Shia Islam in Saudi Arabia
Religious and ethnic minority in Saudi Arabia
Shia Islam in Saudi Arabia
The Saudi government does not conduct a census on religion or ethnicity, but some sources estimate the Shia population in Saudi Arabia to make up around 10-15% of the approximately 20 million natives of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia's Twelver Shia community, the Baharna, is primarily concentrated in the country's Eastern Province, chiefly Qatif and Al-Ahsa. A Twelver Shia community also exists in Medina known as the Nakhawila. Similarly, a tribal Shia community also exists in the Hijaz region, manifesting itself in three tribes: the Banu Husayn (Al Hussaini), the sharifs of Mecca who ruled for more than five centuries, along with two traditionally nomadic Hijazi tribes of Harb and Juhaynah. A few historians believe that these Bedouin tribes belonged to a strain of Shia Islam that is neither Twelver nor Zaydi, with some believing that they profess neo-Kaysanite beliefs. Outside of the eastern province and Hejaz, Shia Islam exists in the southern region of the kingdom, with Najran and its Yam...
Read on Wikipedia · Image Mustafa Al-Elq, CC BY-SA 4.0
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