A List Is Not a Law
Podcast On the hundred names compiled in Tehran, the accusation waiting at the other end of the flight, and the guarantee neither side is offering On Thursday morning Mohsen Namjoo put out a video saying that by the time anyone watched it he would either be in the air or already on the ground in… — read more
Two Kinds of Certainty
Podcast On the seventy-third anniversary of the 1953 coup, a reflection on the arrogance that ended Mohammad Mossadegh’s government, and the different arrogance that must not be allowed to replace it. Seventy-three years ago today, tanks reached the prime minister’s residence in Tehran and put an end to the government of Mohammad Mossadegh. The anniversary… — read more
Breaking the Mirror
Podcast A Verse, and a Warning Nizami Ganjavi wrote, in the Makhzan al-Asrar eight centuries ago, that when the mirror has shown your reflection true, you should break yourself, for breaking the mirror is the mistake.[1] Dariush Eghbali opened the note accompanying his new song with that couplet, then did more or less what it… — read more
In Memoriam: Dr Jalal Badakhchani (1941–2026)
Dr Jalal Badakhchani – in full, Sayyid Jalal Hosseini Badakhchani – passed away peacefully in London on the morning of 11 August 2026, aged 85. He was the foremost scholar of the Persian Ismaili literature of the Alamūt period, and it is primarily through his editions and translations that the writings of the Ismaili da‘i Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d.… — read more
Neither Rogue Nor Obedient
Podcast Two positions on artificial intelligence, and the question both leave standing In Brief The alarm has hold of something the reassurance waves away. Artificial intelligence is an invention rather than a discovery, and the opacity is real. That is a reason to bind the makers, and it is no evidence that nobody is in… — read more
The Middle Nobody Counts
Podcast On Radio Farda’s Pārāgrāf-i Avval, the Madani–Bayat correspondence, and the part of Iran that no one has counted Radio Farda’s programme Pārāgrāf-i Avval, presented by Muhammad Zarghami, put the correspondence between Saeed Madani and Asef Bayat to Jalal Idjadi and to me. The exchange has run in Naqd-i Iqtiṣād-i Siyāsī since Urdībihisht 1403, begun… — read more
Islam or Muslims?
Podcast Image: folio from a manuscript of the Quran, Aga Khan Museum, Toronto An argument is circulating, and it deserves a straight answer. It runs like this. A Muslim intellectual, pressed about the crimes of the Islamic Republic, replies that there is no such thing as Islam, only Muslims. His interlocutor finds the reply evasive… — read more
Who Holds the Rope
Podcast On capital punishment in Iran, the argument the opposition will not make, and the one the Muslim tradition already supplies An iron scaffold went up in Alikhani Square in Isfahan on Monday night. People gathered. There were scuffles with the guards. In the early hours of Tuesday, Amirhossein Safari and Abolfazl Sepahi were hanged… — read more
The Rock and the Library
Podcast Date: 13/09/2003 | Photo: Mohammad Mahmoudi |Copyright: © ACHB On the inscription of Alamut, and the inheritance the citation does and does not name The item took a few minutes. On Sunday, in Busan, the World Heritage Committee inscribed Alamut Castle and six associated fortifications – Lambesar, Navizaršāh, Šams Kelāyeh, Qosṭinlār, Širkūh and… — read more
Three Thousand Five Hundred
Podcast On 25 July 2026, Morad Vaisi published a number. Vaisi is senior Iran analyst at Iran International and host of its flagship politics programme. Since January he has been collecting the names of the dead and reading them aloud, live, hour after hour. It is honourable work. He has done it under pressure, and… — read more
