quality:corruption, structural:scholar_edition
Religion

Basra is a major Shia city, with the old Akhbari Shiism progressively being overwhelmed by the Usuli Shiism. The Sunni Muslim population is small and dropping in their percentage as more Iraqi Shias move into Basra for various job or welfare opportunities. The satellite town of Az Zubayr in the direction of Kuwait was a Sunni majority town, but the burgeoning population of Basra has spilled over into Zubair, turning it into an extension of Basra with a slight Shia majority as well.

Assyrians were recorded in the Ottoman census as early as 1911, and a small number of them live in Basra. However, a significant number of the modern community are refugees fleeing persecution from ISIS in the Nineveh Plains, Mosul, and northern Iraq. But ever since the victory of Iraq against ISIS in 2017, many Christians have returned to their Homeland in the Nineveh plains. In 2018 there are about a few thousand Christians in Basra. One of the largest communities of pre-Islamic Mandaeans live in the city, whose headquarters was in the area formerly called Suk esh-Sheikh.