Shi’ism originated in Iran as an Arab import rather than an indigenous Persian faith

Evidence

The difficulty about such theories is that Shi‘ism, like Islam itself, was brought to Iran by Arabs. The first Shi‘ites in Iran—and for a long time this remained so—were Arabs. The city of Qomm, the stronghold and center of Iranian Shi‘ism, was an Arab foundation, and the first settlers in Qomm were Arabs. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 304

Categorization

• XREF: Corroborates the idea that Iran’s ‘Islamic identity’ was constructed through Arab conquest narratives, connecting to Said-adjacent treatments of how regional identities get fixed by outside observers.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing when the Safavid imposition is examined — is the standard Iran-as-Shi’ite narrative itself a later retrospective construction?