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Derived from this Question and this Answer is a question about the history of the twelver Shia branch of Islam. Would you please notify in short how did this branch evolved through the ages? Please focus on:

  1. the main events that largely helped spreading this perspective,
  2. the percentage of their followers compared to other Shia and Sunni communities at least qualitatively if not possibly quantitatively,
  3. and in particular whether or not the Safavid empire in Persia can be rightly considered as the main reason for this perspective to become the mainstream Shia community in the present era.
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Good question but it needs too long answer like a book, much more than what can be written here – Ali Jan 21 at 21:23
@Ali, keeping the answer as short as possible should be enough, only tracking qualitatively how it evolved may suffice. You can start that with the fact that after the holy prophet --peace be upon him-- passed away Shia started to evolve from 3 or 5 or 7, then was branched and evolved, until Imam Baqir and Imam Sadiq --peace be upon them-- who had as many as thousands of students, not all of them Shia of them but caused in intensive spread of their ideas, then Imam Redha --peace be upon him-- coming to Iran, then the 9th, 10th, 11th Imam sending representatives to all over the Islamic land ... – owari Jan 21 at 21:46
I wished I had such historical knowledge to answer this question, but I don't unfortunately :-) – Ali Jan 22 at 0:18

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