Pakistan

Created by the 1947 partition as a homeland for South-Asian Muslims.

☾ The Coming of Islam

From the conquest of Sindh to the Sufi centuries

Islam reached the Indus valley early, with the Umayyad general Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim's conquest of Sindh in 711; over later centuries the Ghaznavids, the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals extended Muslim rule, while Sufi teachers did much to spread the faith across the region.

☾ Religious Composition

A Sunni majority with a significant Shiʿi minority

Pakistan — created in 1947 as a homeland for the Muslims of British India — is predominantly Sunni (largely Ḥanafī, across Barelvī and Deobandī currents), with a significant Twelver Shiʿi minority and smaller communities; it has one of the largest Muslim populations of any country.

Demographic shares are approximate.

At a glance