In the past half century, particularly in the last few decades, there has been a new phenomenon of Shia Islam taking root to a limited extent in the Western world, in Europe and the Americas, through immigrants, refugees, and the children thereof. These immigrants came here from a range of different nations and cultures – Afghani, Iranian, Iraqi, Lebanese, Pakistani, Indian, Khoja. This has been joined by smatterings of other groups, including Western converts and former Sunnis from various backgrounds.

These different cultures from various places in the Old World with established Shia communities each have relatively distinct styles of performing aza.’ This is not surprising; while the concept itself of aza,’ in the form of speeches (majalis) goes back to the time just after the tragedy of Kerbala, started by Imam Ali Zainul Abedeen and Zainab, even on the road from Kufa to Damascus, the actual form which the aza’ takes has evolved differently in different places. This is in line with the common story in Islam of central unifying concepts and practices as a common thread weaving together a patchwork of different cultures which express the finer details of life in different ways depending on past history, geography, level of technological and economic development, and language.

While some modern extremists lament this state of "unity amongst diversity," and seek to impose a homogenizing influence to erase local flavor of culture, this diversity is actually one of the beautiful things in Islamic culture, and is well established and rooted in the teachings of Muhammad as a positive thing. Muhammad taught that as Islam goes to new lands, the common custom of the land (u’rf) is to be respected if it is a positive or neutral thing. That is, the existing cultural peculiarities of different lands existing from before the time when Islam takes root there are to be respected as long as there is nothing inherently, deeply contradictory between the custom and Islamic values. While Western polemicists against Islam like to claim that Islam rigidly prescribes every detail of life, in reality, at its heart Islam, aside from key religious rituals with set details, is quite flexible, with general principles of ethical behavior whose application is left to the discretion of believers to determine.

Now, of course, this can be taken to extremes if one does not just defend the right to practice one’s particular culture, but becomes prejudiced against other cultures, seeing his own cultural traditions as the only way possible or even avoiding interacting with Muslims from different cultural backgrounds. Sadly, some of this sort of spiritual sickness is seen in the Americas, where Muslims from different cultural backgrounds find themselves in the same cities, and even in the same centers. This is seen particularly in the Shia community. But in general, there is no problem with Islam developing different cultural flavors in different places, as long as the cultural aspects are not in contradiction to Islamic principles, and as long as there is a sense of Islamic brotherhood within the ummah across cultures.

Historically, Islam started in the Arabian peninsula, and spread, through migration of people, trade, and missionary work, often in concert with conquest. (Though the notion of Islam spreading "by the sword" has been discredited thoroughly by reputable Western scholars, the spread of Islamic governance through conquest made it easier for missionaries and Islamic businessmen to travel to these lands, leading, over time, through voluntary conversions, aided to some extent by state policies giving incentives to convert, to an Islamicization of these lands) As it did so, Islam developed and evolved in the details of its culture within the different lands.

Now, as Islam takes root in North America and Europe, we see the potential for a new chapter in this saga to be written in the coming decades. There is great potential for the spread of Islam within the Western World. When open-minded Westerners hear the core of the message and teachings of Islam aside from any mistaken culturally based perversions of that message in particular contemporary "Muslim nations," the general reaction is at the very least usually one of respect and admiration, whether or not the person is convinced of the ultimate truth of Islam as the ultimate divinely revealed religion.

However, much work needs to be done. Currently, because of the rampant corruption of many leading Islamic nations today, and because of wide spread un-Islamic cultural artifacts portrayed as Islamic practice in media, a poor picture of Muslims and Islam has been painted and helps to give many people misconceptions that interfere with their ability to learn about and embrace the religion. A lot of work has to be done to better reach out to non-Muslims in the West to better share the Islamic heritage with them in a way that is palatable, familiar rather than alien, and understandable to them. This should be possible, because it is understood that Islam is not intended as a religion for desert Arabs or the Middle East alone, but rather is intended as a system of purifying and unifying rituals and worship and principles of behavior that are universally valid and applicable for all human beings at all times. While some of the details will differ from time to time and from place to place, the core principles and rituals remain the same and remain compatible with the nature of humankind.