Sectarian Demography of the Eastern Islamic World

 

بِسۡمِ اللّٰہِ الرَّحۡمٰنِ الرَّحِیۡمِ

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

الصلاة والسلام عليك يا سيدي يا رسول الله

وعلى آلك واصحابك يا سيدي يا نور الله

Back in December, 2024, when Syria was finally liberated from the terrible Baathist—Alawite regime, I wrote: “Whoever the new Syrian government is they would be wise to curtail the agency of the minorities in that country, as the minorities naturally sided with the brutal but secular dictatorship. An aggressive policy of Sunnification is required for Syria so as to ensure that such a situation of a heretical minority gaining power in that country is never again repeated. And we know that the Nusairi so-called Alawites were only empowered as a consequence of the policy of the French imperialist in the twentieth century. As I have explained, the heretical minorities naturally ally with the external enemies of Islam as they feel it is necessary to secure their own existence and prosperity at the expense of the Sunni Muslim majority.”

Now since the fall of the Assad regime, Alawites and pro-Assad elements in western Syria, particularly in the Latakia and Tartus regions, launched an insurgency in which they have ambushed and killed countless security forces of the new government and their allies. In response to this terrorism, the pro-government security forces moved in on the troubled regions to neutralize the Alawite threat. The sectarian conflict reached its zenith in March, 2025, but has since cooled down and law and order has been restored. Then in late April to early May, 2025, the Druze stirred dissension in southern Syria, rising up in open rebellion against the new Syrian government. The Zionist State backed their Druze pawns and launched several strikes against the new Syrian government.

All of this demonstrates the lethal danger posed by heretical groups, the Zanadiqah, such as the Nusayris (Alawites), Druze, Batinis (Isma’ilis), etc. In Syria, the Druze and the Kurdish Marxists are openly allied with the Zionist State, whose enmity to Islam and the Muslims is not hidden from anyone.

Whereas in the past God commanded, in the Torah and via some of the ancient Israelite Prophets like Moses, Joshua and Samuel, the eradication of various pagan nations from the Holy Land, in our time it is the extermination of the Zindiq sects that is divinely sanctioned. Yesterday it was the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites and Amalekites and today it is the Alawites/Nusayris, Druze, Ismailis/Batinis, Zikris, Bahais, Yazidis, Bektashis, Ahmadis/Qadianis, etc.

Certain parts of the Muslim World today are more prone to the threat of these and other heretical sects. The threat to the Sunni Muslims of Syria, who comprise four-fifths of the overall Syrian population, has already been laid bare.

In neighboring Iraq, the Twelver Shi’ah, Rafidis who blaspheme against the Prophet’s successors, wives and companions رضى الله عنهم and believe the Holy Quran has been corrupted, form the majority, about three-fifths, of that country. Since the Americans liberated Iraq in 2003 from the Baathist regime of Saddam, the Shi’ite clergy and Shi’ite religious parties have been totally empowered through the ballot. Since coming to power, the Shi’ite dominated government of Iraq, in coordination with Shi’ite militias backed by Iran, effected an ethnic cleansing of Sunni Muslims from much of Baghdad. Today, the situation of the Sunnis in Iraq is precarious, and they have essentially been relegated to the status of second class citizens.

Moving east to Iran, the Twelver Shi’ites form the overwhelming majority of that country since the Safavids beginning in the 16^th century imposed Shi’ism upon the Iranians who were once predominantly Sunni. Still, about one-tenth of Iran is Sunni, predominantly belonging to the Kurdish, Baloch and Turkmen ethnic minorities. They have been sidelined and marginalized, particularly since 1979 when Khomeini seized power and established Wilayat al-Faqih—a Shi’ite theocracy in which the clergy govern the country in the name of the mythic Twelfth Imam.

Further east to Afghanistan, the state of affairs is significantly better. The Taliban, or Islamic Emirate, have been in control since liberating Afghanistan from American occupation about four years ago. Despite considerable ethnic heterogeneity, the vast majority, about nine-tenths, is Sunni. The Hazara community, a Turco-Mongol ethnic group that settled in central Afghanistan centuries ago, are predominantly Twelver Shi’ah. Historically, they have posed a security threat to Afghanistan, but they were pacified during the reign of the great Emir Abdul Rahman Khan, and by the original Taliban in the 1990s. The restoration of Taliban governance ensures that the Hazara Shi’ites remain under necessary surveillance. Yet this community should not be underestimated. During Syria’s devastating civil war, tens of thousands of Hazara fighters, organized as the Liwa Fatemiyoun, had their entry facilitated into Syria by the Iranians, and were used as cannon fodder to cause much bloodshed against the Sunni Muslims.

Moving north into Central Asia, the former Soviet Republics, while the population is predominantly Sunni, many are only nominally so. Since the early eighteenth century, the Russians had been conquering and colonizing Muslim Central Asia. Thus, centuries of Russian colonial rule, and then brutal Soviet repression, coerced the Turkic Muslim peoples of Central Asia to secularize and become detached from their Faith. When the USSR collapsed, the Central Asian Republics attained independence but their rulers were former Soviet agents, part of a Russified elite class who maintained the repressive atheistic policies. In summary, the state of affairs for Islam in the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia is quite dismal at the moment. While there is not a problem of sectarian heresy there per se, there is an equally if not more dangerous presence of secularists and atheists whom the sincere Sunni Muslims have to contend with.

The dynamics in Pakistan are radically different. Firstly, it has a massively large population of about 250 million people. The vast majority of Pakistanis are Sunni Muslims, but there is a significant minority of Twelver Shi’ah, and other heretical sects like Isma’ilis, Ahmadis/Qadianis, Zikris, Nurbakhshis, and a rapidly growing number of Hadith-rejecters. Though most parts of Pakistan Sunni Muslims are in the majority, there is one area where non-Sunnis predominate, namely, Gilgit-Baltistan. This administrative area has a crucial location, bordering China and Indian occupied Kashmir, and a small population of about two million. Sunni Muslims are less than one-third of the population, while two-fifths are Twelver Shi’ah, a quarter are Isma’ili, and about six percent belong to the obscure Nurbakhshi denomination. The sectarian demography of Gilgit-Baltistan is concerning in light of active efforts by the Indian intelligence agencies to destabilize the region. Non-Sunni sects and heretical groups are easily manipulated by the external enemies of Islam and foreign powers to cause a headache to the State and central government. The manner in which the Zionists have made the Druze their pawns in southern Syria could potentially be replicated by Hindu India vis-à-vis the Shi’ite sects in Gilgit-Baltistan. Already their are stirrings of separatism in Gilgit-Baltistan and growing anti-State sentiments among the non-Sunnis there. It would be wise for the Pakistani State to revive the policy of the pious Zia-ul-Haq رحمة الله عليه who facilitated the settlement of Sunni Muslims into the Northern Areas from mainland Pakistan, in order to dilute the native Shi’ites there. As for the Ahmadis/Qadianis, a sect that believes in the false prophet Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, since they were officially declared a non-Muslim minority in 1974, the internal threat they posed to Pakistan has been drastically reduced. Due to the passionate efforts of the Sunni Ulama, the Pakistani masses socially boycott the Qadianis and keep them in check. This has motivated the Qadianis to covertly back social and political trends in Pakistan that seek to secularize the state and society. The Qadianis remain behind the scenes while employing useful idiots on their behalf to do the dirty work of campaigning for secularity and actual secularism. Large numbers of Qadianis have fled Pakistan and sought asylum abroad, especially in Europe, where they lobby European and American governments to go against Pakistan’s interests. Perhaps the most dangerous flashpoint in Pakistan is the backwater province of Baluchistan, where there is an ongoing separatist insurgency which is increasingly using methods of terrorism targeting civilian settlers from other provinces like Punjab. The Baluch separatists are rabid in their hatred for the Pakistani State. They tend to have a Marxist and secular outlook, despite some of them nominally professing Sunni Islam. These Baluch separatists are openly supportive of Hindu India and Zionism. They also have a soft corner for the heretical Zikris, since the latter are “fellow” Baluch ethnics, and follow a religious understanding that is indigenous to the area. This sect should therefore be strictly monitored, and like Gilgit-Baltistan, there should be a policy of aggressive Sunnification, through both proselytism and settlement of conservative and loyalist Sunni Muslims from other provinces.

Since Hasina’s Awami League government collapsed in Bangladesh in early August, 2024, the forces of secularism and atheism in that country have been on the defense. Thankfully, Bangladesh is an overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim country, though about eight percent of Bangladeshis are Hindu. The Hindu presence is concerning since they would naturally be more loyal to India and also fiercely opposed to the project of political and cultural Islamization of Bangladesh. Nevertheless, the lack of any significant presence of heretical sects means Bangladesh’s transition to becoming more Islamic is potentially smoother.

Like Bangladesh, the Muslim countries of Indonesia and Malaysia are probably lacking any significant internal armed conflict because the populations are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim with no significant presence of heretical sects, particularly Shi’ites. There are some New Age cults that are expanding their presence in Indonesia, and the schools of Ulama there are generally liberal. The conservative and traditionalist Sunni Muslims should look to Afghanistan and Pakistan for strategies to wage the all important culture war against the diabolical forces of liberalism, pluralism and feminism.