“Forced migration” is defined for the purposes of this study as the transportation of a considerable number of a population group (whether nomadic or sedentary), normally in family units and accompanied by livestock and chattels, to be permanently resettled in a region remote from their home; and undertaken as an act of policy by the ruler or his agents. It does not refer to attempts to sedentarize nomads on lands adjacent to their pastures, or to simple dispossession of lands without alternative provision.

Examples of forced migration have been noted in Iran and its imperial appendages from the earliest to the most recent times, chiefly as punishment of stubborn opponents or refractory subjects by a vigorous, centralizing monarch.

When anger becomes the dominant mode of expression in a narrative context—and this to such a heightened degree that its release determines a whole series of actions—then it becomes necessary to evaluate not only its effect but also its purpose. In epic literatures dealing with heroic warfare, when a hero gets mad, a whole community suffers: castastrophes occur on a broad scale. These catastrophes, Gertrude Levy points out in her Sword From the Rock, “are always brought about by excess of pride arising from [the hero's] special gift of mana, or manas or menos”: which she defines as “the heroic energy which is a sign of [the hero's] divine ancestry and upon which [his] leadership depends; now brought into conflict with the accepted loyalties of organized warfare.”

The hero, in conflict with his society, then, comes to express not just an inner resentment, but a quality of divine origin, which enables history to work itself out.

The Iranian constitutional movement of the early twentieth century involved various segments of Iranian society. Intellectuals, enlightened members of the bureaucracy, religious leaders, merchants and the urban population, each to a greater or lesser extent participated in this reform movement. Naturally their political attitudes, objectives, and interests differed. The intellectuals, who were secular in outlook and influenced by liberal Western ideas, hoped for the establishment of a constitutional form of government. A small group of reformers in the government sympathized with these men and were in close contact with them. Indeed, it is difficult to distinguish between the former and the latter since most of the intelligentsia were also a part of the ruling class. Perhaps one of the best examples is Mīrzā Malkam Khān Nāẓim al-Dawlah (1834-1908), who represents the attitude of a liberal thinker as well as a reformist member of the bureaucracy.