From Persia to Iran: Islam, Empire, and the Politics of West Asia
Rev Left Radio
Breht O'Shea
4.8 • 3.6K Ratings
🗓️ 17 March 2026
⏱️ 176 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Breht interviews Adnan Husain -- Professor of Medieval history and Chair of the Religious Studies department at Queens college -- about the deep historical roots of today's Middle East. The conversation traces the arc from ancient Persia to the Islamic era, explores how Iran became a center of Shi'a Islam, and examines the long rivalry between Persian and Ottoman power. Along the way, they unpack the Sunni-Shia split, the political role of Turkey in the region, the ways Western narratives about Islam were forged through the Crusades and carried forward into the modern world, Zionist Expansionism, and the ongoing illegal war of aggression waged by the U.S. and Israel against Iran, and indeed, the whole region.
Check out Adnan's previous appearences on Rev Left HERE
Subscribe to Adnan's YouTube channel HERE
Watch Adnan's 2 Part episode on Yemen HERE
Listen to Guerrilla History podcast HERE
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everybody, welcome back to Rev Left Radio. |
| 0:08.5 | All right. Today, we are going deep into the history of Iran slash Persia, of West Asia in general, the Ottoman Empire. |
| 0:19.0 | We're talking about the Sunni-Shi-Shi split in Islam, |
| 0:21.9 | going back all the way to its inaugural split and how it continues to influence and inform |
| 0:28.0 | geopolitics in the region and throughout. We talk about the current war in Iran, trying to connect |
| 0:34.6 | this deep history of both Islam as well as these empires in the region to current day geopolitical maneuvering. |
| 0:42.9 | We talk about the Greater Israel Project, the ambiguous and influx position of modern day Turkey in relation to Iran as well as Israel. |
| 0:53.7 | We talk about Naftali Bennett's recent comment about |
| 0:56.3 | Turkey is the new Iran and what that might portend for relations going forward. And interestingly, |
| 1:02.7 | the pressure it puts on NATO, the idea that Israel and Turkey could be in any way, shape, or form |
| 1:08.5 | in direct conflict in the future, would just be another |
| 1:12.0 | nail in the coffin of NATO, which is already barely hanging on in so many different ways. |
| 1:16.9 | And I just think this is a fascinating exploration of a deep history with a genuine expert. |
| 1:24.0 | Not only is Adnan an expert,ieval Western Asian history, but he's also |
| 1:28.5 | an expert on Islamic history. And he weaves those two things together seamlessly in this |
| 1:33.8 | tour de force of historical explanation and analysis as we connected up to modern day, the |
| 1:42.2 | modern day situation, as it were. But also, he's been on the ground. |
| 1:45.2 | He spent lots of time in Turkey and Istanbul in particular and throughout the country. |
| 1:49.6 | And only a couple months ago, he recently had a chance to go to Tehran in between the 12-day |
| 1:54.7 | war and the sort of protest that got infiltrated by Mossad that occurred a few months back. |
| 2:01.5 | In between that time. So just a couple months in between those two monumental moments in Iranian history he was |
| 2:07.7 | able to go and spend some time in Tehran and explore the city in depth and so not only does he have |
... |
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