structural:reformatting
Shi'ism and Iran

Twelver Shia Muslim live mainly in a half dozen or so countries scattered around the Middle East and South Asia. The Islamic Republic of Iran has become "the de facto leader" of the Shi'i world by virtue of being the largest Shia-majority state, having a long history of national cohesion and Shia-rule, being the site of the first and "only true" Islamist revolution (see History section below), and having the financial resources of a major petroleum exporter. Iran's influence has spread into a cultural-geographic area of "Irano-Arab Shiism", establishing Iranian regional power, supporting "Shia militias and parties beyond its borders", intertwining assistance to fellow Shi'a with "Iranization" of them.

Shi'i Islamism in Iran has been influenced by the Sunni Islamists and their organizations, particularly Sayyid Rashid Rida, Hassan al-Banna (founder of the Muslim Brotherhood organization), Sayyid Qutb, Abul A'la Maududi, but has also been described as "distinct" from Sunni Muslim Brotherhood Islamism, "more leftist and more clerical", with its own historical influencers: