What if the majority of Muslims around the world were Shiite instead of Sunni?
The obvious question is how does that come to pass? The Fatimids stay on forever? It would have to be either a relatively early POD or else an absurdly powerful late Shia empire. Modern Shia-majority countries (and most of the denser minority areas) are all the result of the Safavid rule.
I'd actually argue that this would not be the case: If I remember, the Fatimids never had an aggressive program of conversion, and in fact many of the local agents they put into place in the Maghrib and Ifriqiya seem to have only been nominally Shia, or at least converted back to Sunni later on. Certainly most of the areas they ruled are not areas you would consider core Shia regions today - in fact its believers are heavily concentrated in Mesopotamia, not anywhere the Fatimids ever ruled.The Fatimids stay on.
I'd actually argue that this would not be the case: If I remember, the Fatimids never had an aggressive program of conversion, and in fact many of the local agents they put into place in the Maghrib and Ifriqiya seem to have only been nominally Shia, or at least converted back to Sunni later on. Certainly most of the areas they ruled are not areas you would consider core Shia regions today - in fact its believers are heavily concentrated in Mesopotamia, not anywhere the Fatimids ever ruled.
I'd actually argue that this would not be the case: If I remember, the Fatimids never had an aggressive program of conversion, and in fact many of the local agents they put into place in the Maghrib and Ifriqiya seem to have only been nominally Shia, or at least converted back to Sunni later on. Certainly most of the areas they ruled are not areas you would consider core Shia regions today - in fact its believers are heavily concentrated in Mesopotamia, not anywhere the Fatimids ever ruled.
But what was the overall impact it had on establishing thier brand of shiism in Egypt and the wider world in which they operated in?They simply had a different approach. The Fatimids and their war of influence and subversion was more damaging than the forced conversion and ethnic cleansing of the Safavids.
But what was the overall impact it had on establishing thier brand of shiism in Egypt and the wider world in which they operated in?
Given that Ismailis are in the minority amongst shia today, was alot of the Fatimid influence just reversed or was it not so effective at conversion.