A critical exploration of the Shiite research process in the west from crusade until now

Although Shiite research was the subject of research in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century in the west, developed a lot after changes in Islamic world and familiarity with the capacity of Shia Islam, especially after the Islamic revolution in Iran. In the first encountering of westerners with Shia Islam in crusades, Fatimids and Ismailis were introduced as representatives of Shia Islam and westerners to a large extent, under the influence of Islamic world formal spaces, considered the Shia Islam as an innovative school. The question is, what was the process of Shiite studies in the west? In this article, the evolution of westerners’ familiarity with Shia Islam and their researches in this case will be considered by using the descriptive-analytical method. Despite the gradual growth of this type of studies, there are still a few works about the Imami Shiite.