrus enjoys a particularly important position both for us iranians as well as for christians and also the jewish people sousa is one of the world's oldest cities people have lived here for over 6 000 years and it was not only home to persia's great kings but to one of the bible's greatest heroes not far from the chateau can be found this unusual structure it is or is believed to be the tomb of daniel famous for his stay in the lion's den in the old testament jews and muslims honored daniel as a virtuous man who maintained his religious beliefs throughout the long years of exile in babylon living to see the liberation that cyrus promised on his cylinder as a child one of my favorite stories in the bible was that of daniel in the lion's den and here in souza is where he died and this is his tomb and it's incredible to find that out this place has become a site of pilgrimage for muslims for christians and for jews and after they were freed by cyrus many jews chose to remain and are still here today it may come as a surprise to learn that the largest community of jews in the middle east outside of israel is here in iran [Music] so what happened to cyrus and this first persian empire to find out i'm going to travel many miles east into the deserts of central iran to pass guard [Music] passer guard was where cyrus made his capital now all that survives is his tomb remarkably modest for the founder of what was the biggest empire of the world had ever seen the persian empire at its height stretched from greece to the indus from the oxus through to what we would now know as libya i mean this is fast in the ancient world iranian visitors flock here particularly during the holidays to see the tomb of the king who not only founded the persian empire but its people's sense of national identity the tomb of cyrus lay at the center of a huge formal walled garden known in persian as a pardes from which you get the word paradise and although it's hard to imagine right now this was once surrounded by lush greenery and flowing waters a statement of cyrus's civilizing power against the wild desert beyond a clue to what cyrus's great garden once looked like can be found in the familiar design of persian carpets today many are based on his garden's layout imagine cyrus's tomb in center surrounded by statues of fantastic birds and beasts canaan supplied water for the ponds flowers and trees which provided shade on hot summer days his gardens have long since perished but cyrus did attempt to secure his family's legacy he carved a simple inscription in three different forms of cuneiform elamite babylonian and a brand new script named after this new persian dynasty the arcane minutes [Music] the words are very simple i cyrus the king and a caymanid this was a declaration that cyrus the great's vast new empire was under the rule of the achaemenids a persian royal dynasty [Music] cyrus the great may have forged the first persian empire but in 515 bc it was his successor darius the first who built the jewel in its crown the legendary city of persepolis darius was the greatest royal architect of his dynasty even in its ruined state the imposing gateways monumental columns and exquisite reliefs leave you in no doubt about the message darius wanted to project [Music] his empire heralded a new world order [Music] darius was also famous for many firsts he dug the first suez canal introduced standardized weights and measures and coinage too it was this administrative genius that earned him the title darius the great archaeologists have found tablets here at persepolis showing careful record keeping and rates of exchange for payments in kind to his subjects who admired this administrative flare their emperor was known as darius the shopkeeper darius didn't bother to fortify persepolis he didn't need to all his enemies had been defeated and here are the enemies his dynasty had overcome all subject to the persian king a real highlight of persepolis is this magnificent freeze which shows 23 subject peoples of the persian empire queuing up to bring their tributes to the king in the incredible detail on their faces and costumes you can see they come from everywhere from southeastern europe to down here these five are from sindh in india modern pakistan bringing gold dust and spices and battle axes and over there there are figures from nubia bringing elephant tusks and a giraffe persepolis was a masterpiece of imperial architecture and you might assume darius exploited a vast army of slaves to build it but archaeologists made a surprising discovery there were lots of people working at persepolis we also have tablets from persepolis which reveal a lot of interesting information about the workmen the salaries how they were paid in kind and also women worked at persepolis we know that for example women were overseeing some particular parts of the structure and in one case one woman gives birth to twins and she receives a special allowance for maternity and so it's all very interesting how he produced this enormous palace the imposing entrance to persepolis is where king xerxes darius's successor inscribed a message that left every visitor in no doubt about the power and ambition of his empire it reads i am xerxes the great king king of kings king of the lambs of many people king of this great earth far and wide xerxes the first call this his gateway of all nations and for anyone arriving at persepolis there is a real sense of the whole world passing through here from the clearly assyrian figures guarding each side of the gateway to the classical columns that you could recognize to the graffiti on the walls from travellers coming through here from india people from the british empire from america from europe all these travelers who came through here from the 19th century onwards for them persepolis must have been their first gateway to understanding persia it wasn't just architecture that projected a caymanid wealth and culture these beautiful decorative objects made of solid gold at two and a half thousand years old [Music] this is the the apex of sophistication we have objects of gold fritra drinking vessels kind of like a sangria jug i suppose in which you pour the wine directly into your mouth and we have cups that sit absolutely perfectly in balance in the palm of your hand in um chased in gold and silver we have jewelry upon jewelry of all the most semi-precious stones that persia could pile together tales of the city's untold wealth grew in their telling and soon persepolis became an object of greek desire the decision not to fortify persepolis proved to be its undoing the white marks on this pillar are a clue to what happened next when limestone is subjected to intense heat it turns white in 330 bc the macedonians led by alexander the great invaded persia and burnt persepolis to the ground why did alexander destroy persepolis it wasn't about the wealth the treasurer had offered him the city's riches and alexander spent two months looting them he burned persepolis to the ground because it was a shrine and the mother city of persian culture alexander wanted to obliterate persian resistance and identity once and for all with the destruction of persepolis it was as if alexander wanted to completely erase the memory of darius and the kings who once lived here and he succeeded they vanished entirely from history centuries later when visitors wandered the ruins and encountered statues of strange fantastical beasts they imagined that mythical kings not the achaemenids had ruled the persian empire by the 10th century abul kasim verdosi the master storyteller i met in tehran collected the tales of these fairy tale kings and put them in a book called the charlemagne verdosi's mythical version of persia's history doesn't credit darius for building persepolis but this god-like king called jamshid [Music] foreign [Music] according to the shaname jamshed is responsible for the creation of nowruz the unique persian new year celebrated to this day to mark the start of spring at the end of march there's even a theory that persepolis was built to celebrate this annual festival all over iran families set out a table like this filled with seven symbols of prosperity and renewal including fruit money and well the wines been replaced by vinegar since the islamic conquest but nowruz is jamshed's enduring legacy jamshid was one of the first mythical kings in the shahnameh he was responsible for many miraculous inventions including new year and he was able to do this verdosi tells us because he was possessed by a special quality called [Music] far fair could be described as a light it is god given it comes from above radiance streams from the ruler now that's a metaphor it didn't actually happen but when you see it in um in the visual arts it's often shown in the form of a halo and we understand that we have a halo around sacred figures in christianity until recently this symbol at persepolis a winged man was believed to be a representation of the deity worshipped by the achaemenids the zoroastrian god ahura mazda the wise lord the lord of wisdom scholars now believe that this figure might actually be a visual representation of far far made flesh but this definition of kingship a king who rules with god's blessing is double-edged the king with far rules well but the king who loses far rules badly and can rightly be deposed when jamsheed became arrogant and started to present himself as the supreme power god in a way he was punished and he was punished in the way that the glory or the fire flew away from him in the shape of a bird [Music] and this says something i think about the persian way of thinking of history it's ever-changing it's always cyclic there is rise and fall there is rise and fall it would be nearly 2 000 years before archaeologists excavated persepolis after deciphering the cuneiform language darius and the achaemenids were restored to their rightful place in history [Music] just a few kilometers away there's another site that tells a similar story but with a surprise twist this necropolis was where four accommodate kings were brought for burial their huge tombs are cut into the cliff face this is darius's tomb the king who built persepolis darius's hand is raised in recognition of his own imperial far which hovers before him the inscription reads if now you wonder how many countries did king darius hold look at the sculptures and you will know if you count them there are 26 men but like at persepolis the original events depicted here were forgotten and replaced with stories from the charlemagne once again real history was replaced by mythology courtesy of ferdowsi and his shahnameh in the way persepolis was actually founded by darius but attributed to king jamshed so this burial site was credited to another fantasy hero his carving is to be found just beneath darius's tomb he's called rostam that's rostan there on horseback on the right a warrior a hero of incredible strength a kind of persian hercules with his great horse raksh rastam rages through the first half of the sharname defeating dragons demons and all the enemies of iran he may not have much up top but he's got plenty of muscle you can really rely on him so he becomes a kind of foundation stone for uh the shaan army and the reason he can do that is that he just doesn't die so his worst enemy is the white div the absolute incandescent essence of evil killing the white div is killing the evil in all of us it is a straightforward moral uh victory many iranians know this site as naksh irostam the place of rostam with cowering enemies kneeling before his powerful horse this figure looks every inch like the mythical hero of old it's easy to see why people came to believe these carvings portrayed the exploits of rustam but none of them represent him at all in fact they date from 500 years after alexander the great destroyed persepolis and the achaemenid empire so if this figure isn't rostam who is he he is in fact another real persian king shahpur the first and his story is to be found in the closing pages of the shahnameh [Music] the first half of the book is a sort of mythic preface where dynasties like the achaemenids and the parthians who followed them are largely left out it's only towards the end where we encounter real history and real kings like shapoor the first who's from a persian dynasty of rulers called the sassanians [Music] so this is the next kind of indigenous iranian dynasty which fedoci clearly sees as a good thing because they really are iranian to their to their fingertips so fadosi spins this really interesting web of stories around the historical figures of the sasanian king so now myth legend finally gives way to history proper [Music] i'm heading into the zagros mountains in the south west of iran to find out more about the sasanians [Music] it's an hour's climb but what's hidden there i'm told is unmissable and it is [Music] seven meters high chiseled out of a single stalagmite this is the very same king who was carved into the rock face i saw earlier he was crowned in the year 240 a.d shahpur the first he looks like a god doesn't he with his crown his flowing locks you can see that strong arm on his weapon belt staring out at the landscape but this is no god sharp were the first is making a statement and setting out his sassanian dynasty to rule persia for centuries to come in the shanome fidoci talks about him as this great king he is the very embodiment of far the divine right to rule appointed by god [Music] like the pupil of an eye shapur stands at the mouth of the cave looking out across his empire determined posterity will never forget what he achieved ruled for over 30 years he built many cities during his reign but perhaps the most remarkable was the city he named after himself bishop unlike persepolis very little has been excavated but these lone commemorative columns bear witness to what was once here written in sassanian script is the declaration of shapura's brand new city under the sasanians zoroastrianism became iran's official religion aboveground the crumbling remains of a fire temple where an eternal flame once burned but below ground can be found a temple of quite another kind the most intriguing aspect of this underground temple are the four corridors that run all the way around it with these channels clearly for flowing water and there's a direct link to the river which is why this site is thought to be sacred to the water goddess anahita this silver gilt plate absolutely captures the magnificence of sassanian craftsmanship it's the goddess anahita swimming surrounded by male attendants draped in ornate jewellery with her hair twisted into braids and with her swelling hips very much a symbol of fertility too it's a glimpse into an ancient persia where women were worshiped even in its ruinous state you can sense the vaulting ambition the unshakable confidence of shapur but his greatest achievement wasn't building cities it was this recorded in stone in a gorge nearby the epic saga of sharpua's triumphs over rome in this remarkable relief you can see his victories against three roman emperors first he's trampling on the body of gordian here he's also taking a truce from philip the arab and behind he's taking the emperor valerian prisoner and as if to add insult to injury above it all a roman cherub handing him his symbol of victory but unlike gordian valerian was taken alive according to the sharname this is what happened to valerian shapoor flattened the evil emperor's pavilion his men set fires on all sides throughout the roman camp and the skies seemed to come down to the earth they split his ears with a knife and bored a hole through his nose in which they put a piece of wood of the kind by which a camel is led but this is for doci sidestepping real history it's true that valerian was taken prisoner and brought here to bishop but after that well roman historians have come up with a variety of grisly outcomes including the possibility that he was flayed alive and his skin stuffed with straw but it seems more likely that he was treated well by shapoor still valerian never went back to rome [Music] after his capture valerian's legionaries were soon put to work building chapuar's new city when bishop was excavated in the 19th century the city's surviving chambers were found decorated in mosaics like these in the roman style and when they weren't making mosaics the legionaries were set to work improving roads dams and building bridges like this one 400 miles to the north [Music] a testament to roman engineering much of the bridge still stands its crumbling arch is a magnet for locals who sit on the river's edge to relax and enjoy the warm summer evenings [Music] this is one of those places where i really feel persia ancient and modern meat iranian families pick the king paddling speed boating in the river against the ruins of valerian's bridge [Music] many kings followed shapur and these rock reliefs nearby depict his successes i know what you're thinking they all look remarkably similar from bronze sculptures to coins to stone effigies each king was portrayed sharpur's style a crown set upon flowing locks the sasanians were masters of marketing themselves as persia's new [Music] rulers but they had enemies [Music] in the north and east tribal warlords the huns and turks began to threaten the persian sassanian empire to protect their borders the sasanians embarked on their biggest ever building project a great wall it's long since disappeared but the outline of the forts that defended it have survived [Music] i'm standing on what remains of the great wall of gorgon one of the greatest human defensive walls ever constructed it's on iran's northern border with what is now turkmenistan it's a thousand years older than the great wall of china and at 200 kilometers in length it's far longer than any wall the romans ever built built in the 5th century the wall once stretched from the mountains on persia's eastern borders to the caspian sea with a water-filled ditch dug in front this was a walled fortress protected by nearly 40 forts manned by a garrison of soldiers that some archaeologists have estimated to be around 30 000 men this mighty wall crossed plains hilltops and in places deep gorges it was an extraordinary feat of engineering most of the wall had fallen prey to looters over the centuries so hardly anything remains but if you know where to look there are sections that have survived [Music] here the wall crosses a river and i've come to take a closer look at the original brick structure where archaeologists are hard at work walking across the farmland up above i had no idea what i would see now i've come down and i realized i've walked down through levels of centuries in history there's six metres of topsoil i can now see that's accumulated over the remains of what is obviously a well-constructed military dam and this fortification of real bricks you can see it stretching out turning into the bridge there and it would have gone all the way up over those mountains and i just find it incredible to think this was the frontier of the persian empire stretching for 200 miles east and west and all that remains are a few tantalizing fragments [Music] i've come to meet archaeologist dr omrani to find out more about its construction [Music] [Music] the gorgon wall is testimony to the engineering skills and military organization of the sasanian empire and for 200 years it kept the hums and turks at bay but ultimately the empire depended on the ability of its kings rather than a wall to defend it no dynasty could last forever and the sasanians were no exception according to fidosi the last few were a decadent bunch of kings whose cruel and evil deeds led to the decline and fall of the persian empire fadosi's aim in the stories of the the sasanian kings is to show again that nothing is everlasting in iran's history that kings can rule with far and be aware of themselves and be aware of their relationship to a higher power but how transient that can be [Music] the last years of the sasanian dynasty were marked by years of civil war in which four kings and two queens ruled for no more than a few months each before their lives ended in violence and when they weren't fighting each other the sasanians were kept busy guarding their northern and western borders against attack the sheer length and scale of the gorgon wall demonstrates just how big a threat they faced in one sense the sassanian kings were right to build this great wall there was a tribal nomadic army on the march a storm was heading this way but it was to come from the west they'd built this barrier in the wrong part of the country [Music] at the beginning of the seventh century far away in the arabian peninsula a trader named muhammad began to receive what were believed to be a series of revelations from god the revelations ultimately formed the basis of the quran and a small but radical movement would rise to change persia and the ancient world islam was born [Music] [Music] it was a powerful idea so powerful that in a matter of decades the islamic crusading armies decisively defeated the sassanian imperial forces the arab invasion would be the greatest threat the persians had ever faced and the story of how they confronted it echoes to this day in this episode i'm going back to when the arabs conquered persia a conquest that was more than a confrontation between two mighty armies it was a clash between two powerful civilizations the arabs brought with them a new culture new language and a new religion but despite subjugation the persians fought back this is the remarkable story of why iran isn't arab and how it has proudly held on to its persian identity and language to this day [Music] at the beginning of the seventh century far away in the arabian peninsula a trader named muhammad was said to have received a series of revelations from god they formed the basis of the quran and a small but radical movement rose to change the world islam was born soon all of arabia united under muslim rule through conquest and conversion so began the battle to forge a new islamic empire first the arab armies took the levant and egypt then they set their sights on persia the king of persia at the time was just a boy he was called yazdegard it was a ten-year-old who led the persian army into battle against the arab armies of islam the persians fought bravely but in the end they were annihilated yazdergaard and what was left of his army fled east over the zagros mountains but this formidable barrier proved no defense by the year 637 a.d the arabs were at the gates of persia's capital city istakar but yazdegard and his family escaped this is the village of chukchuk hidden in the mountains of iran's southern desert according to legend it was across this unforgiving landscape the royal family fled with the arab armies in hot pursuit a legend that's connected to one of iran's most sacred religious sites a zoroastrian fire temple the religion of persia before islam it's tradition that as soon as they catch sight of the temple pilgrims are supposed to complete the rest of their journey on foot the temple doors bear the reliefs of persia's ancient kings pilgrims flock here from all over the world but it's also a place where ordinary iranians come to touch their past this is a fire actually part fireplace and this faranaz is a practicing zoroastrian and my guide to the connection between this sacred place and the tragic fate of the persian royal family can you tell me why this site is so sacred to zoroastrians [Music] um [Music] but one of the persian princesses did escape the legend goes that when she prayed to the zoroastrian gods the mountain miraculously opened up and hid her from the arab soldiers [Music] the waters of this spring are said to be tears of grief in memory of the princess and the end of the persian empire and its religion [Music] these three bull or ox heads with the tiny calves underneath are made of brass and once from the head of a mace kept by a zoroastrian priest you can see where the staff would have joined and it has a real weight to it and they had a dual purpose objects like these they were used in religious ceremonies but also in defense to ward off looters and invaders from the fire temples and this particular mace head has been dated to the seventh century so it's tempting to imagine it used in anger against the invading arab muslims who came to fight the persian armies and to extinguish the flames at the zoroastrian temples for the persians the islamic conquest came as an overwhelming shock it must have felt their entire culture would be swallowed up including the religion that islam replaced [Music] so what was the zoroastrian religion and who was the god they worshipped in central iran at a fire temple in yazd this flame it is said was first lit before islam arrived it's been burning for fifteen hundred years the fire represents the zoroastrian god ahura mazda the god worshiped by king yazdegard and his ancestors zoroastrianism is the great forgotten world faith and it's a great shame because zoroastrianism has embedded in it very basic principles of good thoughts good works good deeds under the head of of one supreme god the hura mazda which means the the wise lord and he gives this principle of arta which means truth but from truthy then you get order and harmony the faithful were commanded to pray in the direction of the light the only light the ancients controlled was fire so they created temples to keep the flame burning for eternity [Music] the iranians and their rulers had always been zoroastrian figures such as the winged god or hura mazda had been worshipped since the earliest of times putting the zoroastrian religion at the heart of persian identity [Music] after the rise of islam many zoroastrians fled to india but there are still around 25 000 followers in iran today i've come to a village just outside yazd which is the birthplace it said of [Music] zoroastrianism [Music] zoroastrians believe they will remain together both in life and in death [Music] this is called a tower of silence and it looms over the city of yazed below [Music] a reminder to the ancient persians that all life's journeys will end here traditionally zoroastrians did not want to pollute the earth by burying their dead or the air by cremating them so they brought them up here and it really does feel closer to the heavens the bodies were left to rot to be picked apart by desert vultures the bones bleached by the sun some believe yazd is where zoroastrianism was born and looking down on this beautiful desert city i feel i finally understand the remarkable resilience of the persian people who knew invasion could come from any direction the spirit of the zoroastrian religion runs right through persia's pre-islamic history because of the special powers the god ahura mazda bestowed on her kings this place is called nakshirustan it's home to a series of extraordinary rock carvings memorials to iran's pre-islamic kings every year iranians flock here to connect with their lost civilization and to marvel at the pride and strength of their ancient rulers the figure on the right of this carving was called ardashir the first and he came to the throne in the year 224 a.d ardashir was descended from a zoroastrian priest called sasan he was the first in a dynasty of persian kings called the sassanians it was ardashir who made zoroastrianism the official religion of persia and he's shown on this rock carving seated there on horseback receiving the diadem of kingship from god himself ahura mazda we see the king approach the god and the god gives him a ring so the giving of this ring is really the investing of the king with this this divine essence this charisma this this light uh which then sort of envelops the king uh for for the rest of his reign and interestingly this kind of this light which we kind of i suppose described as a halo i suppose we see then transferred into christian art into buddhist art and even into muslim art as well so this idea goes very very deep into these religions to many iranians this is one of the most precious carvings in the country they're drawn to it because the mysterious symbols and cryptic runes represent the birth of the persian nation written in three languages the first known inscription of the country he ruled it says worshiper of ahura mazda this is adashir king of kings of iran but even a great king like adeshira cannot live forever in his last days adashir made a prophecy the dynasty would last 500 years he said but the last sassanians would fall from the true faith echoing the sense of fatalism that runs right through the zoroastrian religion this is what ardashia said whatever i have bound they will release the faith that i have purified will cease my testament will be as naught and all our sovereignty will crumble and fall this is such a haunting forlorn place it's hard to believe this lonely column once crowned by a fantastical carved beast and this section of wall are all that remain of ardeshir's capital city istaka [Music] the conquering arab armies would raise it to the ground its magnificence now lies hidden under these fields ardashir's prophecy proved eerily correct by the year 651 the last sassanian king yazdegard was dead the conquest was complete now the persians were under arab muslim rule [Music] this is the jamai mosque in the center of yazd it's one of the oldest mosques in iran the modern iranian state requires women to wear a chador to come inside on the brick ceiling behind me the patterns spell out more than a hundred different names of god [Music] beyond the craftsmanship and exquisite tile work the mosque is emblematic of what happened to the zoroastrian religion after islam arrived [Music] a major fire temple once stood here but when islam reached yazd its days were numbered the persians and their religion it seemed were crushed the conquest was quite quick it was over in a decade but you have to imagine that the persian army was quite exhausted by that time there was also quite a bit of unrest from within conversion is a is a fairly incremental thing it happens in cities first then it grows into the um into the rural areas but some parts of the caspian don't convert at all for many many centuries they're very hard to get to so and you find rebellions i mean you find zoroastrian-inspired rebellions like their religion the remnants of the persian army went underground but it transformed into something new and powerful that would endure for centuries and if you explore the winding passageways of yazdz old city you can find a living connection to the ancient persian resistance movement that grew after the arabs invaded [Music] this is a which means house of strength they can be found all over modern iran the roots of zurkane stretch back to when persian men were forbidden to train openly by their arab conquerors they met in secret instead preparing for the day they might be called again to fight the symbolic movements represent the battlefield exercises that mimic the bow and arrow shields clubs and wrestling what began as secret training for the defenders of ancient persia over time grew into a brotherhood helping men of every generation to become heroes of their local communities [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] the movements are accompanied by epic songs and poems that date back to pre-islamic iran words of wisdom from ancient poets that strengthen the souls of men and boys alike [Music] the fusion of these exercises and these stories is symbolic of a struggle that went far beyond armed resistance against the arabs they reveal an ancient determination to protect persian culture history and language [Music] in 750 a.d a century after the arab invasion a dynasty called the abbasids rose to power [Music] they held the title khalif islam's supreme religious and political leaders a new caliphate called for a new capital city and the abbasid set their eyes on baghdad now in iraq but then close to the heartlands of persia the process of islamization was quite quick the process of arabization never worked [Music] and the reason why arabization never worked is because of the power of persian culture [Music] this coin is called a dirham it contains everything we need to know about the resilience of persian culture in the face of the arab invasion for centuries persian money coins like these were the most powerful currency in the ancient world the durham was the u.s dollar or the euro of its day and the arab invaders tried introducing their own currency but nobody trusted it and of course like today confidence is central to the economy without it the trade would collapse so the arab rulers had no choice but to continue minting persian coins the designs on the coin depict persia's pre-islamic kings one side bears the king and on the other a zoroastrian fire altar the only change the new abbasid rulers later made was to add the name of the local arab governor and that sanctifies the coin parabolizes the coin legitimizes the coin and everybody was happy this was the dollar of antiquity it went everywhere they were minted in their millions every year the persian dirham was the beating heart of the islamic world's economy [Music] but persian influence didn't stop here the bodyguards of the abbasid rulers wore persian clothes too these were large called jamaica i'm going to take this one as well thank you you know i was always told that the word pajamas comes from india and it came back with the british raj but in fact the word jama kia there's something familiar about that isn't there and the word jama in the persian language means clothing and the word means leg pajama leg clothing by the middle of the ninth century persian words ideas and practices were wrapping themselves around the caliphate like ivy [Music] these ceramic bowls tell the same story in the early years islam forbid imagery allowing only religious and heavenly symbols like birds to be painted on everyday wear like this but soon favorite tales and characters began to appear [Music] here's the story of a sassanian king and his doomed love affair with an armenian princess stories re-emerging like ghosts from iran's pre-islamic past as well as conversion to islam persians were obliged to speak the language it brought with it arabic but that didn't stop them making it their own as a language re-emerges almost empowered if you can put it by this by the arabic alphabet basically through the medium of the arabic alphabet new persian as we know that emerges that becomes really the lingua franca of the eastern islamic world it's a very very powerful force after the arrival of islam in the 7th century persians adapted the arabic alphabet adding four letters to give the 32 of the modern persian alphabet and in classes like this modern iranians are seeking to connect to the long tradition of matching form to the content of the words through the art of beautiful writing [Music] by elevating the simple written word into something beautiful calligraphy has become a highly prized skill and master calligraphers continue the work of preserving the persian language i have to ask would you give that a grade that piece of work is [Music] from calligraphy to coins to ceramics in the battle between two cultures the persians were making an extraordinary comeback i think that in these early years or early decades early centuries of islam actually the arabs become conquered by persia in many respects the tables are turned and they become persianized by the much stronger culture of the persians they celebrate the persian new year they wear persian costume they have the veiling of women they have the curtain that is drawn in front of the ruler all sorts of things that come from the persian tradition the new arab rulers also adopted the persian civil service which was centuries old and a well-oiled machine they even kept on the persian civil servants including the most powerful position of all the chief minister known as the vizier the most significant viziers were from the barmakid family and they had been for generations top officials under the sasanians and they simply became the top family for a full century under the abbasids so the making of the arab state as an empire happens as a result of the astonishing comeback of the persians at the beginning of the ninth century the ruling caliph harun al-rasheed started to grow suspicious of his barmah kid vizier he was called jafar barmaki you might recognize the names of haroon and jafar they're the real people made famous as characters in tales from a thousand and one nights the story of aladdin harun's vizier had become too powerful too grand harun jailed his entire family dispossessed them of their lands and had jafar beheaded jafar bamaki was anything but evil and yet he's been remembered in the west as the archetypal wicked grand vizier in the disney version the vizier has made it all the way from the abbasid caliphate into modern culture always portrayed as wicked underhand and greedy with a devilish moustache but ataroon didn't abolish the office he appointed another vizier also iranian a former slave who would know his place haroon underestimated the crucial role jafar played and as soon as he was dead the empire started to crumble this was the beginning of the end of arab rule in persia as competing warlords fought for dominance in 809 a.d haroon led an army to crush a rebellion in the deserts of the northeast but he became ill and died just outside a little town called tuffs in 935 a.d a century after the abbasids lost power in persia a man named abul kasim ferdoci was born in the same town of tus where haroon had died fredoci was a writer and in the battle to preserve persian culture it was for doci he would prove to be the most powerful warrior of all the town of tus that fidosi knew has long since vanished but in iran's desert regions there are a handful of villages and little towns that remarkably have survived the ravages of time like this one oh this is so beautiful this crumbling and deserted town in central iran is karanak it was first settled four thousand years ago the buildings aren't that old but it's said some do date back to the time of fidose preserved for a millennium in the dry desert air [Music] coming to karanak is like stepping back in time and exploring these labyrinthine streets and mud-built buildings is beginning to give me a real sense of the ancient persia once familiar to fedoci ferdosi was from that useful de khan class the gentry and middling bureaucrats who oversaw the collecting of tax and administered the country at a local level as a young man fordosi would have wandered streets and passageways like these gathering both taxes and stories myths legends about pre-islamic persia [Music] even though this was a region where islam and the arabs still echoed powerfully inferdosi's time doorways like this would have been very familiar with a separate door knocker for a man and a woman so that the person inside would know the gender of who had come so this is the male knocker and this is the female knocker [Music] here's a rare image of the doci greeting a fellow poet like many iranians fodosi was torn in two while he was a good muslim he rejected the arabs and their culture i think feodosi was a patriot i think you you shouldn't speak in terms of the nation state at this time but he had what you might call national sentiment for doci wasn't alone following the collapse of abbasid rule in persia another new dynasty rose to dominance they were persian not arab they were the samanids and they were on a mission there was a project known as the first persian princedom kingdom if you like after the islamic conquest of iran they very much modeled themselves on the pre-islamic kings and therefore it makes sense that they wanted to promote that image [Music] they promoted that image by commissioning fordosi to turn his collection of stories about persia's ancient kings into a book it was called the sharnamey i think he wrote that book as a way of rescuing the past from what he saw as an over arabized present and he was afraid that persian would just get lost would would be would be drowned sophie dosey wrote the charname not in arabic but in persian to preserve like a time capsule as much as he could of his country's story before the arrival of islam the characters are part mythical and part historical and the book tells of their heroic deeds against divine and human forces this is a tract which gives a heart back to an iranian people who have been oppressed by an arab invader he is consistent throughout it that he is a good muslim but he is anti-arab and he is uh i suppose we can call him an iranian nationalist the prototype i suppose of a kind of iranian nationalism you find in charlemagne it took a long time anything between 30 to 34 years there are many legends around how much he was going to be paid whether it was a gold coin for every line which i think would have bankrupted a treasury if that was true in the end ferdocy wrote 60 000 lines he was going to be rich or so he thought by the time fordosi was finished writing over three decades later so was the persian dynasty that had commissioned him now iran was under the heel of yet another new ruler and this painting shows fridosi praising the new sultan having presented him with the shahnameh the new king sultan mahmud is a completely different man he doesn't even necessarily speak person so third oc brings the book to the court and the king is less than impressed feodosi hoped that when he finished it father christmas would give him a life's pension and make it all worthwhile and father christmas in his case had short arms and deep pockets and didn't pay up this is all that remains of the town fardoci called home [Music] a section of the old wall that once defended tus the story goes that the sultan was eventually persuaded the charnemay was a truly monumental work so he made good and sent for dosi a generous sum of money in gold tragically according to the story as the sack of gold coins was being carried in through one of the city gates abulka sim ferdosi was leaving through another carried in his coffin for doci it seemed had died a bitterly disappointed man but he would have been astonished to learn that a thousand years later his life's work would still be read all over iran [Applause] [Music] in tehran statues [Music] squares [Music] even subway stations are named after him [Music] it's not just for doci's name that's famous the stories of his characters are so popular they're even the subject of street art is food among the princesses kings and heroes is my favorite rostam rostom is the biggest figure in the charlemagne in every sense he's a knight the size of eight men he lives for hundreds of years he rips up tree trunks he rescues his kings maidens and killed demons he's like a cross between hercules hector and the incredible hulk the ultimate iranian superhero [Music] handed down from one generation to the next many characters like rostam are so popular they've become household names bonding iranian parents and children with a sense of pride and adventure in who they are i've been invited by the parasanes to dinner to hear about their evangelical zeal for iran's favorite storybook so you've got these great pictures from the shaaname can you tell me who is this [Music] i love his weapons do you have a favorite weapon of roston um what's really amazing is just feeling of walking into a home which is full of the love of this anime and the children really know their stories and they're passionate about it and you can tell both mom and dad um just have brought them up surrounded by this sense of excitement and adventure and music and poetry all together yes yes yes you agree yes farzanis have made it their life's mission to preach the shahnameh to the next generation [Music] she looks amazing [Music] so tell me how would you describe what you do with the shana may and in your work a thousand years after it was written the shahnameh remains alive in the hearts of iranians young and old man packed full of heroic adventures and supernatural tales it's perfect for bedtime readings [Music] i've returned to the little town of tus on iran's far northeastern border [Music] the place of ferdocy's birth death and burial he lies here in this magnificent marble-clad mausoleum fit for a king [Music] he's the champion who made a stand against the arab invaders and every year thousands of visitors come to pay their respects to iran's national hero the words inscribed on his tomb read here lies the master of persian storytellers who remained in the hearts of the people of this country for eternity it was for doci who revived and preserved the idea of iran in the book of kings with its potent mix of history and mythology he's the small town boy who wrote iran's national epic ferdosi died in the year 1020 but the struggle to preserve persia's language and identity was far from over [Music] i'm travelling next to nishipoor it was home to another writer a man who would continue the work that ferdocy started [Music] almost nothing remains of the old city of nishipod but if you look carefully there are clues to what made it one of the ancient world's greatest [Music] cities [Music] everywhere i look i see the color turquoise the color of heaven turquoise stone has been mined nearby for a staggering 7 000 years in the tangle of alleyways and lanes the sound of grinding and polishing fills the air as stone cutters painstakingly separate the turquoise from the rock [Music] it's amazing hundreds of pieces how long does it take from sorting these pieces to making a whole um bracelet like that merchants who passed through nishapur would buy stones and ceramic objects like this beautiful turquoise glazed jug it dates to the 11th century when nishipoor's most famous son lived [Music] omar hayam this is his tomb in tribute to kyam's life and work the mausoleum is tiled in the turquoise stone that made the city famous this 1930s mausoleum looks just like a spaceship and i love it it's perfect because here in iran omar hayan is best known as a mathematician and an astronomer his work on algebra has influenced european thinkers of the enlightenment he's said to be the first person to prove the earth spun on its axis and thanks to his observations he came up with a calendar with eight leap years in every 33 more accurate than the gregorian calendar but in the west he's best known as a poet above me the turquoise tiles are inscribed with omar hayam's most famous poems like the chanumae it was hayam's poetry that helped keep the flame of persian literature burning [Music] [Music] the poem is from the rubaiyat of omar khayam rubayat means four line rhyming poetry and it was made famous in the west during the 19th century by the translations of the english poet edward fitzgerald the message of high jumps is very much carpet diem live for tomorrow you may die and this is really something that the victorians found refreshing it became a book that during the first world war officers certainly had a little copy of this in their rucksack because you may die but but this is destiny this is what has been pre-ordained [Music] this sense of fatalism might sound familiar it echoes the tragic prophecy of king ardashir and the belief in destiny that lies at the heart of the zoroastrian religion [Music] and that's not surprising given omar hayam's father was a zoroastrian and the city once a major center of the old religion with them the seed of wisdom did i sow and with my own hand labored it to grow and this was all the harvest that i reaped i came like water and like wind i go fatalistic lines like these were forbidden under islam but fortunately for omahayam he had the protection of the most powerful man in persia the greatest vizier of them all i'm traveling next to the fabled city of isfahan where an extraordinary example of this man's talent and power can still be seen [Music] at the time of its construction in 1086 this was the largest dome in the world it was built here in isfahan by nizam [Applause] [Music] al-mulk patron of omar and vizier to the latest conqueror of persia the seljuk sultan nazar malmur wasn't just a great builder he was also a very talented administrator these days we would probably call him a technocrat indeed the very word administrator or even vizier totally undersells him nizamulmukh ran the seljuk empire like all the other great persian viziers his aim was to impress on his less sophisticated new rulers the superiority of persian civilization and political wisdom nizamal mulk ran the seljuk empire as if he was guided by the spirit of ferdosi but he went one step further he wrote a handbook salman mulk is an astonishing figure this was a man who wrote the definitive mirror for princes the the manual for statecraft how a ruler should behave and how a ruler should do everything how often he should go hunting who he should sleep with which slaves he can trust and which he can't trust how he should go about raising an army he's borrowing a lot from pre-islamic motifs ideas zoroastrianism i mean he brings it all in to basically show the seljuk sultan you know this is how to govern this is how to do it this is how you administer your highness we can imagine him saying there is no need to train your people in the arts of good government i have well-trained administrators ready to do it all ready to collect your taxes in silver dirhams from all your many subjects here your highness is a book of advice and instructions in the art of good government you'll find it indispensable in writing the book nizamal mulk oversteps the mark like the vizier jafar in the aladdin story nizamal mulk's employer grew resentful of the enormous powers he wielded they decided this old man will not die he's a nuisance and we have to snuff him out and his murder in 1092 um triggers a series of murders right across the stage and within a year um the the entire eastern islamic world looks like hamlet in act five scene five and nothing but corpses on the stage despite his violent end nizamul mulk is remembered today as iran's own machiavelli the brilliant master of statecraft at this intersection in isfahan nizam al-mul presides proud and resolute over the modern city holding i would get a copy of his book of government the plaque pays tribute to his vision and his wisdom in ensuring that persian influence would remain at the heart of government whoever was in charge since the invasion of the arabs the persians had been fighting for the survival of their culture 500 years later the persians had made an incredible comeback their culture and language had endured [Music] and thanks to powerful viziers like nizam al-mulk the system of government had remained iranian the shelf on which great persian literature would be stored was also beginning to fill there was the work of omar hayam and beside it for doses chardonnay in this final episode i'm going back to when persia faced her gravest threat the greatest conqueror the world has ever known genghis khan but from death and destruction emerged a golden age [Music] when persia's conquerors discovered her literature and transformed it into dazzling illuminations then used it for politics and propaganda this is the way to convince people that i am the rightful king including iran's last shah with momentous consequences for the world [Music] in the early years of the 13th century terrible rumors swirled a great warlord was coming he'd swept away the chinese empire now his eyes were set on persia his army was disciplined ruthless and showed no mercy he was the mongol warlord genghis khan so when in february 1221 the great persian city of merv refused to open her gates the mongols attacked even the mighty walls couldn't withstand their devastating onslaught on the seventh day the city lost the will to fight and surrendered [Music] but it was too late the population was driven out into the open countryside it took several days to empty the city and then each mongol warrior was assigned 400 people to put to the sword if i witness the cancer to be believed up to a million men women and children were butchered this way i don't think we can over emphasize the sheer apocalyptic feeling of these great hordes of mongol warriors bursting for the eurasian steps they came they sapped they burnt they slew they plundered they departed that says it all when genghis khan's army continued south they left many cities in ruins and whole populations massacred by 1258 persia was under mongol rule the economy collapsed and the people were enslaved or forced to flee huge expanses of persia reverted to nomadic existence it seemed the previous golden age under islam was over even islam itself was threatened for these new mongol rulers were pagan now there was a new dynasty in charge they were called the ilhanids [Music] despite the violence and ferocity of the invasion all was not lost for the first time since the muslim invasion iran becomes a separate entity political entity it becomes basically an entity apart from the rest of the muslim world the mongols found that they could not run their empire without persian officials and in 1295 the mongol elite goes over to to to islam and from then on they are more persian than the persians [Music] so persian in fact the ilhanids even turned to a book written at the beginning of the 11th century the charney the book of kings the mythical spine of persian identity what they like about the chamber is it's about heroics it's about heroes it's about fighters and they can identify with it the shaaname was written by abulkasim verdosi and told the story of persia's kings before the arrival of islam fidoci wrote the sharname to keep alive persia's pre-islamic language and history but it was also a sort of how-to a handbook full of stories and examples of ancient kings advice on how to take control and keep it the mongol al-khanids were so impressed that they decided they wanted to adorn themselves in some of their charnamay's mythological luster i've come to this extraordinary citadel in northwest iran to find out how the mongols refashioned ashanami for themselves this magical place is known as king solomon's throne and according to folklore the old testament ruler kept monsters imprisoned in a mountain nearby and here in the sulfurous fathomless waters of this ancient crater what the mongols discovered wasn't home to solomon at all but home to zoroastrian priests this was one of persia's most important fire temples built by the sassanian dynasty it had survived the islamic conquest in the seventh century and the mongols didn't destroy it instead they used it to reinforce their authority and transformed it into a new seat of power in choosing this ancient site the khanids were making a statement by reusing the stones and bricks from the pre-islamic buildings they were trying to directly link the new mongol dynasty to old persia's sasanian kings and they didn't just use bricks and mortar they also turned to the sharnamey when archaeologists later excavated taktay solomon they made a surprising discovery glazed tiles inscribed with tales from ferdocy's book of kings that once would have adorned the walls of this palace [Music] i don't think that the sharname on the walls of the mongol palace there is the idea of any mongol ruler it's the idea of their bureaucrats their viziers the people who say now look you're in charge of iran you've got to behave like an iranian king like ke josero and here's the story of que hostro all around the walls of your palace uh and let me tell you the story of caicostro and how he did right and then how he did wrong so watch out there's there's there's a moral here [Music] the ill-khanids also commissioned versions of the charnamay itself like this rare page from a copy made in 1300 and not surprisingly the heroes start to look less persian more mongol so we see beautiful scenes of princes in gardens or riding on horseback they're very much mongol faces wearing mongol style clothing we see garden scenes of of lovers drinking wine together in a completely persian setting but with the distinctive images of of the mongol appearance i found the incarnate period one of the most exciting in all of persia's history [Music] the illchanids were so seduced by this new-found culture persia became their new home 200 miles to the east they built their imperial capital here they called it sultania [Music] at its heart stands the second largest mausoleum in the islamic world the peak of the dome is 51 meters high its walls seven meters thick as well as a projection of persian architectural brilliance this mausoleum tells us something else the new ruler who ordered its construction had converted to the faith of the people the mongols had conquered islam sultan uljithu who built this mausoleum had converted to shia islam and it's one of the great what-ifs of buildings his plan was to house the remains of the prophet muhammad's son-in-law and cousin the martyred imam ali which would have made this mausoleum the biggest pilgrimage site in sheer islam outside of mecca but it never happened just look at this place even though it's partly hidden behind the scaffolding i just thinking the word mongols we think of the hordes barbarians and yet when you walk into this building and you can see this amazing exquisite calligraphy and the ceramic work and the geometric design and this magnificent dome one of the biggest in the world one can't help think how the al-khane dynasty may have come here as invaders but they've become absorbed by persian [Music] culture restoration here has been going on for 50 years and the painstaking work is slowly revealing the building's former artistic wonders the sultan spared no expense is this cold here yeah this is gold you can see gold here and here many of these floral motifs were embellished with gold leaf this building is like treasure in my culture this building is an old building like an old person so you have to be gentle you have to take your time yeah coming up here to this workshop i really feel like i've reached a hand across the centuries to 700 years ago watching these workmen replicate those same skills with the plaster work and the painting and the tiles like muhammad said there's a real sense of bringing this building back to life [Music] not all of persia was put to the sword by the mongol swarm the city of shiraz was spared thanks to her quick-witted governor called uttabuk [Music] when the mongols appeared on the horizon he very wisely opened the gates and laid on a great banquet for the mongol general the clever ruse worked atabat kept his job and under ilhanid rule shiraz positively bloomed [Music] there's something weirdly psychedelic about the way the sunlight comes through the windows and hits the floor here in the pink mosque in shiraz and if you look at the walls they're covered with flowers mainly roses [Music] the rose is the symbol of shiraz and it was this flower that would inspire one of iran's greatest poets to put pen to paper he would continue the work that ferdocy had started and usher in a golden age of persian poetry born in 1210 he was called sardi sardi was reputedly a great traveler as far west as anatolia and as far east as india and his poetry is full of references to his wanderings through countries devastated by mongol invasion late into the night in tea houses he would talk to ordinary people who'd survived merchants farmers preachers and sufi mystics and when he returned to shiraz around 1256 he turned all these encounters into poems [Music] [Music] the work for which saudi is best remembered is the golestan inspired by the roses for which his home city is famous for [Music] as garden of roses a compendium of history great tales and wise sayings you might recognize some of them consider your intentions before you speak and if a little lie will keep the peace then tell it the proof of the pudding is in the eating haste makes waste but the poetry of sardi is more than a compendium of wise sayings like the shaaname sardi's book is packed full of tips on how to be a good ruler the building is uh according to dr kamali it was sadie's poems that made a deep impact on attabak that very same governor who saved shiraz from the mongols the people come those years of travel through mongol devastated persia left a profound impression on saudi a belief in the very modern concept of human rights these words were written by sardi several centuries ago they now hang in the entrance of the united nations headquarters in new york human beings are members of a whole in creation of one essence and soul if one member is afflicted with pain other members uneasy will remain if you have no sympathy for human pain the name of human you cannot retain [Music] lies here within this mausoleum [Music] verses from his poetry adorn the walls and his coffin [Music] words of peace and humanitarianism that resonate to this day [Music] it's hard to exaggerate the importance of poetry in iran ancient poems by fardoci sardi and others remain the lifeblood of modern iranian culture emblems of iranian identity shiraz is called a city of poets and many of the streets bear the names of iran's greatest there's fordosi street kayam street [Music] and as you'd expect sardi street [Music] and then there's one other almost a century after sardi was born shiraz fathered another great poet his name was kwaja shams aldin muhammad shirazi but his nickname is hafez while sardi is remembered for his humanism hafez explored the tangled web of human emotions from romantic love to the love of family to the love of god hafez wrote about the human heart [Music] [Music] to iranians hafez is much more than a love poet his words are regarded as sacred said to represent the voice of the unseen realm it's believed the poems can even predict the future meet mr hafez his surname is no coincidence as he claims to be a direct descendant of the great poet [Music] he tells fortunes by randomly selecting lines from hafez and reading them aloud [Music] thank you i've never had my fortune told before but there's something slightly moving about the things that mr hafez has just told me and he's talked about happiness in the near future and a boy and girl bringing me happiness i have a son and a daughter he's also talked about um success that something is doable he also said that god was pleased with me and that there was prosperity and blessing ahead like sardi hafez has also been gifted a magnificent mausoleum it's hard to imagine playwrights or poets in the west being treated with such reverence by every generation many of the iranians who come to hafez's tomb reach out to touch it and for some they might say a prayer as they would for a member of the family who died asking for god's blessing but there's more just a sense of reaching out to touch it like a shrine a place of spiritual connection centuries after his death after conquests dynastic upheavals and islamic revolutions hafez remains the country's most popular poet hafez unites all iranians [Music] as the 14th century drew to a close the mongols under whose rule hafez had spent his entire life returned to their slash and burn style it seemed like history had turned full circle another great warlord was coming he was called timur in the west we called him tamberlane and his eyes were set on persia as he swept south out of central asia it was said he built pillars of human heads from the armies he defeated by 1400 persia was firmly under the heel of a new dynasty the timorids fortunately for the persians timur's brutality was short-lived in 1405 he caught a fever and died [Music] and just like previous conquering dynasties that timurid soon fell under the spell of persian culture everybody in the next generation for went the whole idea of large-scale conquest it was timor who went around building pyramids of skulls everywhere but the children and the grandchildren of the butcher become east eats they become uh patrons of the arts and the teamride renaissance is is one of the great highlights of of persian history timur's successors adored persian art and literature and lured many artists to their new capital city here at now in modern afghanistan the royal court soon became a new cultural center and it was here that the art of miniature painting in particular reached new heights of sophistication a tradition that lives on in modern iran this is the workshop of hussein falahi he's been painting miniatures for over 60 years many in the timarid style the work is so delicate that his brush consists of a single cat's hair [Music] the character he's painting today is the writer of the charname [Music] verdosi [Music] in the studio next door artists work in small teams they're painting stories from the sharname today they're sold to passing tourists but 600 years ago such paintings served quite a different purpose here in tehran i've come to see an extremely rare example of the kind of work that teams of artists under the timrids produced using the miniaturist's style six centuries old it's usually kept under lock and key here at the golestan palace museum i'm incredibly lucky to be allowed to have a look a timurid shatname and to guide me through its pages is gittinuruzian an expert on rare manuscripts it's her first glimpse too tell me what we're looking at oh this is a masterpiece and i'm so surprised and this is one of the most beautiful manuscripts in the world and the most important one actually can i ask how it feels handling this oh i i i am flying i thought so the book was commissioned by prince bisongood who is timur's grandson this is mostly by somewhere under these under a canopy yes and this is the hunting scene like the mongol rulers before them the timurids gave themselves starring roles in their new version of the shahnameh people want to connect to their previous history so they connect themselves with previous kings especially the ones that have repute good reputation so this is the way to convince people that i am the rightful king the prince was an enthusiastic patron of persian art and in his royal workshop around 40 calligraphers and artists were devoted quite literally to painting for doses poetry it's considered a masterpiece of persian miniature painting this is one of the love scenes yeah yes this is rostam one of the heroes very famous heroes and rudolph the daughter of one of the kings and they came together and roster is perhaps the greatest hero he lives for 800 years yeah this is mythical who always helped the king it is the you know whole package yeah i've got to say one of the things i've really noticed looking through this with you there are fewer illustrations but each illustration is bursting out of its page the trees are you know spilling out of the top of the margins so you feel like it's concentrated in each picture i guess we'd say it packs a bigger punch while timur's descendants were great patrons of the arts they proved to be feeble rulers for nearly a century iran was left vulnerable waiting for the next invader to take his chances [Music] in my travels across iran i've come to appreciate the resilience of the persian people in the face of continual invasion from east and west by nomadic warriors religions kingdoms and dynasties had risen and fallen could the spirit of persia endure what was still to come at the end of the 15th century a band of nomadic horsemen rose from the north west to set iran on a new radical course a militant revolutionary sect their self-declared mission was to forcibly convert all muslims to shia islam their leader was called ismail a warlord who was remarkable in many ways not least his age he's extremely young i think he takes the city of tabriz at the age of 12 i mean he begins a life of conquest at um pre-teenage i mean it's really quite striking but his followers believe him to be divine i mean not just simply divinely legitimized but actually part of the divine ismail certainly cut a dash handsome strong with broad shoulders he had a long moustache and was skilled with a bow ismail played the militant shia card in extreme form he required followers to curse the first three khalifs before muhammad's cousin ali ismail's crusade not only forcibly converted muslims to shiism but went to war with the forces of sunni islam the ottomans this grand opulent building is called shahel suton it's a palace where ismail's military campaigns against the sunni ottomans have been memorialized in huge frescoes when you pause for a moment there are all these incredibly moving details there's an elderly man being cradled by a younger soldier with incredible sadness there's a young boy clearly some kind of hostage with his hands bound sitting in tears on the back of her horse and then there's this man lying prone in the foreground next to a decapitated body there's a head and then you realize he's lost his arm there's no much real gruesomeness and then people being trampled under horses and oh god there's another headless body just there [Music] the legends of ismail's campaign are very colorful one recounts how he ordered two of his enemies to be roasted on a spit as kebabs and then commanded his followers to eat them to prove their loyalty to their new shah and to show their hatred of the sunnis shiism became ismail's badge of identity now he decided to go one step further [Music] ismail had a concerted policy of making shias the state religion it was a way of basically distinguishing iran from their ottoman rivals [Music] as shiism took hold the arts and crafts became a means of branding this sect of islam on everything from carpet design to jewelry this beautiful ring made from gold tells the story of iran's conversion to shiism under ismail [Music] it bears a couplet by hafez and referenced to imam ali on the last day the day of judgment on the day all men are in a state of helplessness i will have the protection of ali ibn abi talib in wearing it the ring declares the shia beliefs of its owner what shiism did for iran was to fashion a national identity which has survived in very good health right up to today and shiism and iran are hand in love and have been hand in glove for the last 500 years shiism was now firmly established so was ismail's grip on power he was the first in a new dynasty of kings called the safavids but while ismail secured the throne using cavalry and swords his grandson secured the country with the very latest weaponry gunpowder [Music] like his artillery shah abbas would prove to be the biggest gun in the safavid dynasty i think you could call him the the ruler of one of the three gunpowder states of the 16th century the ottomans the safavids and the mughals and cha bass is at the center of them this is a piratical buccaneering personality he can drink anyone under the table he is a man of ferocious energy he has big ideas big visions of what the country can do a vision that would become one of the world's greatest architectural wonders abbas decided to build from scratch his reign would mark the start of a new persian renaissance but he needed a new canvas upon which to create it he would build it out of tiles and bricks and mortar he chose isfahan the persians called this square niss jahan half the world meaning to see it was to see half the world he built it on a scale and at a size and of a splendor that had the europeans who flocked his court stupefied and they went back to europe and they told the story of these extraordinary palaces with their great gardens and what happens louis xiv builds versailles the ottomans heard about it and they built the top copy sarai and the mughal kings heard about it and they built their garden cities in agra and lahore and delhi tiled in turquoise the symbol of heaven the jewel in isfahan's crown is this the royal mosque this dome is over a hundred feet high and there's a second exterior dome beyond that and it's the gap between the two which is responsible for all the echoes that you can hear a bus instructed as architect to construct a dome which could be filled with echoes the dome was designed to produce seven echoes [Applause] in stands on seven black tiles to call the faithful to prayer from the number of days in the week to the seven levels of paradise the number seven is of course a holy number the number of god [Music] together the three main components of power in persia [Music] the power of shia islam represented by the mosques the power of the shah himself residing in the ali kapoor palace and the power of the merchants represented by the imperial bazaar this is the quesaria gate the entrance to isfahan's bazaar [Music] the bazaar dates back more than a thousand years but it was shah abbas who transformed it from a local market into a series of royal workshops [Music] in a matter of years isfahan became the beating economic heart of a re-fashioned persian nation under a bus artists and craftsmen achieved new heights of perfection employing skills that can still be found in the bizarre to this day so how many days will it take you to finish a whole car 20 days it's beautiful today the bazaar is as popular as it ever was it remains one of the largest bazaars in the world the tangle of lanes and stalls offer a veritable feast for the senses can i get one bag of the big ones which is how many one beast one exactly so this is 20. okay i'll get one and although this is the bizarre and it may be a culture that's 400 years old it's moved with the times and now they take a debit card only for all the cash transactions thank you very much i have been bizarre shopping with my debit card [Music] isbahan was a visionary city that fascinated the western visitors who came here it stands today as an extraordinary gallery of islamic architecture [Music] in one way it's tempting to end the story of persia right here in the golden age of persian art and culture the apex of two thousand years of history this bridge these mosques palaces and bazaars project safafig power and prestige and its identification with shia islam with a magnificence rarely surpassed shah abbas died in 1629 but his successes proved to be a pale imitation failing to hold back yet another threat from the northeast nomadic warlords from afghanistan in the crossfire was a soldier of fortune from the city of machad who rose through the ranks of the persian army nader shah proved to be so much more than an opportunist mercenary he was a military genius who not only fought for the safavid king but overthrew him and went on to conquer iran itself meet persia's napoleon the reason why he's described in some ways as napoleon approaches because his military conquests are dramatic he comes in as a sort of the generalissimo of the sort of safavid counter-attack and he's extremely successful and he then basically by hook and by crook essentially pushes the safford pretender out he says you know you're useless you keep making mistakes i'm going to eventually you know i think we should have a new dynasty and i'll be the new king once nadar shah crowned himself king in 1736 he set his sights on india's mughal empire famously he crushed the mughal army near delhi in just three hours and now the persian empire reached its greatest territorial extent since the days of her pre-islamic kings nada shah returned to iran with vast amounts of booty here he sits on the legendary mughal emperor's peacock throne encrusted with jewels including the fabulous kohinoor diamond later to be acquired by the british and set into the royal crown in india nader shah is still very much regarded as a looter and i remember going to delhi and being taken to see the site of the disappeared peacock throne but here in his mausoleum his weapons are treated with reverence and there's a view among historians not just in iran that nada shah in his prime came tantalizingly close to creating a unified modern state one that could have rivalled britain france and america's empires and transformed the future of the middle east but that alternative future was not to be this is nada's tomb in the city of mashad tribute to his vaulting ambition and extraordinary success the heroic horseback statue crowns this brutalist 1950s granite mausoleum his death however was less than heroic despite the plunder he brought back from india it was never enough to satisfy nadarsha's thirst for war he bled the country dry and it's a it's it's a great pity because the number of things he was doing could have had fasting consequences iranians in modern terms tend to remember all the good and glorious things and ignore other conveniently or the rather brutal aspects of which there were many unfortunate he became more and more cruel and in the end he was assassinated by his own people it was like a firework went off and it made a huge splash a huge display but there was no legacy just darkness after nader shah's assassination in 1747 his rival generals fought over the spoils the persian empire slowly fell into decline and civil war setting the stage for european colonial penetration [Music] from being a confident culture that somehow always got the better of its conquerors persia became a plaything of imperial powers like britain and russia iran was slowly transformed from a proud independent nation into a buffer state as britain and czarist russia battled it out for domination isfahan iran's once great jeweled capital city declined the bazaars and streets fell silent throughout the chaos of civil war and intervention by imperial powers what survived of old persia was the language itself and the literature to which it gave birth these ancient words stories and poems became an emotional home for iranians a place where persian culture endured the stories of poets and writers like sadie hafez and fajdosi were kept alive in the tea houses throughout iran by storytellers who brought to life the tales of persia's ancient past sipping their tea smoking their pipes iranians were reminded of better times when iranian kings ruled much of the ancient world [Music] the tradition of storytelling remains alive to this day at this tea house in tehran people have come to listen to a story from the shahnamen the story of bijan and his doomed love affair with the daughter of an enemy king it's one of many origin myths that populate the chameleon morality tales about characters who are not only the cause of their own downfall but their kingdoms too [Music] the last shah was called muhammad raza shah his rule eerily mirrors the fate of many of fajdosi's flawed kings what follows is a tale of pride and overreaching ambition in 1967 muhammad raza crowned himself king of kings a statement to his subject that he was possessed by royal far the royal far according to fudosi is the divine thumbs up all great persian kings must possess i have this firm belief that i have a mission to accomplish and i believe in god this is what this is why i say i think that i have a divine command of doing what i'm doing [Music] mohammed raza shah saw himself as the final product of 2500 years of unbroken persian monarchy he genuinely believes that this is his mission to see himself as a as a new cyrus i suppose mohammed raza shah wanted the world to know about the king who was buried here way before the mongol and islamic invasions it was cyrus the great who forged the first persian empire in 559 bc [Music] two and a half thousand years later in 1971 muhammad raza shah hosted a parade to celebrate the anniversary of the persian empire and to directly associate his reign with cyrus the event was broadcast live around the world and even made into a feature film cyrus the founder of persian culture and the father of iran the land five times the size of great britain which this shah rules today in 1971 you know the shah goes in front of the tomb of of cyrus the great and praises him and says you know sleep easy everything's going to be okay it's a political mistake quran i mean what he should really be doing is is paying more attention in some ways to the narratives of the shahnamen since it was written persia's shahs had always allied themselves with the shatname instead along with the pantomime style parade muhammad raza shah hosted the biggest party the world had ever seen [Music] in attendance kings queens heads of state and even an emperor they drank 000 bottles of champagne consumed a ton of caviar and were fed by more than 160 chefs flown in from paris like oedipus in in in sophocles play you feel like saying no no don't do that don't do that it's a bad idea and he still goes ahead and does it there were very few persians actually invited to the event itself we know that the food was all imported from france together with the porcelain it was actually very aniramian when they weren't being entertained or feasting the shah's guests were accommodated in luxury tents a reminder of the itinerant tented court of the archaminid kings [Music] today the skeleton of the tent city still stands preserved by the desert climate testament to the scale of his lavish dreams the whole thing backfired costing more than 140 million pounds the event came to be seen as proof of the excess and extravagance of the shah's dynasty in its final years razer had completely misunderstood persia's history in trying to impress foreign powers with a fabricated connection to ancient kings he had ignored the powerful forces that bonded ordinary iranians muhammad raza shah's twisted projection of royal power played right into the hands of his arch critic [Music] the shia spiritual leader ayatollah khomeini as the shah was making these statements about his right to to be the successor of of cyrus uh khamenei was was thundering from najaf about how an islamic and in many ways unpersian this adoration of the the pagan past really was [Music] would never want to say that the persepolis celebrations of 1971 was the cause of the iranian revolution but it didn't help the shah opposition to the shah spread and in december 1978 millions took to the streets of tehran demanding his abdication the following month mohammed reza left the country never to return his fall from grace was reminiscent of those kings in the chardonnay who fell prey to pride and ambition muhammad raza shah should have heeded the advice to be found in its pages the charnemay was after all a handbook for kings in the decades that followed iran's challenges multiplied islamic revolution a bloody eight-year war with iraq and economic sanctions imposed by the west to this day iranians seek refuge from the present in their art their poetry and their literature [Music] [Applause] persian culture the unifying force that binds the people of iran the culture that has shaped our world [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: Ancient History Nerd

Views: 151,183

Rating: 4.8284521 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: cbdI4ukBUU8

Length: 171min 22sec (10282 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 03 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ukbeast89]

"This video contains content from Channel 4, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds."
😶

[u/realchoice]

Fantastic. I had been hoping to find content on this subject and glad it's the BBC. Looking forward to this.

[u/cuts_with_fork]

Looking forward to watching this! The pre-islamic history museum in Tehran was amazing, as well as Persepolis (obviously). and even though I'm sure translations can't do their poetry justice, it was still beautiful to read.

Saved :)

[u/vendeep]

I love historical documentaries especially the ones that focus on middle east, southern Europe (greece, Turkey), north africa.

One thing that caught me by interest in this video is the ancient language prayer at 1:07:00. The prayer rhythm and vocals sounds very familiar to Vedic Sanskrit prayers from India. Its a rabbit hole that was soo interesting to read.

http://www.hindupedia.com/en/Zoroastrianism_and_Hinduism

https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/sanskritavestan.htm

https://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/zoro.pdf

[u/nonsense39]

This series is very well done and available on YouTube. It covers a lot more than art

[u/Vinhi2001]

For anyone interested in exploring Persian history through a western lens, do highly recommend :Tom Holland's book - Persian Fire..

[u/tewojacinto]

I love Iran and its people for no reason

[u/estherwoodcourt]

I watched this when it aired and it’s very good - really learnt a lot! Well worth a watch.

[u/thesquarerootof_1]

Thanks for sharing this ! Although I was born in the US, my parents are from Iran so I'm full blooded Persian. I'm loving this documentary right now !