Failed revolts forged Shia identity as perpetual minority

Evidence

It was these revolts, and especially their almost invariable failure, that gave a distinctive quality to Shi ite Islam. … In most Muslim lands, the Shi a were a minority. Even where they became a majority, with the exception of Iran, they remained in a subordinate position. A striking case is that of Iraq, where a Shi ite majority has remained subject to a Sunni ascendancy—to borrow a word from Anglo-Irish history—that can be traced back from the republic regime to the monarchy, the British Mandate, the Ottoman Empire, and beyond into the Middle Ages. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1433

Categorization

• XREF: Iraq’s Shia-majority-under-Sunni-rule maps closely onto modern media coverage of sectarian tension in post-2003 Iraq.