The awareness of shiism goes back to the early centuries of Islam but the written study of shiism started at the time of crusade wars and its continuance in all periods of ilkhanid, teimoriy, safavid, ghajar, and pahlaveid until now have been accompanied with processes and changes; and during these researches different kind of approaches and methods have been used that need to be critically surveyed.
The study of Shiism has been attended ftom the late of 19th and the early of 20th century, but after evolutions that happened in Islam's world and awareness of capacity of shiism, especially after victory of Islamic republic in Iran, these researches have been focused more seriousely. At the early centuries of Islam, because of the Sunnis's domination on power and wealth, the Shiite studies did not notice well. However, at the first encounter, in the crusade wars, it was Fatimids and then Assassins who got introduced to the west as agents of shia Islam and because of their exaggerated beliefs, western scholars considered the Shiism as an atheistic and heretical shool. In this paper by using descriptive procedure, the evolution of awareness and the western research of shiism will be investigated in order to show that how the methods of phenomenological, field research and scientific shia study have rolled in it. At the end, three stages were identified and it was found that despite the gradual growth of this type of study, the amount of Imami Shiite works is still in the minority.