Religions
See also: Freedom of religion in Bahrain| Men | Women | TOTAL | Bahraini | Non-Bahraini | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Muslims | 511,135 | 355,753 | 866,888 | 567,229 | 299,659 |
| Others | 257,279 | 110,414 | 367,683 | 1,170 | 366,513 |
| Total | 768,414 | 466,157 | 1,234,571 | 568,399 | 666,172 |
| Muslim % | 70.2% | 99.8% | 45.0% |
Islam is the official religion. The citizen population is 99.8% Muslim, although the Muslim proportion falls to 70.2% when the non-national population is included. Current census data doesn't differentiate between the other religions in Bahrain, but there are about 1,000 Christian citizens and about 40 Jewish citizens.
Muslims belong to the Shi'a and Sunni branches of Islam. There are no official figures, but the Shi'a constitute 66-70% of the Bahraini Muslim population. Foreigners, overwhelmingly from South Asia and other Arab countries, constituted 54% of the population in 2010. Of these, 45% are Muslim and 55% are non-Muslim, including Christians (primarily: Catholic, Protestant, Syrian Orthodox, and Mar Thoma from South India), Hindus, Bahá'ís, Buddhists, and Sikhs.
Read more about this topic: Demographics Of Bahrain
Famous quotes containing the word religions:
“The ancients adorned their sarcophagi with the emblems of life and procreation, and even with obscene symbols; in the religions of antiquity the sacred and the obscene often lay very close together. These men knew how to pay homage to death. For death is worthy of homage as the cradle of life, as the womb of palingenesis.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“Politics at all times lead to bloody wars, and not only politics, but also religions as well as social and economic systems of all times are spattered with blood. Invariably the big ones devoured the little ones, and the little ones the tiny ones.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“Those who believe in their truth—the only ones whose imprint is retained by the memory of men—leave the earth behind them strewn with corpses. Religions number in their ledgers more murders than the bloodiest tyrannies account for, and those whom humanity has called divine far surpass the most conscientious murderers in their thirst for slaughter.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)