India has the third-largest number of Muslims in the world. Most of India's Muslims are Sunni, with Shia making up around 15% of the Muslim population.
Sect identity is more common among other religious groups in India. For example, the predominant sect among Indian Muslims is Sunni Islam (55%), while 6% of Indian Muslims identify as Shia.
Large numbers of Shia Arab Muslims live in some Arab countries including Lebanon, Yemen, Bahrain, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE, and Qatar. Shia Muslims are a numerical majority in Iraq. Approximately 35% of the population in Yemen and nearly half of the Muslims in Bahrain and Lebanon are Shia Muslims.
The main responsibility of Sunni Caliphs was to maintain law and order in the Muslim realm as well as providing political and religious guidance. On the other hand, the Shia Imams, descendants of the Prophet, also held a God-given spiritual authority and were considered infallible.
Palestinians are predominantly Sunni Muslims, with Sunni Islam being the faith of the vast majority (around 85-90%) of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, though there are also significant Palestinian Christian communities and very small Shia groups. The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, is a Sunni organization, but Shia groups like Hezbollah and Iran offer strong support for the Palestinian cause.
As much as 85–90% of Pakistanis follows Sunni Islam. Most Pakistani Sunni Muslims belong to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, which is represented by the Barelvi and Deobandi traditions. About 97% of Pakistanis are Muslims. The majority are Sunni (85–90%) while Shias make up around 10-15%.
Sunni and Shi'i are the two largest branches of Islam, with the overwhelming majority of Iranians practicing Shi'i Islam. About 90 percent of Iranians practice Shi'ism, the official religion of Iran. [i] By contrast, most Arab states in the Middle East are predominantly Sunni.
Islam. The state religion in Qatar is Islam. Most Qataris belong to the Sunni sect of Islam. Shiites comprise around 10% of Qatar's Muslim population.
Yes, Shia also do pray 5 times a day like “normal” Muslims (technically 15% of a sample set cannot be abnormal), however, many times they combine the setting under which they do Dhuhr and Asr prayers (i.e. they do both in one setting) and Maqrib and Isha prayers.
While the founder of all Islam is clearly Muhammad, the founder of Shia Islam is unquestionably his nephew and son-in-law, Ali ibn Abi Talib. Ali would become the founder, Caliph, and first Imam of the Shia Islamic sect.
I've written about this topic here. The conversion of southern Iraq to Shia Islam mainly dates to the late Ottoman period as a result of agricultural policy that forced Arab semi-nomadic tribes into settled and urban life, bringing them into contact with the Shia 'ulama recently exiled from Iran.
Most British Muslims in the United Kingdom adhere to Sunni Islam, while a minority are associated with Shia Islam.
Islam was first introduced in India through the Arab invasion of Sind in CE 712 and through subsequent invasions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The religion firmly established itself as a force through the Mughal emperors in the sixteenth century.
The pilgrimage to Mecca, known as hajj, is one of the pillars of Islam for both Sunnis and Shi'ites, but Shia have many other holy sites they make pilgrimages (ziyarat) to. Among them are Al-Baqi Cemetery near Medina, Najaf and Karbala, in Iraq, and Qom and Mashhad, in Iran.
The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (an acronym from the Arabic: حركة المقاومة الإسلامية, romanized: Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah), is a Sunni Islamist Palestinian nationalist political organisation with a military wing known as the al-Qassam Brigades.
The constitution designates Islam as the official religion, with over 90% of the Emirati population are Sunni Islam, mainly following the Maliki school. The vast majority of the remainder 5–10% are Shia Muslims, who are concentrated in the Emirates of Dubai and Sharjah.
The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. The largest religious group in Syria are Sunni Muslims. Sunnis make up about 74% of the population, of whom Arabic-speaking Sunnis form the majority, followed by the Kurds, Turkmens/Turkomans, Circassians, and Palestinians.
He has been regularly listed among The 500 Most Influential Muslims of the world. He also created and hosted the television talk show Satyamev Jayate.
Religious figures
Personal life. Kaif has a close relationship with her family, and the lack of a father figure in her life has given her a sense of responsibility towards them. While Kaif's mother is Christian and her father is Muslim, Kaif says she was allowed to practise a faith of her choice and is a "firm believer in God".
Observers estimate that 80 percent of the population is Sunni Muslim, 19 percent Shia Muslim, and other religious groups comprise less than 1 percent of the population.
Saddam Hussein Al-Majid Al-Tikriti was born on 28 April 1937, in al-Awja, a small village near Tikrit, to a Sunni Arab family from the Al-Bejat clan of the Bedouin Al-Bu Nasir tribe.
Before the arrival of Islam beginning in the 8th century, the region comprising Pakistan was home to a number of faiths, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Zoroastrianism.