Sunni Islam in Iraq

Sunni Islam in Iraq (Arabic: الإسلام السني في العراق) is the second-largest sect of Islam in Iraq after Shia Islam. The majority of Iraqi Sunni Muslims are Arabs with the second largest being Kurds. Iraqi Sunni Muslims mainly inhabit the western and northern half of Iraq. Sunni Arabs primarily inhabit the Sunni Triangle, Upper Mesopotamia and the desert areas, such as Al-Anbar Governorate in the Arabian Desert and Syrian Desert. The Sunni Kurds inhabit the mountainous Iraqi Kurdistan region.

In 2003, the United States-based Institute of Peace estimated that around 95% of the total population of Iraq were Muslim, of which Sunnis made up around 40%. A CIA World Factbook report from 2015 estimates that 29–34% of the population of Iraq is Sunni Muslim. According to a 2011 survey by Pew Research, 42% of Iraqi Muslims are Sunni. There were about 9 million Sunni Arabs, 4.5 million Sunni Kurds and 3 million Sunni Turkmens in Iraq, according to a report published in 2015.

Sunni Iraqi Arabs are often mistaken by outsiders as simply a religious group but constitute a distinct Arab people that claim ties to the ancient Assyrian and Mesopotamian heritage of the region they inhabit that is distinct from other Mesopotamian heritage found in Iraq. Sunni Arabs primarily reside in the historic regions of Al-Jazira and Upper Mesopotamia, this area has long been culturally and socially separate from the now Shia-majority southern Iraq, historically known as Babylonia or Sawad, which, while remaining strongly Arab, has stronger Persianate roots compared to Sunni areas (most recently contributed by the rule of the Safavid dynasty). Sunni identity in Al-Jazira also reflects Arabian tribal traditions, following the Arab conquest of Mesopotamia and newer Ottoman-era connections to Levantine, Eastern European and Balkan cultures, contributing to a cultural background with different influences to that of the Shia-majority regions of the south.