Art of Persia

This is a land known by two names.

The first is Persia.

TRADITIONAL MIDDLE EASTERN SINGING

Ancient.

Mysterious.

A place of adventure...

..of mighty temples and palaces built by powerful kings.

A land of unimaginable beauty.

The other is Iran.

Isolated.

Proud.

Defiant...

..especially of foreign interference.

But behind these names

lies the extraordinary story

of a complex history and culture.

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 travel outward, throughout the world,

transforming culture across Europe and Asia.

If you think you know the Persians, think again.

Since Iran became an Islamic republic in 1979,

Western documentary teams are seldom given access.

But I'm a British journalist and I've been given

a rare opportunity to travel across this vast country

and discover its art and literature for myself.

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 civilisations.

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.

At the beginning of the 7th 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 Koran

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 Yazdegerd.

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.

Yazdegerd, and what was left of his army, fled east

over the Zagros Mountains.

But this formidable barrier proved no defence.

By the year 637 AD,

the Arabs were at the gates of Persia's capital city, Istakhr.

But Yazdegerd and his family escaped.

This is the village of Chak Chak, 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 an actual fire pot and...

Farinaz is a practising 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?

But one of the Persian princesses did escape.

The legend goes

that when she prayed to the Zoroastrian god,

the mountain miraculously opened up

and hid her from the Arab soldiers.

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.

These three bull or ox heads with the tiny calves

underneath are made of brass and once formed 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 defence to ward off looters and invaders from the fire temples.

And this particular mace head has been dated to the 7th 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.

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 1,500 years.

The fire represents the Zoroastrian god, Ahura Mazda...

..the god worshipped by King Yazdegerd and his ancestors.

Zoroastrianism is the great forgotten world faith.

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 one supreme god,

Ahura Mazda, which means "the wise lord".

And he gives this principle of Atar,

which means truth and from truth

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.

The Iranians and their rulers had always been Zoroastrian.

Figures such as the winged god Ahura Mazda had been worshipped

since the earliest of times,

putting the Zoroastrian religion

at the heart of Persian identity.

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's said, of Zoroastrianism.

THEY CHANT AND SING

Zoroastrians believe they will remain together

both in life and in death.

This is called a tower of silence

and it looms over the city of Yazd below.

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 Naqsh-e Rostam.

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 civilisation

and to marvel at the pride and strength

of their ancient rulers.

The figure on the right of this carving

was called Ardashir I

and he came to the throne in the year 224 AD.

Ardashir was descended from a Zoroastrian priest called Sasan.

He was the first in a dynasty of Persian kings

called the Sasanians.

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 divine essence,

this charisma,

this light, which then sort of envelops the king

for the rest of his reign.

And, interestingly, this kind of...this light, which we kind of,

I suppose, describe as a halo, 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,

"Worshipper of Ahura Mazda,

"this is Ardashir,

"King of Kings of Iran."

But even a great king like Ardashir cannot live forever.