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.
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 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.
Sunnis are a majority in almost all Muslim communities around the world. Shia make up the majority of the citizen population in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, and Azerbaijan, as well as being a minority in Pakistan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Chad and Kuwait.
India is also the country with the third-largest number of Muslims in the world. The majority of India's Muslims are Sunni, with Shia making up 13% of the Muslim population.
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.
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.
Islam is generally practised liberally, although in the last 20 years strict adherence to Islamic practice has increased. The official code of Islam in Malaysia is Sunni, and the practice of any other form of Islam is heavily restricted.
The Afghan government is established as a Sunni Islamic Republic. Therefore, there is a strong societal pressure to adhere to Sunni Islamic traditions. The moral code of the Islamic doctrine tends to govern the political, economic and legal aspects of an Afghan's life.
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 ...
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.
The largest religious group in Syria are Sunni Muslims, who make up about 74% of the population, of whom Arabic-speaking Sunnis form the majority, followed by the Kurds, Turkmens/Turkomans, Circassians, and Palestinians.
Iran has 66 million to 70 million Shias, or 37-40% of the world's total Shia population.
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.
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.
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.
Before the arrival of Islam in the 7th century, there were a number of religions practiced in modern day Afghanistan, including Zoroastrianism, Ancient Iranian religions, Buddhism and Hinduism. The Kafiristan (present-day Nuristan) region, in the Hindu Kush mountain range, was not converted until the 19th century.
Majority of the Kuwaiti Muslims are Sunnis and the rest are Shia'a. Adherents of other religions are given the complete freedom to practice their own rituals provided that provided that no prejudice may occur against Islam.
The Japanese religious tradition is made up of several major components, including Shinto, Japan's earliest religion, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Christianity has been only a minor movement in Japan.
The divide originated with a dispute over who should succeed the Prophet Muhammad as leader of the Islamic faith he introduced. Today, about 85 percent of the approximately 1.6 billion Muslims around the world are Sunni, while 15 percent are Shia, according to an estimate by the Council on Foreign Relations.
According to the last census and the latest statistics, 96% of the population is Muslim in Jordan. The great majority of these are Sunni Muslims.
Today. Unofficial sources, such as the Library of Congress Country Studies, and The New York Times, estimate sectarian identification to be approximately 45% Sunni and 55% Shia.
After the conquest of Golconda by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in the 17th century and subsequent establishment of hereditary governorship in Awadh after his death, Lucknow became the nerve center of Indian Shi'ism.