Religion
The Government does not conduct census on religion, but estimates put the percentage of the majority Salafis at 85-90% while Shiites, who comprise the largest Muslim minority, at 10-15% of the population. Shiites (Twelvers) are primarily concentrated in the Eastern Province, where they constitute over a third of the population. Other smaller communities (Ismailis and Zaidis) reside in the South, with Ismailis constituting around half of the population of the province of Nejran, and the Holy Islamic cities of Mecca and Medina.
Read more about this topic: Demographics Of Saudi Arabia
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“Their religion was sweetness and peace amidst toil and tears.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A chaplain is the minister of the Prince of Peace serving the host of the God of War—Mars. As such, he is as incongruous as a musket would be on the altar at Christmas. Why, then, is he there? Because he indirectly subserves the purpose attested by the cannon; because too he lends the sanction of the religion of the meek to that which practically is the abrogation of everything but brute Force.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“We think of religion as the symbolic expression of our highest moral ideals; we think of magic as a crude aggregate of superstitions. Religious belief seems to become mere superstitious credulity if we admit any relationship with magic. On the other hand our anthropological and ethnographical material makes it extremely difficult to separate the two fields.”
—Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945)