Twelver Shīʿas constitute the majority of the population in Iran (90%), Azerbaijan (85%), Bahrain (70%), Iraq (65%), and Lebanon (65% of Muslims).
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.
Sunnis regard the first four caliphs as legitimate successors of Muhammad. The majority of the Muslims of Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Jordan, Gaza and the West Bank, and Saudi Arabia are Sunnis.
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.
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.
More than 99 percent of the population is Sunni Muslim, and less than 0.1 percent of the population is Shia Muslim. Groups together constituting less than 1 percent of the population include Christians, Jews, and Baha'is.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Qatar is a Muslim nation, with laws, customs and practices rooted in Islam. The country is neither as liberal as Dubai in the United Arab Emirates nor as conservative as parts of Saudi Arabia. Most of its citizens are Sunni Muslim.
According to the federal Ministry of Religious Affairs, more than 99 percent of the population is Sunni Muslim. Members of other religious groups combined constitute less than 1 percent of the population and include a small Christian community, a small Sufi Muslim community, and an unknown number of Shia Muslims.
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.
Muslims comprise a number of sects: the majority practice Sunni Islam (estimated at 85–90%), while a minority practice Shia Islam (estimated at 10–15%). Most Pakistani Sunni Muslims belong to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, which is represented by the Barelvi and Deobandi traditions.
While it's a common practice in Islamic and Western nations for the two to pray together, the practice is unheard of in the India subcontinent and completely out of the question in Lucknow.
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.
Between 85 and 90 percent of the approximately 21 million Saudi citizens are Sunni Muslims. Shia Muslims constitute 10 to 12 percent of the citizen population and an estimated 25 to 30 percent of the Eastern Province's population.
Iran has 66 million to 70 million Shias, or 37-40% of the world's total Shia population.
Although there are many Shīʿa subsects, Twelver Shīʿīsm is by far the largest and most influential, comprising about 85% of all Shīʿa Muslims. Others include the Ismāʿīlīs and Zaydis.
The Safavid conversion of Iran to Shia Islam was a process of forced conversion that took place roughly over the 16th through 18th centuries and turned Iran (Persia), which previously had a Sunni majority population, into the spiritual bastion of Shia Islam.
Not only Sunnis, but Shia Muslims who do not adhere to the official line of the Islamic Republic, are barred from entering the Iranian political sphere. In the case of Sunnis, the ban on political participation is explicit in Iranian law.
Today, Shia Muslims make up the majority of the Iraqi population. Iraq is the location of the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, pilgrimage sites for millions of Shia Muslims. Najaf is the site of Ali's tomb, and Karbala is the site of the tomb of Muhammad's grandson, third Shia imam Husayn ibn Ali.
The religious affiliation of the Israeli population as of 2022 was 73.6% Jewish, 18.1% Muslim, 1.9% Christian, and 1.6% Druze. The remaining 4.8% included faiths such as Samaritanism and Baháʼí, as well as "religiously unclassified".
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% to 15%.
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.
Who are the Shia? Shia constitute about 10% of all Muslims, and globally their population is estimated at between 154 and 200 million. Shia Muslims are in the majority in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Azerbaijan and, according to some estimates, Yemen.
The U.S. government estimates the total population at 82.5 million (midyear 2021). According to the Turkish government, 99 percent of the population is Muslim, approximately 78 percent of which is Hanafi Sunni.
Islam is the main religion of the citizens of Kuwait and the majority of Kuwaiti citizens are Muslim; it is estimated that 70%–75% are Sunni and 25%–30% are Shias. In 2001, there were an estimated 525,000 Sunni Kuwaiti citizens and 300,000 Shia Kuwaiti citizens.
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.