The political, religious, and cultural history of greater Iran from Late Antiquity to the Mongol invasions in the early 13th century. The course surveys the reigns of the kings of the Sasanian empire (3rd–7th centuries); traces the progress of the Muslim Arab conquests in the mid-7th century that resulted in the Persian empire's collapse and the gradual Islamization of its population; and examines the subsequent formation of regional Iranian dynasties that were instrumental in the creation of a new Perso-Islamic cultural identity.