Religion
Iraq has many devout followers of its religions. In 1968 the Iraqi constitution established Islam as the official religion of the state as the majority of Iraqis (97%) are Muslim (predominantly Shīʻah but also including minority Sunni).
In addition to Islam, many Iraqi people are Christians belonging to various Christian denominations, some of which are the Chaldean Catholic Church (Chaldean Christians), the Syriac Orthodox Church, and the Assyrian Church of the East. Their numbers inside Iraq have dwindled considerably and range between 500,000 and 800,000; around 2% of the population.
Other religious groups include Mandaeans, Shabaks, Yazidis and followers of other minority religions. Furthermore, Jews had also been present in Iraq in significant numbers historically, but their population dwindled, after virtually all of them fled to Israel between 1949 to 1952.
Read more about this topic: Iraqi People
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“I told him that Goldsmith had said,... “As I take my shoes from the shoemaker, and my coat from the taylor, so I take my religion from the priest.” I regretted this loose way of talking. JOHNSON. Sir, he knows nothing; he has made up his mind about nothing.””
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“They live together without king, without government, and each is his own master.... Beyond the fact that they have no church, no religion and are not idolaters, what more can I say? They live according to nature, and may be called Epicureans rather than Stoics.”
—Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512)
“As soon as a religion comes to dominate, it has as its opponents all those who would have been its earliest disciples.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)