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Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves

into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries,

the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings

to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crusades.

We cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders, to find

the stories big and small that tell us how we got here.

Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval.

Welcome to this special extra episode of Gone Medieval. Only two months ago, millions of Iranians

took to the streets to protest, and events in recent days have spiraled, putting the country once

again in the media spotlight. And while it may seem like this is a crisis born of the present

moment of politics, economic sanctions, modern discontent and Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions,

tensions in Iran run deeper than the last five decades. The Iranian people have been wrestling with power, faith and identity for centuries.

To understand why Islam in Iran looks the way that it does today,

why it's embraced, contested, reshaped and resisted,

we have to travel back not just centuries, but more than a millennium, to

...