Mapping the Global Muslim Population | Pew Research Center October 7, 2009 Mapping the Global Muslim Population A comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries finds that there are 1.57 billion Muslims of all ages living in the world today, representing 23% of an estimated 2009 world population of 6.8 billion. While Muslims are found on all five inhabited continents, more than 60% of the global Muslim population is in Asia and about 20% is in the Middle East and North Africa. However, the Middle East-North Africa region has the highest percentage of Muslim-majority countries. Indeed, more than half of the 20 countries and territories 1 in that region have populations that are approximately 95% Muslim or greater. More than 300 million Muslims, or one-fifth of the world’s Muslim population, live in countries where Islam is not the majority religion. These minority Muslim populations are often quite large. India, for example, has the third-largest population of Muslims worldwide. China has more Muslims than Syria, while Russia is home to more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined.

Of the total Muslim population, 10-13% are Shia Muslims and 87-90% are Sunni Muslims. Most Shias (between 68% and 80%) live in just four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq. These are some of the key findings of Mapping the Global Muslim Population: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population, a new study by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. The report offers the most up-to-date and fully sourced estimates of the size and distribution of the worldwide Muslim population, including sectarian identity. Previously published estimates of the size of the global Muslim population have ranged widely, from 1 billion to 1.8 billion. 2 But these commonly quoted estimates often have appeared without citations to specific sources or explanations of how the figures were generated. The Pew Forum report is based on the best available data for 232 countries and territories.

Pew Forum researchers, in consultation with nearly 50 demographers and social scientists at universities and research centers around the world, acquired and analyzed about 1,500 sources, including census reports, demographic studies and general population surveys, to arrive at these figures – the largest project of its kind to date. (See Methodology for more detail.) The Pew Forum’s estimate of the Shia population (10-13%) is in keeping with previous estimates, which generally have been in the range of 10-15%. Some previous estimates, however, have placed the number of Shias at nearly 20% of the world’s Muslim population. 3 Readers should bear in mind that the figures given in this report for the Sunni and Shia populations are less precise than the figures for the overall Muslim population. Data on sectarian affiliation have been infrequently collected or, in many countries, not collected at all. Therefore, the Sunni and Shia numbers reported here are expressed as broad ranges and should be treated as approximate. These findings on the world Muslim population lay the foundation for a forthcoming study by the Pew Forum, scheduled to be released in 2010, that will estimate growth rates among Muslim populations worldwide and project Muslim populations into the future.

The Pew Forum plans to launch a similar study of global Christianity in 2010 as well. The Pew Forum also plans to conduct in-depth public opinion surveys on the intersection of religion and public life around the world, starting with a 19-country survey of sub-Saharan Africa scheduled to be released later this year. These forthcoming studies are part of a larger effort – the Global Religious Futures Project, jointly funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation – that aims to increase people’s understanding of religion around the world. Map: Distribution of Muslim Population by Country and Territory Only countries with more than 1 million Muslims are shown 2009 Muslim population, the percentage of its population that is Muslim and the percentage of the world Muslim population it represents. * Indicates the use of a source with a small enough sample size to make these estimates somewhat less reliable. Due to this greater margin of error, percentages are rounded to the nearest integer rather than to the first decimal place and are therefore more approximate (~). The only exception to this rule is the display of Turkey’s percentage of world population as 4.7% rather than ~ 5%. “–” indicates that the number of Muslims is too small to be reliably estimated.

Map: World Distribution of Muslim Population This “weighted” map of the world shows each country’s relative size based on its Muslim population. Figures are rounded to the nearest million. Click to enlarge. Sunnis and Shia in the Middle East - BBC News BBC News Sunnis and Shia in the Middle East 19 December 2013 Read more about sharing. Close share panel There are more than 1.5 billion Muslims and about 20% of them live in the Middle East and North Africa. Muslims identify themselves with different strands of Islamic tradition. The main ones are Sunnism and Shiism. Accurate figures for the breakdown of the Muslim population into the various strands are not available as almost no censuses or surveys ask Muslims about which they are. So the maps below show the estimated distribution of the Sunni and Shia populations within a percentage range of the total population. The majority of Muslims are Sunnis - estimates suggest the figure is somewhere between 85% and 90%. The Middle Eastern countries with the greatest proportion of Sunnis are Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, with Sunnis making up 90% or more of the population.

Shia make up roughly 10% of all Muslims, and globally their population is estimated between 154 to 200 million, according to a 2009 report from the Pew Forum. Iran has the largest Shia majority, with more than 66 million making up nearly 90% of the population. Shia are also in the majority in Iraq and Bahrain. There are sizable Shia communities in Kuwait, Yemen, Lebanon, Qatar, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In countries with large Shia communities, Shia often make up the poorest sections of society and see themselves as oppressed and discriminated against. Sunnis and Shias – the key questions – Channel 4 News (graphic, Ciaran Hughes) Why the difference? The split between Sunni and Shia Muslims occurred following the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and was bound up in who should succeed him. One group, later to become the Sunnis, believed in appointing the successor under Arab tribal tradition – the other, the Shias, believed Muhammad’s successor should be from his family, and backed Ali – Muhammad’s cousin – who was also his son-in-law. There was a schism very early on and theological differences developed from this.

Dr Carool Kersten The name Sunni comes from “Ahl-a-Sunnah”, meaning the “people of tradition”, denoting the traditional approach to appointing Muhammad’s successor. Shia is derived from “Shiat Ali”, meaning “the party of Ali”. Sunni Muslims appoint a caliph as leader, whilst Shia Muslim’s appoint an imam. According to Dr Carool Kersten , senior lecturer in the study of Islam and the Muslim world at King’s College London, the divide denotes a split in what was seen as the role of Muhammad’s successors. “There was a schism very early on and theological differences developed from this. The imams were considered to be infallible, whilst for the Sunnis the caliph was just a man, there to maintain law and order.” Read International Editor Lindsey Hilsum's blog: War, politics and sectarianism in Syria However, the split between the groups was not definitive straight away. Ali was appointed by the Sunni Muslims as the fourth caliph – in that moment uniting the two factions’ leaders, both imam and caliph, into one person. He survived five years before dying in mysterious circumstances.

Ali’s son Hussein was not appointed caliph under the Sunnis, despite being the rightful heir under Shia beliefs. His death at the hands of the Sunni Umayyad family at the Battle of Karbala made him a martyr for the Shia cause. According to Dr Kersten, this was the decisive moment in splitting the Sunnis from the Shias. “Karbala is the moment,” he told Channel 4 News. “There is a chant that you hear which goes ‘Every day is Karbala. We are all Hussein’.” What are the differences today? Geographically, the Sunni/Shia picture differs across the Middle East and the rest of the world (see graphic, above). Sunnis are the more dominant form of Islam – at least 80 per cent of Muslims worldwide. Some Sunni dominated countries include Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Syria (see more on Syria, below). However, Shia Muslims are the majority in some other countries such as Iran, Iraq, and more recently, Lebanon. The ancient split has led to some different practices and approaches to theology being adopted by the different groups – but they share fundamental beliefs such as the “oneness” of Allah, that Muhammad was the last prophet, prayer and fasting.

It would be overly easy to say Shias are more moderate than Sunnis. You can find extreme elements on both sides of the equation. Dr Carool Kersten However, rivalries between the groups exist. The deaths of Ali and Hussein, and the fact that, as the minority, Shias have endured a more unpleasant history of repression, creates a theme of martyrdom throughout Shia history. Sunnis, who often see themselves as the more traditional branch of Islam, have refered to Shias as “rejectors”, because of their perceived rejection of tradition. Western perception is often that the Sunni branch is more extreme than Shi’ism – something increased by the fact that al-Qaeda adopts a Sunni Salafist doctrine. However, according to Dr Kersten, it is not as simple as that. “It is overly easy to make that kind of distinction,” he said. “If you talk about Iran (where Shia are dominant), western opinion doesn’t view them as the moderate type. Some of the language that comes out of Iran definitely doesn’t fit that view. “It is more political than anything else. Hezbollah, for example, represents a long-term repressed Shia minority – and they have certainly been becoming more beligerent.

“It would be overly easy to say Shias are more moderate than Sunnis. You can find extreme elements on both sides of the equation.” How has this been played out in Syria? Syria is a majority Sunni country, but has been governed under Assad by a Shia minority (image, below). The picture is, in simple terms, the opposite of the situation in Iraq before the Iraq war – where the minority Sunnis led by Saddam Hussein governed the majority Shia community. Put simply, the rebels are Sunni and the government is Shia. However, divisions within the Shia branch mean that the situation is more confused. The regime is Alawite, which is a sub branch of a Shia faction known as the “Seveners”. The Seveners believe there were seven true imams. Similarly there is a larger faction called the “Twelvers” and a smaller faction called the “Fivers”. There is a clear sectarian division between the Sunnis and the Shias on the battlefields of Syria. Raffaello Pantucci, RUSI Iran is governed by “Twelvers”, and its sponsored militant organisation Hezbollah is also “Twelver”.

However, Dr Kersten says, within the Shia branch the differences have been papered over in favour of global political aims. “In many ways the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” he said. On the Shia side there have also been influxes of fighters from Shia-majority country Iraq, fighting for the regime. Saudi Arabia and Qatar, both Sunni countries, have provided support to the rebels. In April, 500 fighters from Jordan, an overwhelmingly Sunni country, joined extremist rebel group Al-Nusra to fight against the regime. The war in Syria has become a “magnet” for Shia and Sunni fighters alike, says Raffaello Pantucci, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Insitute – with “groups like Hezbollah siding with the government, and Sunni clerics shouting about supporting the rebels.” “There is a clear sectarian division between the Sunnis and the Shias on the battlefields of Syria,” he told Channel 4 News. “It is a narrative that came out in the recent battle in Qusair . There was an influx of Hezbollah fighters.

“We are also hearing that there are a lot more Shias from Iraq coming into the battlefield, who are alarmed at the destruction of certain monuments and sites of religious significance and are coming in to protect them. “We are also seeing a hug influx of people coming in for the Sunni side. Some of these are people who hold extremist jihadist views, some are footloose young men interested in fighting on the battlefield – and everything in between.” The population of Shia: How many Shia are there in the world? Many people mistakenly think that Muslims are divided into two halves: Sunnis and Shi'it. In reality Shia are between 7.5% to 11%. All the rest (93.5%) are Sunnis (ignoring the fact the Shi'ism is a totally different religion than Islam). The word Shia includes all kinds of Shi'it Sects such as (Twelvers Imami Rafidi Shia, Isma'ili Shia, Alawi (Nusairi) Shia, Druze Shia, Zaidi Shia). The first statistic was all taken from the British Encyclopedia for the year 1997. However, we feel that it has some incorrect numbers for some countries such as Iran.

Their number is compared to the total number of Muslims which is 1,482,596,925 Country Name Sunni and Shia Muslims | Pew Research Center The Future of the Global Muslim Population Sunni and Shia Muslims Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims comprise the two main sects within Islam. Because data on the percentages of Sunni and Shia Muslims are rough estimates in many countries, this study presents them as ranges. 57 Sunnis will continue to make up an overwhelming majority of Muslims in 2030. The number of Sunnis is projected to reach almost 2 billion by 2030 (between 1.91 billion and 1.97 billion), up from approximately 1.4 billion in 2010 (between 1.41 billion and 1.46 billion). Sunnis are expected to make up 87-90% of the world’s Muslims in 20 years, roughly the same percentage as today. The number of Shia Muslims is projected to be between 219 million and 285 million in 2030, up from between 162 million and 211 million in 2010.

Shia Muslims are expected to make up 10-13% of the world’s Muslims, roughly the same percentage as today. Within these ranges, however, there may be a very slight increase in the percentage of Sunni Muslims and a very slight decline in the percentage of Shia Muslims, largely because of low fertility in Iran, where more than a third of the world’s Shia Muslims live. The annual rates of growth for the world’s Sunni and Shia populations were identical from 1990 to 2000. But the rate of growth of the Shia population is expected to be slightly lower than the rate of growth for Sunnis over the next 20 years. Four countries in the world have a Shia-majority population – Iran (where ~93% of Muslims are Shia), Azerbaijan (~70%), Bahrain (~70%) and Iraq (~67%). Of these, Iran has the largest number of Shia Muslims. Iraq’s Shia Muslim population is substantially smaller, but it is expected to grow at a faster rate than the Shia population in neighboring Iran.

The four countries with the largest Sunni-majority populations are Egypt (where ~99% of Muslims are Sunni), Indonesia (~99%), Bangladesh (~99%) and Pakistan (~87%). Of these, Pakistan is expected to have the greatest annual growth in its number of Sunni Muslims. Indonesia’s gains will be more modest. Footnotes 57 For more information, see Methodology for Sunni-Shia estimates on page 38 of the Pew Forum’s 2009 report Mapping the Global Muslim Population . (return to text) Pagination The Struggle Between Sunni and Shia Muslims Explained The Struggle Between Sunni and Shia Muslims Explained By Council On Foreign Relations On 12/14/14 at 5:00 PM Shiite Muslims attend Friday prayers at the Imam Hussein Shrine in Karbala, Iraq, on July 18, 2014. Mushtaq Muhammed/Reuters World Islam Islamic State An ancient religious divide is helping fuel a resurgence of conflicts in the Middle East and Muslim countries.

Struggles between Sunni and Shia forces have fed a Syrian civil war that threatens to transform the map of the Middle East, spurred violence that is fracturing Iraq and widened fissures in a number of tense Gulf countries. Growing sectarian clashes have also sparked a revival of transnational jihadi networks that poses a threat beyond the region. Islam’s schism, simmering for 14 centuries, doesn’t explain all the political, economic and geostrategic factors involved in these conflicts, but it has become one prism by which to understand the underlying tensions. Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week Two countries that compete for the leadership of Islam, Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, have used the sectarian divide to further their ambitions. How their rivalry is settled will likely shape the political balance between Sunnis and Shias and the future of the region, especially in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Bahrain. Alongside the proxy battle is the renewed fervor of armed militants, motivated by the goals of cleansing the faith or preparing the way for the return of the messiah. Today there are tens of thousands of organized sectarian militants throughout the region capable of triggering a broader conflict.

And despite the efforts of many Sunni and Shia clerics to reduce tensions through dialogue and counter-violence measures, many experts express concern that Islam’s divide will lead to escalating violence and a growing threat to international peace and security. What’s the difference? Sunni and Shia Muslims have lived peacefully together for centuries. In many countries it has become common for members of the two sects to intermarry and pray at the same mosques. They share faith in the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad’s sayings and perform similar prayers, although they differ in rituals and interpretation of Islamic law. Shia identity is rooted in victimhood over the killing of Husayn, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, in the seventh century and a long history of marginalization by the Sunni majority. Islam’s dominant sect, which roughly 85 percent of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims follow, view Shia Islam with suspicion, and extremist Sunnis have portrayed Shias as heretics and apostates. Source: Pew Research, The Future of the Global Muslim Population, 2011 Origins of the Schism Muhammad unveiled a new faith to the people of Mecca in 610.

Known as Islam, or submission to God, the monotheistic religion incorporated some Jewish and Christian traditions and expanded with a set of laws that governed most aspects of life, including political authority. By the time of his death in 632, Muhammad had consolidated power in Arabia. His followers subsequently built an empire that would stretch from Central Asia to Spain less than a century after his death. But a debate over succession split the community, with some arguing that leadership should be awarded to qualified individuals and others insisting that the only legitimate ruler must come through Muhammad’s bloodline. A group of prominent early followers of Islam elected Abu Bakr, a companion of Muhammad, to be the first caliph, or leader of the Islamic community, over the objections of those who favored Ali ibn Abi Talib, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law. The opposing camps in the succession debate eventually evolved into Islam’s two main sects. Shias, a term that stems from shi’atu Ali (Arabic for “partisans of Ali”), believe that Ali and his descendants are part of a divine order. Sunnis (meaning followers of the sunna, or “way” in Arabic, of Muhammad) are opposed to political succession based on Muhammad’s bloodline.

Ali became caliph in 656 and ruled only five years before he was assassinated. The caliphate, which was based in the Arabian Peninsula, passed to the Umayyad dynasty in Damascus and later the Abbasids in Baghdad. Shias rejected the authority of these rulers. In 680, soldiers of the second Umayyad caliph killed Ali’s son, Husayn, and many of his companions in Karbala, located in modern-day Iraq. Karbala became a defining moral story for Shias, and Sunni caliphs worried that the Shia Imams—the descendants of Husayn who were seen as the legitimate leaders of Muslims (Sunnis use the term imam for the men who lead prayers in mosques)—would use this massacre to capture public imagination and topple monarchs. This fear resulted in the further persecution and marginalization of Shias. Even as Sunnis triumphed politically in the Muslim world, Shias continued to look to the Imams—the blood descendants of Ali and Husayn—as their legitimate political and religious leaders. Even within the Shia community, however, there arose differences over the proper line of succession. Mainstream Shias believe there were 12 Imams.

Zaydi Shias, found mostly in Yemen, broke off from the majority Shia community at the fifth Imam and sustained imamate rule in parts of Yemen up to the 1960s. Ismaili Shias, centered in South Asia but with important diaspora communities throughout the world, broke off at the seventh Imam. Ismailis revere the Aga Khan as the living representative of their Imam. The majority of Shias, particularly those in Iran and the eastern Arab world, believe that the 12th Imam entered a state of occultation, or hiddenness, in 939 and that he will return at the end of time. Since then, “Twelvers,” or Ithna Ashari Shias, have vested religious authority in their senior clerical leaders, called ayatollahs (Arabic for “sign of God”). Many Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian converts to Islam chose to become Shia rather than Sunni in the early centuries of the religion as a protest against the ethnic Arab empires that treated non-Arabs as second-class citizens. Their religions influenced the evolution of Shia Islam as distinct from Sunni Islam in rituals and beliefs.

Sunnis dominated the first nine centuries of Islamic rule (excluding the Shia Fatimid dynasty) until the Safavid dynasty was established in Persia in 1501. The Safavids made Shia Islam the state religion, and over the following two centuries they fought with the Ottomans, the seat of the Sunni caliphate. As these empires faded, their battles roughly settled the political borders of modern Iran and Turkey by the 17th century, and their legacies resulted in the current demographic distribution of Islam’s sects. Shias are a majority in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan and Bahrain, and a plurality in Lebanon, while Sunnis make up the majority of more than 40 countries from Morocco to Indonesia. Modern Tensions Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 gave Shia cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini the opportunity to implement his vision for an Islamic government ruled by the “guardianship of the jurist” (velayat-e faqih), a controversial concept among Shia scholars that is opposed by Sunnis, who have historically differentiated between political leadership and religious scholarship. Shia ayatollahs have always been the guardians of the faith.

Khomeini argued that clerics had to rule to properly perform their function: implementing Islam as God intended, through the mandate of the Shia Imams. Under Khomeini, Iran began an experiment in Islamic rule. Khomeini tried to inspire further Islamic revival, preaching Muslim unity, but supported groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain and Pakistan that had specific Shia agendas. Sunni Islamists, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, admired Khomeini’s success but did not accept his leadership, underscoring the depth of sectarian suspicions. Saudi Arabia has a sizable Shia minority of roughly 10 percent and millions of adherents of a puritanical brand of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism (an offshoot of the Sunni Hanbali school) that is antagonistic to Shia Islam. The transformation of Iran into an overtly Shia power after the Islamic revolution induced Saudi Arabia to accelerate the propagation of Wahhabism, as both countries revived a centuries-old sectarian rivalry over the true interpretation of Islam. Many of the groups responsible for sectarian violence that has occurred in the region and across the Muslim world since 1979 can be traced to Saudi and Iranian sources.

Saudi Arabia backed Iraq in the 1980-1988 war with Iran and sponsored militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan who were primarily fighting against the Soviet Union, which had invaded Afghanistan in 1979, but were also suppressing Shia movements inspired or backed by Iran. The transformation of Iran into an agitator for Shia movements in Muslim countries seemed to confirm centuries of Sunni suspicions that Shia Arabs answer to Persia. Many experts, however, point out that Shias aren’t monolithic—for many of them, identities and interests are based on more than their confession. Iraqi Shias, for example, made up the bulk of the Iraqi army that fought Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, and Shia militant groups Amal and Hezbollah clashed at times during the Lebanese civil war. Source: Pew Research, The World’s Muslims: Unity and Diversity, 2012 For their part, both mainstream and hard-line Sunnis aren’t singularly focused on oppressing Shias. They have fought against co-religionists throughout history, most recently in the successive crackdowns on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia’s battles against Al-Qaeda and related Sunni militant groups.

Sharing a common Sunni identity didn’t eliminate power struggles among Sunni Muslims under secular or religious governments. But confessional identity has resurfaced wherever sectarian violence has taken root, as in Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion removed Saddam Hussein, a dictator from the Sunni minority who ruled over a Shia-majority country. The bombing of a Shia shrine in Samara in 2006 kicked off a cycle of sectarian violence that forced Iraqis to pick sides, stirring tensions that continue today. In the Arab world, Shia groups supported by Iran have recently won important political victories. The Assad regime, which has ruled Syria since 1970, relies on fellow Alawis, a heterodox Shia sect that makes up about 13 percent of Syria’s population, as a pillar of its rule. Alawis dominate the upper reaches of the military, and security services in Syria and are the backbone of the forces fighting to support the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria’s civil war. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq unseated Saddam Hussein and instituted competitive elections, the Shia majority has dominated the parliament and produced its prime ministers.

Hezbollah , the Lebanese Shia militia and political movement, is the strongest political actor in Lebanon. Iran’s regional influence has swelled as its allies in these countries have accumulated power. Sunni governments, especially Saudi Arabia, have increasingly worried about their own grips on power, a concern that was exacerbated with the protest movement that began in Tunisia in late 2010. The Arab Awakening, as the uprisings are known, spread to Bahrain and Syria, countries at the fault lines of Islam’s sectarian divide. In each, political power is held by a sectarian minority—Alawis in Syria, where Sunnis are the majority, and a Sunni ruling family in Bahrain, where Shias are the majority. The civil war in Syria, which is a political conflict at its core, has exposed sectarian tensions and become the staging ground for a vicious proxy war between the region’s major Sunni and Shia powers. Some analysts view the Syrian conflict as the last chance for Sunnis to limit and reverse the spread of Iranian power and Shia influence in the Arab world.

Practicing the Faith Sunnis and Shias agree on the basic tenets of Islam: declaring faith in a monotheistic God and Muhammad as his messenger, conducting daily prayers, giving money to the poor, fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and performing the pilgrimage to Mecca. There are divisions even over the precepts of Islam, but the main difference relates to authority, which sparked the political split in the seventh century and evolved into divergent interpretations of Shariah, or Islamic law, and distinct sectarian identities. Shias believe that God always provides a guide, first the Imams and then ayatollahs, or experienced Shia scholars who have wide interpretative authority and are sought as a source of emulation. The term ayatollah is associated with the clerical rulers in Tehran, but it’s primarily a title for a distinguished religious leader known as a marja, or source of emulation. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was appointed by an elected body of Iranian clerics, while maraji (plural of marja) are elevated through the religious schools in Qom, Najaf and Karbala. Shias can choose from dozens of maraji, most of whom are based in holy cities in Iraq and Iran.

Many Shias emulate a marja for religious affairs and defer to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Iran for political guidance. For Sunnis, authority is based on the Quran and the traditions of Muhammad. Sunni religious scholars, who are constrained by legal precedents, exert far less authority over their followers than their Shia counterparts do. Both sects have subdivisions. The divisions among Shias were discussed above. Four schools make up Sunni jurisprudence: Hanafi, Shafii, Maliki and Hanbali, the latter spawning the Wahhabi and Salafi movements in Saudi Arabia. Sunnism, a broad umbrella term for non-Shia Islam, is united on the importance of the Quran and the practice of Muhammad but allows for differences in legal opinion. Sectarian Militants Communal violence between Islam’s sects has been rare historically, with most of the deadly sectarian attacks directed by clerics or political leaders. Extremist groups, many of which are fostered by states, are the chief actors in sectarian killings today.

The two most prominent terrorist groups, Sunni al-Qaeda and Shia Hezbollah, have not defined their movements in sectarian terms and have favored using anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist and anti-American frameworks to define their jihad (or “struggle”). They share few similarities beyond the use of violence. Hezbollah has developed a pragmatic political wing that competes in elections and is part of the Lebanese government, a path not chosen by Al-Qaeda, which operates a diffuse network largely in the shadows. Both groups have deployed suicide bombers, and their attacks shifted from a focus on the West and Israel to other Muslims, such as Al-Qaeda’s killing of Shia civilians in Iraq and Hezbollah’s participation in the Syrian civil war. Conflict and chaos have played a role in the reversion to basic sectarian identity. In Iraq, for instance, remnants of the Ba’athist regime employed Sunni rhetoric to mount a resistance to the rise of Shia power following the ouster of Saddam. Sunni fundamentalists, many inspired by Al-Qaeda’s call to fight Americans, flocked to Iraq from Muslim countries, attacking coalition forces and many Shia civilians.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who founded Al-Qaeda’s franchise in Iraq, evoked ancient anti-Shia fatwas, or religious rulings, to spark a civil war in hopes that the Shia majority would eventually capitulate in the face of Sunni extremist violence. The Shia community absorbed thousands of deaths before fighting back with its own sectarian militias. Syria’s civil war, which exceeded the brutality and casualty toll of Iraq’s decade-long conflict in just three years, has amplified sectarian tensions to unprecedented levels. The war began with peaceful protests in 2011 calling for an end to the Assad regime, which has ruled since 1970. The Assad family and other Alawis have stirred resentment by Syria’s majority Sunnis after decades of brutal repression and a sectarian agenda that elevated minority Alawis in government and the private sector. The 2011 protests and brutal government crackdown uncovered sectarian tensions in Syria, which have rippled across the region.

Tens of thousands of Syrian Sunnis joined rebel groups such as Ahrar al-Sham, the Islamic Front, and Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, which all employ anti-Shia rhetoric; similar numbers of Syrian Shias and Alawis enlisted with an Iran-backed militia known as the National Defense Force to fight for the Assad regime. Foreign Sunni fighters from Arab and Western countries joined the rebels, while Lebanon’s Hezbollah and some Shia militias from Iraq, such as Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kata’ib Hezbollah, backed the Syrian government. Even Afghan Shia refugees in Iran have reportedly been recruited by Tehran for the war in Syria, pitting them against Sunni foreign fighters who may have forced the Afghans into exile decades earlier. Syria’s civil war has attracted more militants from more countries than were involved in the conflicts in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Bosnia combined. Al-Qaeda in Iraq, decimated by the “Awakening” of Sunni Iraqis who joined the fight against extremists, the U.S.-led military surge and the death of al-Zarqawi, found new purpose in exploiting the vacuum left by the receding Syrian state. It established its own transnational movement known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (or ISIS) .

The group expanded its grip on Sunni provinces in Iraq and eastern regions in Syria, seizing Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, in June 2014. It defied orders from Al-Qaeda’s top commanders to curtail its transnational ambitions and extremism, which led to ISIS’s expulsion from Al-Qaeda in February 2014. ISIS renamed itself the Islamic State in July 2014 and declared its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi , as caliph. Extremist groups have come to rely on satellite television and high-speed Internet over the past two decades to spread hate speech and rally support. Fundamentalist Sunni clerics, many sponsored by wealthy Sunnis from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, have popularized anti-Shia slurs. Shia religious scholars have also taken to the airwaves, mocking and cursing the first three caliphs and Aisha, one of Muhammad’s wives. Sectarian rhetoric dehumanizing the “other” is centuries old. But the volume is increasing. Dismissing Arab Shias as Safawis, a term that paints them as Iranian agents (from the Safavid empire) and hence traitors to the Arab cause, is increasingly common in Sunni rhetoric.

Hard-line Sunni Islamists have used harsher historic terms such as rafidha (“rejecters of the faith“) and majus (Zoroastrian or crypto-Persian) to describe Shias. Iranian officials, Iraq’s prime minister and Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, routinely describe their Sunni opponents as takfiris (code for Al-Qaeda terrorists) and Wahhabis. This cycle of demonization has been exacerbated throughout the Muslim world. For Sunni extremists, new technologies and social-media channels have revolutionized recruitment opportunities. Fundamentalists no longer have to infiltrate mainstream mosques and attract recruits surreptitiously but can now disseminate their call to jihad and wait for potential recruits to contact them. These channels aren’t as useful for recruiting Shia militants, who benefit from state support in Syria, Iraq and Iran and can openly advertise their calls for sectarian jihad. Sunni-Shia tensions contribute to multiple flash points in Muslim countries that are viewed as growing threats to international peace and security. The following arouse the most concern among regional specialists: Rising Militancy Notable concern about the role of sectarian violence increased in 2013.

Extremists were “fueled by sectarian motivations” in Syria, Lebanon and Pakistan, according to the U.S. State Department. After years of steady losses for Al-Qaeda–linked groups, Sunni extremist recruitment is rising, aided by private funding networks in the Gulf, particularly in Kuwait , with much of the violence directed at other Muslims rather than Western targets. Shia militants are also gaining strength, in part to confront the threat of Sunni extremism, miring many Muslim communities in a vicious cycle of sectarian violence. U.S. officials such as FBI Director James B. Comey have warned that the war in Syria, which attracted thousands of fighters from Europe and the United States, poses a long-term threat to Western interests. The eventual outflow of these militants, battle-hardened and with Western passports, is viewed as a potential “terrorist diaspora” that could eclipse the global terror networks that emerged after the Afghan war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Saudi-Iranian Rivalry Saudi Arabia and Iran have deployed considerable resources to proxy battles, especially in Syria, where the stakes are highest.

Riyadh closely monitors potential restlessness in its oil-rich eastern provinces, home to its Shia minority, and has deployed forces along with other Gulf countries to suppress a largely Shia uprising in Bahrain. Saudi Arabia is also providing hundreds of millions of dollars in financial support to the predominantly Sunni rebels in Syria, while simultaneously banning cash flows to Al-Qaeda and extremist jihadi groups fighting the Assad regime. Iran has allocated billions of dollars in aid and loans to prop up Syria’s Alawi-led government and has trained and equipped Shia militants from Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan to fight with various sectarian militias in Syria. At the same time, the widening proxy battle may also be stirring concern among leaders in Riyadh and Tehran about the consequences of escalation. The two sides were reported to be in talks in May 2014 to establish a dialogue for settling disputes diplomatically. Humanitarian Crisis The ongoing civil war in Syria has displaced millions internally, and almost 3 million civilians, mostly Sunni, are now refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey.

The influx of more than a million Syrians into Lebanon, a state with a historically combustible religious mix that experienced its own 15-year civil war in the 1970s and 1980s, has burdened its cash-strapped government and pressured communities hosting refugees. Jordan and Iraq are still struggling to provide housing and services to an impoverished and traumatized population. Turkey has the greatest capacity to provide humanitarian aid, yet Ankara must increasingly balance “ the public’s sympathy for and unease toward refugees ,” the International Crisis Group reports. Fractured States Syria’s civil war, as well as Iraq’s sectarian conflict, is threatening to redraw the map of the Middle East bequeathed to the region by British and French colonial authorities. The Assad regime in Syria has consolidated control over the Mediterranean coast, the capital of Damascus and the central city of Homs, which together make up a rump state that connects with Hezbollah strongholds, threatening the territorial integrity of Lebanon. Other parts of the country are contested or controlled by various rebel and Islamist groups, including ISIS, which seeks to dominate the eastern regions of Syria that link to its territory in Iraq.

And Kurdish groups in northern Syria, which, like their Iraqi cousins, have long campaigned for basic rights denied under the Ba’athist government, are on the verge of gaining de facto independence. Related Stories The Strong Horse The United States spent more than 1 trillion dollars to stabilize Iraq, but the country remains in a precarious state. Sectarian tensions are mounting in Iraq as the newly ascendant Shia majority struggles to accommodate the Sunni minority and deal with the Kurdish Regional Government in the north of the country while confronting extremist Sunni groups. Most politicians and activists in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon reject attempts to redraw the map of the region, but the vanishing borders and the emergence of new areas of influence based on sectarian and ethnic identities are a growing existential challenge. This interactive article first appeared on the Council on Foreign Relations website, CFR.org . It drew upon the expertise of Geneive Abdo , fellow, Middle East Program, Stimson Center; Deborah Amos , Middle East correspondent, National Public Radio; Reza Aslan , associate professor, University of California, Riverside; F.

Gregory Gause III , senior fellow, Brookings Doha Center; Bruce Hoffman , director, Center for Security Studies, Georgetown University; Ed Husain , adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies, CFR; and Vali R. Nasr , dean, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. Iraq's unique place in the Sunni-Shia divide | Pew Research Center Their shared demographic makeup may help explain Iran’s support for Iraq’s Shia-dominated government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki . Iran also has supported Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria, where only 15-20% of the Muslim population was Shia as of 2009. But the Syrian leadership is dominated by Alawites (an offshoot of Shia Islam). Under Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, which was dominated by Sunnis, the country clashed with Iran. The Sunni-Shia divide is nearly 1,400 years old, dating back to a dispute over the succession of leadership in the Muslim community following the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632. Despite periods of open conflict between Sunnis and Shias in countries such as Lebanon and Iraq, the two groups are not all that different in terms of religious beliefs and commitment.

In Iraq, for example, both groups express virtually universal belief in God and the Prophet Muhammad, and similar percentages (82% of Shias and 83% of Sunnis) say religion is very important in their lives. More than nine-in-ten Iraqi Shias (93%) and Sunnis (96%) say they fast during the holy month of Ramadan. In some countries, significant shares of Muslims don’t even see the distinction between Sunni and Shia Islam as relevant. A survey of Muslims in 39 countries that we conducted in 2011 and 2012 found, for example, that 74% of Muslims in Kazakhstan and 56% of Muslims in Indonesia identified themselves as neither Sunni nor Shia, but “just a Muslim.” In Iraq, however, only 5% answered “just a Muslim.” On some religious issues, including whether it is acceptable to visit the shrines of Muslim saints , the differences between the sects are more apparent. For some, the divide is even exclusionary. In late 2011, 14% of Iraqi Sunnis said they do not consider Shias to be Muslims.

(By contrast, only 1% of Shias in Iraq said that Sunnis are not Muslims.) Even higher percentages of Sunnis in other countries , such as Sunni-dominated Egypt (53%), say that Shias are not Muslims. Shia Muslims in the Mideast - Council on Foreign Relations Council on Foreign Relations Shia Muslims in the Mideast Connect With Us: Shia Muslims in the Mideast Author: Lionel Beehner How close are Shiite Arabs outside Iran to the Iranian regime? Introduction Is a Shiite crescent extending from Beirut to Tehran emerging in the Middle East, as Sunni Arab leaders in Egypt and Jordan have suggested? Further, should Shiite revivalism be cause for concern among the conservative Sunni monarchies in the region, much less for U.S. foreign policymakers? Some patterns are evident—a resurgent Iran, heightened Shiite-Sunni ethno-religious tensions, both within and outside Iraq, and calls from the region's Shiite minority communities for increased representation in their respective governments. Experts say this rise in Shiite self-awareness and assertiveness has fundamentally altered the region's balance of power between Shiites and Sunnis for years to come. But much of the Shiites' development will depend on the outcome of the war in Iraq.

Share Email Who are the Shiites? Shiites, the second largest branch of Islam, comprise less than 20 percent of the world's Muslims. They broke off from mainstream Islam after the death of the Prophet Mohammed in AD 632 over who should be his chosen successor. Unlike Sunnis, they believe Islam's leader should be a direct descendant of the Prophet (Sunnis say leaders can be chosen by ijma, or consensus). "From about AD 680 [when the official division between the sects occurred] onward, Shiism comes to represent essentially the protest movement within the Islamic world," says Reza Aslan , a research associate at the University of Southern California's Center on Public Diplomacy, speaking at a June 5 CFR Symposium. "It is the non-state version of Islam." Theologically speaking, Shiites and Sunnis overlap in their faiths but retain important differences—for example, Shiites allow temporary marriages, pray three times a day versus the five times common among Sunnis, reject predestination, and practice ijtihad, which authorizes qualified religious leaders to interpret Islamic law. Are Shiites a monolithic group? No.

Most of the Shiites in the Middle East and southern Asia are so-called "twelvers," who believe the twelfth imam, or descendant of Mohammed's son-in-law and cousin, Ali, is the only rightful ruler of the Muslim faithful (Shiism means "partisans of Ali"); Shiite clerics derive their authority as deputies in his absence. The second largest sect of Shiism is Ismailis, also known as "seveners;" they believe Ismail, the eldest son of the sixth imam, Jafar al-Sadiq (twelvers accept his youngest son Musa al-Kazim), is the infallible interpreter of Islam. Shiites also disagree on the role of religion in political life. Some subscribe to the theocratic Iranian model and say the state should be ruled by Islamic clerics, or ayatollahs, according to sharia (Islamic law). Others are so-called quietists, or moderates—included among them is Iraq's most senior religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani —who believe clerics should provide guidance for the faithful to interpret Islamic law but should remain outside the realm of politics. Where do Shiites reside?

An estimated 120 million Shiites live in pockets scattered across the globe. But the bulk of them reside in the Middle East. Shiites make up strong majorities in Iran (90 percent), Bahrain (75 percent), and Iraq (close to 60 percent); Lebanon, too, is primarily Shiite. Small but potentially powerful Shiite are found throughout the Gulf States, as well as in Pakistan (17 percent), Saudi Arabia (15 percent), and India (around 2 percent). Many of the Persian-Gulf-based Shiites, particularly those in eastern Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq, inhabit lands rich in oil, which has created tension between the Shiites and their Sunni neighbors. "There's a tremendous amount of resentment," says CFR Douglas Dillon Fellow Steven Cook , who says the Saudis consider their Shiite minorities "at best as heterodox, at worst apostates." What has been the treatment of Shiites throughout history? Shiism was born as a protest group of sorts within Islam, experts say. Since AD 680, Shiites have been marginalized in Muslim societies for religious, political, and demographic reasons.

In Iraq, Shiites suffered from two major crackdowns at the hands of Saddam Hussein's Sunni Baathist regime: one in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and another after the 1991 Gulf War, when a Shiite uprising was brutally put down. In Saudi Arabia, the Usuli Shiite community, based mainly in the oil-rich province of al-Hasa, is not officially recognized by the Saudi regime. Shiites—whether Arabs or not—still largely identify themselves, Aslan says, as "a persecuted yet righteous minority surrounded by a persecuting and unjust Sunni majority." In modern times, they often have been associated with Marxists and secularists, experts say. Does class play an important role in Shiite-Sunni relations? Yes, experts say. Shiites based in Beirut, Bahrain, and in Baghdad—whose largest slum, Sadr City, is a fertile recruiting ground for Shiite militias—are predominantly poor. Some Shiite clerics, Moqtada al-Sadr among them, have played up these class tensions to mobilize supporters. Back in the Cold War era, the communist party appealed to some Shiite communities for similar reasons.

There are upwardly mobile and middle-class Shiites—many of the Shiites in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq reside in oil-rich areas—but the vast majority of the Middle East's wealth is dominated by Sunni Arabs (In the Asian subcontinent, there tend to be more Shiites who are wealthy landowners). Experts say this income inequality has bred resentment and a sense of disenfranchisement among some Shiites. How are Shiites demonstrating more assertiveness? In contrast to rebellions waged by Iraq's Shiites in 1991 and Bahrain's Shiites in 1992-1994, both of which were violently repressed, the current assertiveness of Shiites is less combative. For instance, in Saudi Arabia's municipal elections last year, Shiites were twice as likely to vote as Sunnis. Shiites in Lebanon and Bahrain are also voting in greater numbers. Further, Shiites are expanding their cross-border cultural, economic, and political ties. Large flocks of Shiites are increasingly making the pilgrimage to Najaf, a Shiite holy city in southern Iraq that has enjoyed a revival since the ouster of Saddam.

CFR Adjunct Senior Fellow Vali Nasr writes in his new book, The Shia Revival, that war in Iraq will not make the Middle East more democratic but rather more Shiite. Do most Sunnis consider Shiites ‘infidels?’ No. In Iraq, for example, Shiites and Sunni Arabs often intermarry, particularly among the urban middle classes. Some Iraqi tribes feature both Sunni and Shiite branches. And experts say Iraqi nationalism remains important to both groups (Shiites and Sunnis fought side by side against the British after the post-World War I collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and also against Iran in the 1980-1988 war). However, some radical Sunni Arabs, so-called taqfiris, consider Shiites to be infidels and therefore fair game for targeted killings. Among this branch of radical Islam is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda in Iraq, which considered "near enemies"—Shiite collaborators with the U.S.-led government, as well as Shiite civilians—suitable targets for suicide bombs. Some experts say the death of Zarqawi may lead the sectarian bloodshed between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq to level off.

Is there a Shiite crescent forming in the Middle East? Experts on the Arab world disagree. Some say the so-called "Shiite crescent," which presumably includes Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, is being overblown. First, Syria is not Shiite but Alawite, a secular sect of Islam that ascribes to Arab nationalism, which puts it at odds with Shiite regional interests. Second, much will depend on the outcome in Iraq, experts say, as well as what kind of future relations Iran and Iraq have (some liken Iran's policy in Iraq to "managed chaos"). "[The Iranians] don't hope to achieve this regional hegemony by trying to instigate Islamic revolutions throughout the region to create a Shiite crescent," the International Crisis Group's Karim Sadjadpour told the Middle East Policy Council. Adds Tehran University's Kamran Taremi : "This concept [of a Shiite crescent] is a figment of the imagination of those inside and outside Iraq whose interests require them to present Iran as a threat to the Arab world." But other experts say Shiism, at least in the Persian Gulf region, is ascendant.

"[T]hat subregion of the Middle East is beginning to be polarized, not so much between revolutionary Islam and status-quo powers but along sectarian lines," CFR Senior Fellow Ray Takeyh told the Middle East Policy Council in December. Regarding U.S. foreign policy in the region, "I would suggest that we're beginning to see the emergence of a dual-pillar policy again, but the pillars are Shiite," he adds, referring to Iran and Iraq. How close are Shiite Arabs outside Iran to the Iranian regime? Iran has the ability to influence Shiite Arabs across Iraq and the Middle East, experts say. Many of Iraq's top Shiite political leaders spent years in exile in Iran—all told, around 100,000 Iraqi Shiites took refuge in Iran throughout the 1990s—and Tehran's Revolutionary Guards are heavily involved in Iraq's predominantly Shiite south. The two countries also have close religious ties. Ayatollah Sistani's popular website is based in Qom, an Iranian holy city, and Iranians increasingly view the cleric, who is of Persian descent, as their religious leader. Beyond Iraq, Tehran funds Hezbollah , an anti-Israel, Lebanon-based Shiite group that Washington brands a terrorist organization.

And Iran has important commercial links with Shiite communities in Dubai, Kuwait, and Syria. But most experts say Shiite Arabs, contrary to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's comments in April, do not remain more loyal to Iran than the countries where they live. Highlights From 2015–2016 Learn more about CFR’s mission and its work over the past year in the 2016 Annual Report . The Annual Report spotlights new initiatives, high-profile events, and authoritative scholarship from CFR experts, and includes a message from CFR President Richard N. Haass. Read and download » The Chronicle The Fall 2016 issue of CFR's member newsletter, the Chronicle, is a guide to CFR's most important news since August 2016, and includes announcements about new programs, partnerships, fellows, meetings, publications, and members. Read it now. Now Available: Foreign Policy Begins at Home The biggest threat to America's security and prosperity comes not from abroad but from within, writes CFR President Richard N. Haass in his provocative new book. More New Foreign Affairs eBook: Tiananmen and After

Question: What country has the most Shia Muslims?
Answer: Iran