Qatar is remarkable in the region for its well-integrated Shi’a Muslim community, which makes up roughly 5-20% of the population and which represents some of the nation’s most prominent merchant families. Most of the Shi’a immigrated from Iran during the waning days of the Qajar period in the late nineteenth century, or during the 1960s and 1970s. Though Shi’a Muslims participate in various institutions across society, the government regards them warily, particularly following anti-government protests in neighboring Bahrain led by the nation’s large and disempowered Shi’a community during the Arab Spring.
Sources:
Mehran Kamrava, Qatar: Small State, Big Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013), p. 73.
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, “International Religious Freedom Report for 2012: Qatar,” HumanRights.gov (2012), accessed November 26, 2013.