Countries
Bahrain
Also Known As Bahraini
Asia
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
Bahrain is distinctive in the Gulf for having a Shia majority among its citizens under a Sunni ruling family, the Al Khalifa, a configuration that has shaped its politics for two centuries. Shia religious practice, including the Ashura processions of Manama and the villages, is the largest public religious expression in the country, and the mosque at Barbar and the shrines of the old villages are focal points of communal identity. The protests of 2011 were framed by the government as sectarian and by many participants as a demand for representation; dozens of Shia religious structures were demolished in the aftermath, and senior clerics were stripped of citizenship or imprisoned. Bahrain also maintains the oldest church in the Gulf and a small indigenous Jewish community, and it opened the Cathedral of Our Lady of Arabia in Awali in 2021.
Facts
Law and State
Establishment StatusThe constitution makes Islam the state religion in Bahrain while separately guaranteeing freedom of conscience and worship. The arrangement has not prevented state action against the Shia majority's own religious institutions, including the demolition of dozens of Shia religious structures and the prosecution or denaturalisation of senior Shia clerics after the 2011 unrest. State Funding MechanismBahrain funds mosques and Islamic religious life through two parallel state endowment boards, a Sunni Waqf and a Jaafari, or Shia, Waqf, which supervise mosque activities, approve clerical appointments at the sites under their authority and fund construction and upkeep, historically with an annual government allocation reported at 2.7 million Bahraini dinars to each board. Royal Order No. 18 of 2026 created a unified Council of Islamic Endowments Affairs to coordinate the two, with the pre-existing Sunni and Jaafari Endowments Administrations continuing underneath it as its executive bodies rather than being merged away. 4 Apostasy or Blasphemy LawBahrain's Penal Code punishes religious insult at Article 309, which fines up to 100 dinars or imprisons for up to one year anyone who, by any method of expression, offends one of the state's recognized religious sects or ridicules its rituals; a companion Article 310 separately punishes public insult of a class of persons on grounds including religion. The constitution declares freedom of conscience absolute at Article 22 while Article 23 qualifies freedom of opinion and expression against infringing the fundamentals of Islamic doctrine or causing sectarian division, the qualification the two Penal Code articles enforce. 3 Registration or Recognition RegimeSunni Islamic institutions register through the Sunni Waqf and Shia institutions through the Jaafari (Shia) Waqf, both under the Ministry of Justice, Islamic Affairs and Endowments, which funds and supervises mosques and prayer halls under each. A non-Islamic religious group instead registers with, and needs a license from, the Ministry of Social Development as a civil society organization, submitting an official request for a license, the minutes of its founders' committee meeting, and a detailed list of founders and board members including their names, ages, nationalities, occupations and addresses. 3 Ban or Official WatchlistBahrain's government banned and dissolved the country's largest Shia political society, al-Wefaq, by court order in 2016; the U.S. State Department's 2023 International Religious Freedom Report still refers to it as "the banned Shia al-Wefaq Political Society" when citing the group's continuing commentary on prison conditions. On July 20, 2023, the Ministry of Interior separately announced that foreign preachers, religious chanters and organized foreign tour groups would be barred from taking part in Ashura processions, stating that qualified local preachers were sufficient, a move Shia rights organizations said applied a double standard against prominent foreign Sunni religious figures who had recently been welcomed into the country. 3 Concordat BasisBahrain has no concordat with the Holy See. Article 2 of the 2002 Constitution, as revised through 2017, names Islam the religion of the state and Islamic Sharia a principal source of legislation, the country's own constitutional relationship to religion. 5 Disputed
Legal StatusThe constitution makes Islam the state religion and guarantees freedom of conscience and worship; after the 2011 unrest dozens of Shia religious structures were demolished and senior Shia clerics were prosecuted or denaturalised, and Shia political societies were dissolved. 3 Bahrain's constitution names Islam the state religion while separately guaranteeing freedom of conscience and worship to all residents, a formal guarantee the US State Department's International Religious Freedom Report, an annual government assessment carrying its own diplomatic framing rather than independent academic analysis, sets against documented state action following the 2011 pro-democracy unrest: dozens of Shia religious structures demolished, senior Shia clerics prosecuted or stripped of citizenship, and Shia political societies dissolved by the Sunni-led government over a Shia-majority population. The dispute recorded here is the gap between the constitutional guarantee and this documented practice, which the government frames as security response to unrest rather than religious targeting, and which Shia community representatives and international rights bodies frame as sectarian persecution. Because the actions in question are past legal and administrative measures with ongoing effect, resolving the disagreement would depend on whether the dissolved societies and denaturalised individuals are ever restored, which has not occurred as of the report's writing. Demographics
Religious CompositionMuslims are roughly 70 per cent of residents; among citizens the Shia are a majority estimated between 55 and 70 per cent, with Christians and Hindus making up most of the expatriate remainder (Pew Research Center, Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020). 1 Government
Government Typeconstitutional monarchy 2 Sovereignty StatusSovereign UN member state 2 Established Year15 August 1971 (from the UK) Geography
LatitudeApproximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a country's extent has no single center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a survey measurement. LongitudeApproximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a country's extent has no single center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a survey measurement. Location
Learn More
Religion and History in Bahrain
Bahrain has been settled and contested for a very long time, and its religious history has correspondingly many layers. The Dilmun civilisation of the third millennium BCE buried its dead in tens of thousands of mounds still visible on the island and appears in Mesopotamian literature as a pure land where the sun rises. Nestorian Christianity had bishops on the island in the fifth and sixth centuries. Islam arrived early, and in the tenth century Bahrain was the base of the Qarmatians, an Ismaili movement that raided Mecca in 930 and carried off the Black Stone for over twenty years.
The population became predominantly Shia, and the Baharna, the indigenous Shia Arab community, have village based religious institutions of considerable antiquity, including the Khamis mosque, among the oldest in the region. The Al Khalifa family, Sunni and originally from the Najd, took the islands in 1783, which produced the configuration that still defines Bahraini politics: a Sunni ruling house governing a Shia majority. Bahrain was also the first Gulf state to find oil, in 1932, and the first to exhaust it, which made it a financial and service centre and gave it a comparatively open society earlier than its neighbours.
Ashura, 2011 and the Politics of a Shia Majority
The Ashura processions in Manama and the Shia villages are the largest public religious observance in Bahrain, with black draped streets, majlis recitations of the events at Karbala, and matam houses that serve as community institutions as well as ritual halls. They are also political by necessity, because in a country where the Shia majority has limited access to the security forces and to senior state employment, the one occasion on which that majority assembles visibly carries weight beyond its liturgical content.
The protests of February 2011, centred on the Pearl Roundabout, were framed by participants as a demand for constitutional monarchy and by the government as a sectarian and Iran influenced movement. The crackdown that followed, assisted by Gulf Cooperation Council forces, included the demolition of dozens of Shia religious structures, which the government characterised as the removal of unlicensed buildings; the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, appointed by the king and reporting later that year with unusual candour, documented the demolitions along with torture in custody.
Senior clerics were prosecuted, and Isa Qassim, the most prominent Shia religious authority in the country, was stripped of citizenship in 2016. Bahrain simultaneously maintains a genuine record of accommodation elsewhere: an indigenous Jewish community that has supplied an ambassador and a member of parliament, the oldest church in the Gulf, and the Catholic cathedral opened at Awali in 2021.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Bahrain directly: "The 2002 Constitution of Bahrain, shown here as revised through 2017, in full English translation by the Constitute Project."
The state religion, with a Shia majority among citizens under a Sunni ruling family, a configuration central to the politics of 2011 and after.
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.