About 97% of Pakistanis are Muslims. Pakistan has the second largest number of Muslims in the world after Indonesia. The majority are Sunni (85-90%) while Shias make up between 10% and 15%. However, the Hanbali school is gaining popularity recently due to Wahhabi influence from the Middle East.
In 2019, the Shia population of Pakistan was estimated to be 42 million out of a total population of 210 million, that is about 17% of the country's overall Muslim population. Shia-Sunni sectarian strife in Pakistan has followed the worldwide trend of Shia-Sunni sectarian strife.
Shia Muslims are a numerical majority in Iraq and Bahrain. Approximately 35% of the population in Yemen and half of the Muslims in Lebanon are Shia Muslims. There is also a very large population of Shia Muslims living in the Persian Gulf countries especially in Saudi Arabia.
The majority of Kashmiri Muslims are Sunni Muslims, and Shias account for between 20% and 25% of the Muslim population, who mostly reside in north and central Kashmir. They refer to themselves as "Koshur" in their mother language.
Roughly 10% of the Afghan population is Shia. Majority of Shias in Afghanistan belong to the Twelver branch. This includes the Hazara ethnic group and the smaller urbanized Qizilbash group, who are originally from eastern Iran.
In a poll conducted by Sabancı University in 2006, 98.3% of Turks revealed they were Muslim. Most Muslims in Turkey are Sunni Muslims forming about 90%, and Shia-Aleviler (Alevis, Ja'faris and Alawites) denominations in total form up to 10% of the Muslim population.
Shia Islam
The Lebanese Shia Muslims are around 27%–29% of the total population. Twelvers are the predominant Shia group, followed by Alawites and Ismailis. The Speaker of Parliament is always a Shi'a Muslim, as it is the only high post that Shi'as are eligible for.
India is also the country with the third-largest number of Muslims in the world. The majority of India's Muslims are Sunni, with significant Shia and Ahmadiyya minorities.
Most Shias (between 68% and 80%) live in four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq. Iran has 66 million to 70 million Shias, or 37-40% of the world's total Shia population. Iraq, India and Pakistan each are home to at least 16 million Shias.
Shias comprise a majority in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Bahrain, and a plurality in Lebanon, while Sunnis make up the majority of more than forty countries from Morocco to Indonesia.
While almost all of Egypt's Muslims are Sunni, there are a small number of Shia. (Estimates of their number range from 800,000 to "at most" three million.) The Syrian civil war has brought on an increase in anti-Shia rhetoric by Sunnis, harassment and arrest, and in at least one case bloodshed.
Islam is practiced by 90% of Egyptians. Most Egyptian Muslims are Sunni and follow the Maliki school of jurisprudence, though all legal schools are represented. Shi'a Muslims make up a small minority.
The government has restricted the names that Shiites can use for their children in an attempt to discourage them from showing their identity. Saudi textbooks are hostile to Shiism, often characterizing the faith as a form of heresy worse than any other religion.
Shia Muslims are a minority in Bangladesh, with roughly 2% of the population being Shia. Many Bangladeshi Shi'a Muslims, belong to the Bihari community.
Bangladesh has the fifth largest Muslim population in the world. Most Muslims in Bangladesh identify with the Sunni sect , but there is also a small Shi'a community that lives mainly in the larger cities and there is a small Ahmadiyya community.
Religion in Yemen consists primarily of two principal Islamic religious groups: 65% of the Muslim population is Sunni Muslim and around 35% is Zaydi Shia, according to the UNHCR. Shias are primarily Zaydi and there are also significant minorities of Twelver and Isma'ili Shias.
The vast majority of China's Muslims are Sunni Muslims, although a small minority are Shia.
The society has shunned the idea of a Shia marrying a Sunni (and vice versa) not because of the religious difference, but because of “what will we tell the society?” The matter has become less of a religious debate, but more of a societal symbol, which then leads to two individuals being punished for choosing each ...
There are many Pakistani celebrities who belong to the Shia Sect. Actors including Raza Talish, Natasha Ali, Naveed Raza, Mohsin Abbas Haider, Komal Rizvi, Madiha Rizvi, Zubi Majeed, Resham, Yumna Zaidi, Sadia Imam and many more belong to Shia families and they observe Muharram with sheer respect.
Approximately 11 percent of the population are citizens, of whom more than 85 percent are Sunni Muslims, according to media reports. The vast majority of the remainder are Shia Muslims, who are concentrated in the Emirates of Dubai and Sharjah.
Today's Afghanistan can be considered 99% Muslim. There is a rough 3/4 to 1/4 split in favor of Sunni Muslims to Shia. Though recent history has been defined by growing religious intolerance and sectarian conflict, Afghanistan does have marginal adherents of other religions.
Pakistani Shi'a live throughout the country in urban centres, including Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Peshawar, Multan, Jhang and Sargodha. While Shi'a are not a majority in any of Pakistan's four provinces, they are a majority in the autonomous region of Gilgit-Baltistan.
According to Pew, 99% of Muslims in Morocco are Sunni predominantly of the Sunni Maliki madhab, or school of thought, whilst the remaining 1% adhere to other sects such as Shia, Quranism, ibadism etc.
The Shia Jafari community estimates its members make up 4 percent of the population. Non-Muslim religious groups are mostly concentrated in Istanbul and other large cities, as well as in the southeast.
Although more than half of Bahrain's population consists of Shia Muslims (estimated at over 75 percent), the Sunni royal family, Al Khalifa, governs the country.