Chronicle of the Middle East and North Africa

Population of Iraq

Baghdad
Baghdad

Introduction

The population of Iraq in the year 2020 AD reached 40 million and 150 thousand people, according to the results of the official census, which were announced by the Iraqi Ministry of Planning in January 2021 AD. The population distribution was 50.50% for males, and 49.5% for females, with a gender ratio of 102 males for each 100 female.

The cumulative population growth rate for the three years preceding the last official census was about 8.1%, with a high average annual growth rate of 2.7%. As the population of Iraq in the year 2017, according to estimates of the Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation, reached about 37.14 million, with a population growth rate of 2.61%. The gender ratio, according to these estimates, in that year was 103.9 males per 100 females.

The last official population census was conducted in Iraq in 1997. It did not include the entire governorates of Iraq, but an estimate of the population of Dohuk, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, which had a special status resulting from the repercussions of the Second Gulf War, and not being subject to the authority of the federal government. Therefore the population of The Kurdistan region was not counted, which constituted an important distortion in the results of the total census.

Iraq has witnessed major demographic, economic and political transformations after the events of 2003 AD and the change of the political system. With the importance of maintaining the periodicity of carrying out the general population censuses, the eighth census was destined to take place in 2007 AD.

However, the exceptional circumstances that resulted from the change of the political system in the country, the increase in violence and political disputes over the objectives of the census, and the possibilities for political employment of its results, all contributed to impeding the achievement of the Census on time or on dates that have been approved later.

However, the escalation of differences between the federal government and the Kurdistan region regarding control of the areas subject to Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, in what is known as the disputed areas, perhaps the most prominent is the oil-rich Kirkuk Governorate, which has been a major reason for the political forces not agreeing to conduct the census.

Since then, it has been the basis for distributing wealth in the country, drawing development plans, evaluating their results, and setting the correct plans for reconstruction. This, despite assurances released by the Ministry of Planning more than once, that the census will not include a question about the sect, as some parties in Iraq demand.

So the Ministry resorted to estimating the number of the population annually relying on the ration card, which is a program for the distribution of food rations to the population, and it has been followed since the imposition of the blockade on the country in the 1990s.

Muslims make up 95-98% of the total population (Shiites 64-69%, Sunnis 29-34%), Christians makeup 1% (includes Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, and the Assyrian Church in the East), in a neighborhood that others make up between 1 and 4%, according to the Factbook for the US Central Intelligence Agency (2015 estimate).

Iraq is a multi-ethnic country, even if the federal government pledges not to include in its statistics any questions about religious sect or ethnicity; However, independent sources indicate that the percentage of Arabs without sectarian discrimination constitutes 75-80% of the total population, while the Kurds constitute between 15-20%, and other ethnicities a rate of 5% (including Turkmen, Yezidis, Shabaks, Kaka’is, Bedouins, Romans Assyrians, Circassians, Mandaean Sabeans, Persians).

Languages ​​spoken in the Iraqi Republic include: Arabic (official), Kurdish (official), Turkmen (a Turkish dialect), Syriac (new Aramaic). Armenian is an official language ​​in the regions where its original speakers ​​make up the majority of the population.

Age Groups

Iraq population

Sources: https://www.citypopulation.de/en/iraq/. @FanackIraqi society is considered a young society, as 40.4% of the total population is under the age of 15 years. While the age group of the economically active population, between the ages of 15 and 64 years, constituted the highest percentage among the age groups, reaching 56.5% of the total population of the country, the percentage of the elderly in the open age group (65 years and over) Only about 3.1% of the total population.

The southern governorates constitute the largest proportion of the population increase, as fertility rates reach high rates compared to other governorates, led by Basra, Maysan, Dhi Qar, Muthanna, lineage, and followed by the central governorates, Baghdad and the Kurdistan region. The average fertility rate in the country is estimated at 3.32 births per woman.

The average life expectancy at birth for the total population is estimated at 72.9 years (71.01 years for males and 74.89 years for females).

Areas of Habitation

The population is concentrated in the northern, central and eastern parts of the country, with many larger urban agglomerations along with large parts of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers; Much of the western and southern regions are either sparsely populated or uninhabited.
The population density in the Republic of Iraq was 92.45 people / km2 in 2020. The distribution of population density is in the most counted governorates, where “the capital Baghdad comes first with 8.55 million, followed by Nineveh with 3.5 million, and Basra with just over 3 million. The population of urban areas reached 70.9% of the total population, with Baghdad (the capital) at the forefront, followed by Mosul, Basra, Kirkuk, Najaf, and Erbil.

Ethnic Groups

Arabs

About three-quarter of the Iraqis is Arab. They are descendants of the conquerors who invaded Iraq from the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century CE. The Arab population is sharply divided in religion. 80 percent of the Arabs are Shiites, making up the largest section of the population. The other 20 percent of Arabs are Sunni.

Although a minority, Sunni Arabs dominated Iraqi politics until 2003. Along with the Kurds, the Shiite Arabs have long suffered political and economic exclusion, which, given their proportion of the total population, demonstrates clearly the distortions in the existing political order in Iraq. Also, the wars with Iran and over Kuwait have affected most severely southern Iraq, where most of the Shiites live. The popular rebellions in the south in the spring of 1991 were suppressed with extreme violence, whereupon the regime carried out a sharp anti-Shiite propaganda campaign.

Iraq population
Sources: https://www.citypopulation.de/en/iraq/. @Fanack

The scarce resources available to the central government were hardly ever allocated to the south of the country, with the result that the Shiite Arabs are often the worst off among Iraq’s peoples. Because they seldom had access to government jobs, the Shiites turned to trade and professions as their primary occupations.

After the downfall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Shiite Arabs gained prominent positions in Iraqi politics and government, more or less in proportion to their numbers. Sunni Arabs have predictably found their loss of political power and influence after 2003 hard to accept.

Marsh Arabs

Iraq Population - Fanack Chronicle
Iraq – The Marshes

A unique group is the Ma’dan or Marsh Arabs. Their culture goes back to the ancient Sumerians and Babylonians and is six or seven thousand years old. The Marsh Arabs inhabit the vast marshes in the Amara-Nasiriya-Qurna triangle. Many of them were driven from their territory in the 1990s following the draining of a large part of the swamps by Saddam Hussein’s regime.

The motives for the draining of the Marshes were largely political. Difficult to penetrate, throughout the centuries these marshes served as a hiding place for political opponents of the rulers in Baghdad, as they did after the army’s defeat in Kuwait in 1991.

Originally numbering half a million, today less than 250,000 Madan still live in the Marshes, chiefly in the eastern part, along the border with Iran. Ten years later, there is little incentive among the Madan who have been driven out to return to their hard existence in the Marches. After 2003, efforts have been made to reverse the effects of the drainage project, simply by breaking through a number of the dikes. The Madan are Shiites.

Human Rights Watch estimated the number of Ma’dan at about a quarter of a million people during the last decade of the twentieth century. However, their numbers diminished greatly, as many of them were arrested, “disappeared” or executed, and most of them became refugees abroad, or internally displaced within Iraq, as a result of persecution.

Assyrians

Iraq Population - Fanack Chronicle
Assyrian church in Arbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, Photo Shutterstock

Communities of Assyrians live in western Iraqi Kurdistan – particularly in the region east of Mosul, the Nineveh (Ninawa) Plains – and in Baghdad. Though they are often incorrectly classified as a religious minority, the Assyrians see themselves as people with their own distinct language and regard themselves as descendants of the ancient Assyrians, who built a mighty empire in Mesopotamia centuries before the Christian era.

Through deportation, flight, and voluntary emigration (chiefly among the young), the Assyrian population has declined greatly over the past decades.

About half the Assyrians live in Baghdad, and another 10 percent in the three northern provinces of Iraqi Kurdistan, their original home territory; the remaining 40 percent live scattered across the region in between Baghdad and the north.

Like the small Armenian community, the Assyrians are Christians, about two-thirds adherents of the Chaldaean Catholic rite, the remainder Nestorians. Although they have adopted the Arabic language, their own language, Sureth (Syriac, an Eastern Aramaic language, which, like Arabic, belongs to the Semitic language family) is still spoken.

Mandaeans

Iraq Population - Fanack Chronicle
Mandaeans performing their yearly baptist ritual, Photo HH/Polaris

The Mandaeans – who revere Adam, Noah, and John the Baptist – are now a threatened ethno-religious community in Iraq. They have lived in southern Mesopotamia since before Islam. Three decades ago still a community of 70,000, their number has dwindled to 5,000. Many Mandaeans have ended up as refugees in neighbouring countries and the West, having been forced from Iraq by warfare and persecution by extremist Muslims. Mandeans are famous for their craftsmanship in jewellery.

Turkmen

The presence of the Turkmen (Turcoman) community in Iraq goes back to the time of the Ottoman Empire. Although Turkmen conquerors had settled in what is now Iraq since the 11th century, most of them were settled by the Ottoman sultans in the hills between the Tigris and Kurdistan as a buffer and to protect the important trade routes from Damascus to Central Asia.

The Turkmen thus became soldiers, administrators, and craftsmen in the garrison towns along these trade routes. Like the Kurds and the Assyrians, the Turkmen were victims of the deportation policies of Saddam Hussein’s regime during the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in the oil-rich Kirkuk region.

The size of the Turkmen community, like that of other minorities, is disputed: their leaders assert that 2.5 million Turkmen live in Iraq. Non-Turkmen sources suggest fewer than a half million. Two-thirds of the Turkmen are Sunni, the rest Shiite. In addition to Arabic, the Turkmen speak a Turkish dialect. Since 2003 a flare-up of the conflict over the future status of the Kirkuk Governorate has raised tensions between the Turkmen, who consider Kirkuk their original home, and the Kurds, who claim it as part of the Kurdish region.

Jews

Iraq Population - Fanack Chronicle
Shrine of the Prophet Ezekiel in al-Kifl

Until the early 1950s, there was a sizeable Jewish community living in Iraq. In the 1947 census, their numbers were estimated at around 117,000. The Jews have lived for many centuries in Mesopotamia, as deportees and as converts. Most of them were concentrated in urban areas, especially Baghdad, where much of the trade there was in their hands.

Although most of the Jews spoke Arabic, they were able to preserve the Hebrew language and their own religious customs. There were also small Jewish communities in the Kurdish north, whose members spoke Kurdish and shared many customs with the surrounding Kurds.

Political developments, such as the rise of Zionism and the dramatic events surrounding the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, made their position increasingly precarious. These factors, combined with attacks aimed specifically at Jews (committed by what later turned out to be Zionist agents), brought about a massive emigration to Israel in the 1950s.

At present, there are fewer than 250 Jews in Iraq. The void in the Iraqi economy that was left by Jewish emigrants in the 1950s has, to a large extent, been filled by Shiite Arab merchants.[/two_third]

Sunnis and Shiites

Approximately 95 percent of the population of Iraq is Muslim. Muslims are divided into two groups, going back to the early years of Islam. After the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 CE, there arose two different camps within the umma (Muslim community) about his succession, the Sunnis and Shiites. The designation ‘Shiite’ goes back to the Arabic term shiat Ali (Party of Ali).

The followers of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, were united in this party. Based on personal promises believed to be made by Muhammad, Ali obtained the leadership within the umma (his party termed this leadership the imamate) for himself and his descendants.

The Sunnis, whose name derives from the sunna (the tradition of the Prophet) argued for rule by a chosen leader (which rule they termed the ‘caliphate’). Although Ali, regarded by the Shiites as their first imam, was chosen as the fourth caliph by the Sunnis (as the successor to the caliphs Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman), the conflict between the two main branches of Islam over leadership escalated after his death. That conflict ended in 680 CE, with the battle near Karbala, where the Shiites, now led by one of Ali’s sons, Imam Husayn, were defeated in an unequal contest. Husayn and his comrades were slain there.

Shiite Islam received a powerful stimulus when it was elevated to the state religion by the Safavid dynasty in neighbouring Persia in the 16th century, and it spread gradually through the Sunni population. Since then, pilgrims and religious students from Persia/Iran and Shiite communities elsewhere in the Arab/Islamic world, particularly Lebanon, have made their way to the ‘holy cities’ of Najaf and Karbala in Iraq. These movements led to social, political, and economic contacts among these communities, which are still important today.

There are five obligations – called the Five Pillars of Islam – incumbent on all Muslims: the confession of faith (‘There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is His Prophet’), prayer five times a day, the giving of alms, fasting during the month of Ramadan, and pilgrimage to Mecca. Shiites attach almost equal value to a pilgrimage to their holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. To the Five Pillars can be added the obligation of every Muslim to engage in jihad, the struggle to defend the community of believers (umma) against attacks by the infidel.

Shiite Sites

Iraq Population - Fanack Chronicle
Important Shiite Mosques in Iraq

On historic grounds, and because of the proportion of Shiites in the population, Shiite Islam is more typical of Iraq than is Sunni Islam. Southern Iraq is the cradle of Shiite Islam, and it was there that Imam Ali and his successors fought out the conflict with the Sunnis. In Iraq one also finds the mausoleums of several of their Imams. Over the course of centuries, these tombs became important pilgrimage sites. Important Shiite theological educational centres (madrasas) also arose there, especially in Najaf and Karbala.

The most prominent is Najaf (south of Baghdad), which is the last resting place of Imam Ali. As a theological centre, Najaf has been called the ‘Vatican of the Shiite world’. From there the Grand Ayatollahs give direction to Shiite communities all over the world. There too, generations of ulama (clergy) from all parts of the Shiite world have been trained. In expectation of the Day of Judgement, Shiite believers through the centuries have had themselves buried close to the tomb of Imam Ali, in a cemetery that now covers several square kilometres, the Wadi al-Salam (Valley of Peace).

Second to Najaf is Karbala, also south of Baghdad, where the mausoleums of Imam Husayn and his half-brother Abbas, the hero of the battle of Karbala, are located. Karbala is also an important centre for theological education. Finally, there are Kadhimiya, a suburb of Baghdad, with the graves of Imams Musa al-Kadhim and Muhammad al-Taqi, and Samarra, a Shiite enclave north of Baghdad, with the mausoleums of the Imams Ali al-Hadi and Hasan al-Askari.

The Clergy

Shiite Islam is based on a fundamental dichotomy in the community of believers, between muqallads ( ‘those who know the doctrine well’) and muqallids (literally, ‘those who follow’). The first category comprises mujtahids, religious scholars who are authorized to engage in their own interpretation (ijtihad) of the Koran and Islamic law. This authority is conferred upon a mujtahid by his master, after many years of study at one of the centres of theological education in the Shiite world, which, besides Najaf, Karbala, and Kadhimiya in Iraq, include Qom and Mashhad in Iran. As laymen, muqallids are expected to follow the religious directives (fatwas) of the mujtahids and pay their religious tax (zakat, khums) to them. These taxes are used for the upkeep of religious institutions and the support of the needy.

Depending on his level of knowledge, a religious student acquires successively the honorary titles Thiqat al-Islam (Trust of Islam), Hujjat al-Islam (Hojatolislam, Proof of Islam) and Ayat Allah (Ayatollah, Sign of God).

A prominent ayatollah (based on his fame and the number of his followers) is denoted as Marja al-Taqlid (Source of Emulation) and is given the honorary title Ayat Allah al-Uzma (Ayatollah al-Ozma, Grand Ayatollah). The fatwa of the Marja al-Taqlid is the last word on all questions for the faithful Shiite – everyone is expected to follow the directives of a living Marja al-Taqlid.There are generally several Maraji al-Taqlid at a given time.

Four of the most prominent Grand Ayatollahs are presently living and working in Najaf: Sayyid (‘lord’, denoting a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and recognizable by his black turban) Mohammad Said al-Hakim (born in Iraq in 1936), Sheikh Basheer Hussain al-Najafi (born in Pakistan in 1942), Sheikh Mohammad Ishaq al-Fayad (born in Afghanistan in 1930), and Sayyid Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani (born in Iran in 1930).

The latter is regarded as the first among equals. Collectively, the highest Shiite religious leadership are designated as the Marjaiya (collective of Maraji al-Taqlids) and the educational institutions and the staff connected with them are the Hawza Ilmiya (Area of Knowledge).

Sunni clergy do not have a comparably rigid hierarchical structure, and there is a looser connection between the ordinary believer and the religious functionaries and scholars. They are distinguished by their functions: the imam (leader of communal prayer), the qadi (judge), and the mufti (legal scholar). Like his Shiite colleagues, the latter has the authority to issue fatwas. In many cases, those in the higher religious circles have had years of study at Cairo’s prominent al-Azhar University. Among the Sunni, the faithful also pays a religious tax to religious functionaries.

Internally Displaced Persons and Refugees

Iraq Population - Fanack Chronicle
Internationally Displaced Persons and Refugees

Iraqi society has been thrown into total confusion over the past decades, as a consequence of warfare, repression, and ethnic cleansing: these have produced many displaced persons and an extensive Iraqi diaspora.

In 2002, the number of displaced persons within Iraq was estimated at 600,000 to 800,000 in the north and up to 300,000 in the central and southern sections of the country. In the first year after the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein, an estimated 100,000 refugees returned, primarily from neighbouring Iran (the Iraqi diaspora was several times this figure).

At the start of the new millennium, about 4.5 percent of the population consisted of internally displaced persons and returned refugees; the number of internally displaced people and refugees increased dramatically after 2003, due to escalating violence. This has placed an extra burden on an already ravaged economy. The infrastructure needed to care for these people is inadequate. Because of the high rate of unemployment, there is hardly any prospect for work.

The efforts of the displaced and refugees to obtain compensation constitute a source of political tension. This is particularly true in Iraqi Kurdistan – where Kurds, Turkmen, and Assyrians were displaced on the grounds of ethnicity – and Shiite Arabs moved into their places. Now, after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime, many of those who were driven out are demanding the return of possessions stolen from them – homes, land, and businesses. They run up against Arab settlers who are often unwilling or unable to return to the areas they came from. The new government has so far not taken legal measures nor provided economic support.

Kirkuk Governorate

Iraq Population - Fanack Chronicle
The Breakdown of Kurdish Provinces – Iraq

For years, Kurds have been involved in a conflict with Turkmen, Assyrians, and Arabs over the future status of Kirkuk Governorate, whose boundaries were redrawn in 1975, severing a third of its territory and a third of its Kurdish inhabitants; the new governorate was renamed al-Tamim (‘Nationalization’).

After the 1930s, and for the next several decades, Kirkuk was Iraq’s most important oil-production centre.The composition of the population in this mixed governorate, with Kurds a majority overall and Turkmen in the city, changed radically against the Kurds, as a result of both the deportation policies and the settlement of Arabs, policies that were designed to thwart Kurdish claims to the governorate. The Kurds nevertheless continued to demand that Kirkuk Governorate comes under Kurdish control. The collapse in 2003 of the strong centralized Iraqi state created new opportunities in this respect.

The Turkmen and Arabs contest the Kurdish claims. The presence of oil has heightened the conflict and has drawn in outside actors, such as Turkey. By supporting the Turkmen, Ankara originally hoped to prevent the authorities in the neighbouring Kurdistan Autonomous Region of Iraq from gaining control of its huge oil fields. At present, Turkey deals directly with the Kurds. This is a dangerous political conflict with a clear ethnic dimension. In the Arab-nationalist stronghold of Mosul, tensions between the Arabs and Kurds also increased after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Iranians in Iraq

Iraq is a major Shiite pilgrimage destination for the Iranians, as it is the origin of Shiism, the historical root of the emergence and differentiation of the  Shiite sect  from the Sunni Muslim sect, and it has the most important Shiite shrines, estimated at  170 shrines  spread over the Iraqi lands, most prominent of which are in Karbala, Najaf, Samarra, Kadhimiya, and Kufa.

Without going far in history, Iraq and Iran fought the longest wars of the twentieth century, which lasted for about eight years, known as the  Iran-Iraq war  – the “imposed war” as the Iranian authorities called it – which was one of the longest and most horrific conflicts between nations since the end of World War II.

The anxiety emanated by the victory of the Iranian revolution in 1979 was its main driver; the leaders of the revolution, headed by Ayatollah Khomeini, aimed to export their revolution to the surrounding countries the region, starting with the secular Iraq, whose government was to be overthrown and replaced by a replica of the new Islamic regime in Iran.

Some political moves and border harassment ignited the long war, in which more than a million people were killed on both sides and two folds wounded, in addition to the enormous financial cost.

In the wake of the American invasion that toppled the regime of the late President Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iran established its influence in Iraq and pushed the Shiite majority to the  seats of power, especially political parties supported by Tehran. The Revolutionary Guard expanded its business empire in Iraq, expanding its  influence  throughout the weakened country.

At the beginning of 2021, shocking figures revealed  naturalization operations for Iranians, which were estimated at 50 thousand in Diyala province alone, as well as allegations of other fraudulent operations related to the naturalization of other Iranians, estimated in millions in several governorates, including Basra and Najaf, Dhi Qar, Diwaniyah, and Baghdad, aiming to change the demographic reality in those areas.

Iran had invested huge sums of money estimated at millions of dollars in  religious tourism, by expanding, building, and developing Shiite shrines in several Iraqi provinces, as part of its expansion plan on Iraqi soil, and to consolidate its existing and prolonged influence.

Iran has been and is using its sectarian weapons as an excuse, for its interference with the Iraqi Shiite government loyal to it in its war against the so-called “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria – ISIS” under the pretext of protecting Shiite religious places and shrines in Iraq, as well as protecting Iranian expatriates, based on fatwas by the Shiite religious authority, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in  2014, in what was called “Kifa’i Jihad – Call to arms”.

However, it was already able to enhance its presence in Iraq through its Shiite allies, and it was able to dominate it, by bringing its Shiite politicians allies to power and decision-making positions, supporting them to remain in power, and securing their protection through their popular military experience represented by militias, including those under the umbrella of the “ Popular Mobilization Forces “, turning them into a sword at the necks of the Sunnis, and soldiers indirectly defending Iran’s security, claiming that they are defending their lands.

Not to mention its penetration into Iraqi society through various means, including religious and sectarian means, economic and social means, and maybe even demographic means.

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