Talk:Demographics of Bahrain/Archive 1

Archive 1

East Asians form a "numerous minority"?

I'm not sure where the claim that East Asians form a "numerous minority" in Bahrain comes from, but going with any normal definition of East Asia, this appears to be false. Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs records only 199 of their nationals in Bahrain [1]; South Korea's states 101 [2]; China's Overseas Chinese Affairs office estimates 2,000 [3]. I assume that whoever wrote this might have meant "Southeast Asians", of whom there's tens of thousands. cab (talk) 09:33, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

how do we know this number

" Shi'a Islam is the prevailing branch, with over 80% of Bahrainis practicing Shi'a Islam." how do we know its 80% , i have heard 60% before, is there references to this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.115.156.119 (talk) 11:41, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

why does the languages heading look like that?

165.236.200.99 (talk) 18:21, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Religions

I'm happy that the percentage of Bahraini citizens who are Shia is probably something like 66-70%. Certainly, "two thirds" and "up to 70%" are common statements in articles that are unlikely to have bias (whereas those that have an obvious axe to grind tend to go for 75-80% or 50%, depending on which camp they're in).

However, that's just the citizens (total 568k, so presumably Shia ~390k, Sunni ~180k)). As 45% of the non-national population is Muslim, that's another 300k Muslims resident in Bahrain. Given where those non-nationals are from (i.e. 95% "Other Arabs" and "Asian"), would it not be reasonable to assume that the vast majority (i.e. >75%) of these were Sunni rather than Shia? Anyone have any thoughts/info on that?Bromley86 (talk) 23:34, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Somehow in the series of edits you made the Shia estimates got left out. I've restored them for you. While it might be that the non-nationals are mainly Sunni we can't say that they are unless there is a reliable source. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 03:11, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to revert back to my last revision on this for a number of reasons:

1. Given the unknowable nature of the Shia/Sunni Bahraini population split, it's probably better dealt with in the detailed Religion section rather than in the Summary section. This has the added bonus of making it easier to keep the article consistent when changes are made to this % (already there is inconsistency as the Summary now says 60-70% and the Religion section says 66-70%)

2. Unless I'm missing something, the Eurasia review article doesn't add anything to the 70% figure that the other articles don't already give. The other articles are now consistent sources across the 3 pages (that I've found) that mention the Sunni/Shia split.

3. That Global Security article is obviously factually wrong on at least 1 point and uses out of date stats. Clearly, given that Muslims make up 99.8% of the Bahraini population (and made up a similar proportion back in 2001), the Bahraini Sunni population is more than 25% if, as that article claims, the Bahraini Shia population is 60%. That 60% is a very low end figure and really needs to have come from a very credible source to be used (i.e. government, major international NGO, etc.). The stats that it uses are 2001 or earlier, as it says "Approximately 1/3 of the population of Bahrain is international".Bromley86 (talk) 12:05, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

However that now means that the Sunni majority is now omitted from this article and looks like a POV edit to cover them up. Forgive me but there has been far to much lately in the way of minimising the amount of the Sunni majority in Bahrain. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 22:28, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I take it you mean Shia majority? Although there may be a narrow majority of Sunnis in Bahrain, that's dependent entirely on the non-national population. I've had no joy firming up on that, so I guess we'll have to leave it.

It hasn't been ommitted though. In the Religion section, "There are no official figures, but the Shi'a constitute 66-70% of the Bahraini Muslim population." I had a look at the UK and Saudi Demographics pages to check the consistency and, if anything, there's an argument for removing any detail on the percentages from the Summary, as both of those pages mention religion very briefly in the Summary (with the percentages and religions/sects appearing in the Religion section).

See Demographics_of_Saudi_Arabia and UK_demographics. Bromley86 (talk) 23:35, 6 March 2012 (UTC)