Religion and demographics

Islam is a monotheistic religion based upon the written works in the Koran (the Koran is essentially the Islamic Bible). A Muslim/Moslem is a person who follows the religion of Islam.   Muslims consider the Koran to be the verbatim word of God as revealed to the Prophet Mohammed.

Sunni and Shia Islam are the two major denominations of Islam. A split occurred in the Islamic religion when the prophet Mohammed died in 632. This split was caused by a dispute over who was to succeed Mohammed as the caliph (chief civic and religious ruler) of the Islamic community.

Approximately 85-90% of Muslims are Sunni and 10 to 15% Shia.   There are approximately 1.6 billion followers of Islam, or 23% of the global population.

The Shia population has historically been subservient to the Sunni population and has been treated poorly throughout history.  Currently the major Shia populations in the Middle East can be found in Iran (70 million; 95% of the population) and Iraq (20 million; 50-65 % of the population).  There are also significant minority Shia populations throughout the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

The majority Sunni populations in the Middle East include Egypt (80 million), Turkey (75 million), Saudi Arabia (25 million), Jordan (6.5 million), Palestine (4.3 million), and the United Arab Emirates (3.5 million).

Politics, Religion and Conflict

Sunni and Shia Muslims have lived together peacefully for centuries and share many fundamental beliefs and practices.

Sunni Muslims regard themselves as the orthodox and traditional branch of Islam. In contrast to Shia, Sunni religious teachers and leaders have historically come under state control.

In countries that have been governed by Sunnis, Shia tend to make up the poorest sections of society and often see themselves as victims of discrimination and oppression.

The Iranian revolution of 1979 launched a radical Shia Islamist agenda that was perceived as a challenge to conservative Sunni regimes, particularly in the gulf.

Iran’s policy of supporting Shia militias and parties beyond its borders was matched by the Gulf States who strengthened their links to Sunni governments and movements abroad.  Shia Hezbollah in Lebanon and the radical Sunni Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan are vivid examples of these outside parties.

The Iranian revolution also changed the Shia–Sunni power equation in Muslim countries. The traditionally subservient Shia became “revolutionary” to the alarm of traditionally dominant and very non-revolutionary Sunni.  This motivated the Saudi Arabian Sunni establishment to attempt to strengthen its religious legitimacy with an even stricter religious protocol to compete with Iran’s revolutionary ideology.

Saudi Arabia’s native Sunni school of Islam (Wahhabism) was the vehicle used to strengthen Saudi Arabia’s Islamic legitimacy beginning in the 1970’s.  Wahhabism is state sponsored and its’ teachings are the official form of Sunni Islam in 21^st century Saudi Arabia.  These teachings have been variously described as  “orthodox”, “ultra conservative”, and “austere”.  Critics say that Wahhabism’s rigidity has led it to misinterpret and distort Islam, pointing to the creation of such extreme organizations as Al Qaeda, the Taliban and ISIS.  Strict Wahabbi’s consider Shia Islam not a form of Islam but unbelief.

Although the Iranian revolution’s leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, was very much in favor of Shia-Sunni unity, and the leadership position that went with it, his revolution worked against it.

From the Iranian revolution to 2015, Shia groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen supported by Iran have recently won important political victories boosting Iran’s regional influence.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militia and political movement is the strongest political force in the country. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq removed Saddam Hussein from power and instituted elected government, the Shia majority has dominated the parliament and its prime ministers have been Shia.

In Syria, a Shia minority, the Alawite sect makes up only 13% of the population, but dominates the upper reaches of the government, the military and security services. Alawite soldiers are the “backbone” of the forces fighting to protect the Bashir al-Assad regime in Syria’s Civil War.

In Yemen, Houthi rebels have expanded their territory south of Saudi Arabia, and become the country’s dominant power.

It would appear that the two civil wars in Iraq and Syria have now morphed into  sectarian wars (communal violence between different sects of one particular mode

of ideology or religion within a nation/community).  These wars have brought about the involvement of many different non Syrian and non Iraqi participants.  The present alliances are complex and entangled as summarized below:

Iraq War

Iraq Government – (Iraqi Army, Shia militias, Kurds)

Allies:

United States, Iran, France, Great Britain and others

Recently established intelligence sharing arrangement with Syria, Iran and Russia

Adversary:  ISIS – an extreme Sunni rebel organization

Allies:

Support from foreign fighters

Syrian War

What started as a popular uprising against the Syrian government four years ago has become a war with nearly a dozen countries embroiled in two overlapping conflicts (the war in Syria and the war against ISIS):

Syrian Government – (Alawite elements of the Syrian army)

Allies:

Iran, Russia, Hezbollah

Main Adversaries: Rebel groups (Free Syrian Army, Former members of the Syrian regular army and others)

Allies: United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations

Secondary adversary:  ISIS and foreign fighters

War against ISIS:

ISIS and foreign fighters

Main adversaries:  United States, Kurds, rebel fighters, Turkey, some Arab nations and other allies

Secondary adversaries:  Syrian government, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah

Miscellaneous

• Though the Arab world is often regarded as the historical heartland of Islam, Arabs comprise only about 20% of the world’s Muslim population.
• The country with the largest Muslim population is Indonesia, home to about 13% of all Muslims worldwide.
• Islam is the largest religion in Africa.
•  Russia is home to about 17 million Sunni Muslims, representing 12% of its population.