Travellers introduced Shi’ism to Europe only after it became Persia’s state religion

Evidence

On one subject a big increase of knowledge was brought home by travellers: this was the shi’ah faith, which most mediaevals had known only as the religion of obscure and eccentric sectaries, but which in the seventeenth century was the state religion of Persia, made most famous by Shah ‘Abbas, whose renown in his day was unparalleled.? Naturally enough, the division between Shi’ah and Sunni was seen to have a Christian parallel — ‘no lesse zealous and divided in their profession, than wee and the Papalins’, said the Welsh Protestant, Thomas Herbert; its importance was inevitably political: ‘whereby is sown such mortall hatred between these two potent Monarchs (the Turk and the Persian) that (to Europs good) they abominate each other with implacable hatred’. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1569 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

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 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Essentially, Shi‘ism seems to have been thought of as a schism simply, even though one of implacable hatred; ‘Ali was its antiprophet, as Oliver of Paderborn’s simplification of William of Tyre’s statements brings out.® Shi‘ah forms of religious expression were quite unknown. So was the moderate Ja‘fari Shi‘ah Islam, either as a temperate form of religious belief and practice, or as the religion of the oppressed that it has often become in the course of its history. This may just be hinted at by Ricoldo, who knew ‘Iraq and passed through Samarra’, where, of course, he was told that guidam filius Ahali, that is, the Mahdi (the twelfth Imam) would return, and where he heard of the wonderful mule, held ready harnessed on Fridays in expectation of the Mahdi’s coming. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1802 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Seventeenth-century travellers newly acquainted Europeans with Shi’ah Islam as Persia’s state religion — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1569; Christians learned about Shi’ah Islam only when a Shi’ah state existed — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1797; Mediaeval Latin Christians knew Shi’ism only as a hated schism — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1802

Related

• Seventeenth-century travellers newly acquainted Europeans with Shi’ah Islam as Persia’s state religion (similarity 0.94)
• Mediaeval Latin Christians knew Shi’ism only as a hated schism (similarity 0.87)
• Christians learned about Shi’ah Islam only when a Shi’ah state existed (similarity 0.86)

Broader Connections

• Seventeenth-century travellers newly acquainted Europeans with Shi’ah Islam as Persia’s state religion #corroborates (0.95) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1569
• Christians learned about Shi’ah Islam only when a Shi’ah state existed #corroborates (0.90) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1797
• Mediaeval Latin Christians knew Shi’ism only as a hated schism #expands (0.75) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1802