So much for "first-stage" nationalist developments in the Arab or Arabized lands. There is, however, one more important centre of nationalist sentiment in the Moslem world to be considered--Persia. Persia is, in fact, the land where a genuine nationalist movement would have been most logically expected, because the Persians have for ages possessed a stronger feeling of "country" than any other Near Eastern people. In the nineteenth century Persia had sunk into such deep decrepitude that its patent weakness excited the imperialistic appetites of Czarist Russia and, in somewhat lesser degree, of England. Persia's decadence and external perils were, however, appreciated by thinking Persians, and a series of reformist agitations took place, beginning with the religious movement of the Bab early in the nineteenth century and culminating with the revolution of 1908.[157] That revolution was largely precipitated by the Anglo-Russian Agreement of 1907 by which England and Russia virtually partitioned Persia; the country being divided into a Russian "sphere of influence" in the north and a British "sphere of influence" in the south, with a "neutral zone" between. The revolution was thus in great part a desperate attempt of the Persian patriots to set their house in order and avert, at the eleventh hour, the shadow of European domination which was creeping over the land. But the revolution was not merely a protest against European aggression. It was also aimed at the alien Khadjar dynasty which had so long misruled Persia. These Khadjar sovereigns were of Turkoman origin. They had never become really Persianized, as shown by the fact that the intimate court language was Turki, not Persian. They occupied a position somewhat analogous to that of the Manchus before the Chinese revolution. The Persian revolution was thus basically an _Iranian_ patriotic outburst against all alien influences, whether from East or West.