The People of Modern IraqAs in ancient times, modern Iraq is populated by diverse groups of people, although almost all are
Muslim. The dominant
population in Iraq is Arab, which makes up somewhere between 70 percent and 80 percent of the population. There is significant tension among the various Arab groups. Shi’a are the largest Muslim group (about 60 percent), but Sunni Muslims are a close second (about 30–35 percent). The division of Islam into these groups dates to a political
conflict in c.e. 632, and since then these two groups have developed separately with periods of intense conflict. Another Arab group is the so-called “Swamp Arabs,” who lived in the southern marshes of Iraq until Saddam Hussein allegedly engaged in genocide, killing most of that population in the 1980s. Kurds are a non-Arab group who make up 15–20 percent of the population of Iraq. They are a seminomadic people who live in the mountain ranges of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. Other groups, like Turkomans, make up a substantially smaller proportion of the population.