Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps

that it's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream

van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC sounds.

This is a download from the BBC. For more information and our terms of use, go to BBC.co.uk slash radio three.

Religious belief is at the heart of the most intractable conflicts of our time, from Israel and Palestine to Islamist terrorism and the re-emerging sectarian tensions in Egypt and Syria.

Here at the Sage Gateshead, we're going to explore how far the origins of Islam and Christianity help us understand the modern geopolitics of East and West. Christianity seems to be in chronic decline in Europe at the same time that Muslim populations are increasing. The relationship between the two traditions is one of the most divisive issues of European politics.

But what is the reality in the future of these two religions?

For Freethinking 2012, we've invited two distinguished authors to contemplate the historical and spiritual fault lines that run between the two most powerful faiths of the modern age,

drawing us back along a continuum to the roots of the great division between Christianity and Islam.

Mona Siddiqui is a professor of Islamic and inter-religious studies at the University of Edinburgh,

and we'll be hearing from her shortly.

Historian Tom Holland's gripping accounts of the end of the age of antiquity include Millennium,

the end of the world and the forging of Christendom, and his latest book,

in The Shadow of the Sword, covers the emergence of Islam in the Near East.

So please join me in welcoming Tom.

Thank you very much.

And I'd just like to begin by saying huge kudos to Radio 3 for staging a discussion about religion

that focuses not on what unites the various faiths,

but what divides them.

In Father Ted, there's a typically brilliant episode in which the deranged Father Jack has to attend a conference, perhaps one rather

like this. And Father Ted coaches him to give the same reply to anything, no matter how challenging,

that might be put to him.

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