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.
Shia Muslims are granted freedom to worship, and maintain their mosques. Shias may also pursue family law cases through a special Shia council. Most Shias are concentrated in the emirates of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah.
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.
96% of United Arab Emirates population are muslims, of them are 94% are Sunni Muslims and the remainder 2% are Shia, while the other 4% of the population are of other religions who are concentrated in the Emirates of Dubai and Sharjah.
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.
Islam in Lebanon has a long and continuous history. According to an estimate by the CIA, it is followed by 63% of the country's total population. Sunnis make up 31.9%, Twelver Shia make up 31.2%, next to smaller percentages of other Shia branches, such as Alawites and Ismailis.
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.
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.
Shiites comprise around 10% of Qatar's Muslim population. Several of Qatar's most notable merchant families have historically been Shia. Qatari Shiites are granted religious liberty and some have held government positions.
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.
Sunni Muslims reside throughout the country. There is a huge diversity among the members of the Sunni Arab community in Syria and they cannot be perceived as a unified group.
The majority of Iraq's Muslims are Shia, and the Isis militants gaining ground there are Sunni. According to the Pew Research Center, Iraq is one of only a handful of countries with a Shia majority. So how do opinions of Islam in Iraq compare to other countries in the region?
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.
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.
Both Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims agree on the three holiest sites in Islam being, respectively, the Masjid al-Haram (including the Kaaba), in Mecca; the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, in Medina; and the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, in Jerusalem.
While Medina is an important, if optional, stop for pilgrims on the hajj, it is a pilgrimage destination for the Shia.
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.
Most Omanis (about three-quarters of the country) belong to the Ibadi Muslim faith—meaning they are followers of the Abd Allah ibn Ibad—but there are some Shia and Sunni Muslims as well.
Alcohol isn't illegal in Qatar, but there is zero tolerance for drinking in public and being drunk in public is a crime. Local law and customs reflect the fact that Qatar is an Islamic country - therefore you should respect the rules at all times and ensure your actions do not offend.
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 country with the single largest population of Muslims is Indonesia in Southeast Asia, which on its own hosts 13% of the world's Muslims.
About 97% of Pakistanis are Muslims. 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%. However, the Hanbali school is gaining popularity recently due to Wahhabi influence from the Middle East.
Most Libyans adhere to the Sunni branch of Islam, which provides both a spiritual guide for individuals and a keystone for government policy.
Almost all Muslims in the country identify as Sunni, although there are significant distinctions among followers of different Sunni traditions, particularly among Sufi orders.
Today, the majority of the Egyptian population is Muslim, with a small minority of Jews and Christians.