Christians learned about Shi’ah Islam only when a Shi’ah state existed

Evidence

MEDIAEVAL Christians knew very little about Shi’ah Islam, because from the fall of the Fatimids in Egypt to the rise of the Safawis in Persia there was no state professing Shi’ah beliefs to attract their attention. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1797

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to my noise/communication reading about how attention follows institutional power centers, and to the general pattern of what gets noticed being what has a political vessel. — connects to: Travellers introduced Shi’ism to Europe only after it became Persia’s state religion