Arab, Gulf Shia

The Saudi Shia are the Twelver Shia citizens of Saudi Arabia, an Arab people of the old oases of eastern Arabia. Most are Baharna, the Shia villagers and townspeople of Qatif and Tarout who share their name, dialect and history with the Baharna of Bahrain; in al-Ahsa they are the Hasawi Shia. 'Bahrain' once named the whole coast from Kuwait to Qatar, so the Baharna of Qatif are not migrants from the island but part of the same oasis society, Shia since at least the tenth century. The Saudi conquest of al-Ahsa in 1913 brought them under a Wahhabi state that treats Shiism as deviant. Smaller Twelver communities are the Nakhawila of Medina, historically date-palm cultivators of the Hejaz, and Shia sections of Hijazi tribes (Banu Husayn, parts of Harb and Juhaynah). The Sulaymani Ismailis of Najran are a separate people with their own leadership. No census counts religion. The US State Department puts Shia at 10-12% of citizens, about 80% of them Twelvers, which is about 1.5-1.8 million of the 18.8 million Saudi citizens counted in 2022; the Ethnic Power Relations dataset's 15% would be 2.8 million.

Community life centres on the husseiniya (ma'tam), the hall for Muharram gatherings, weddings, funerals and charity; Qatif's husseiniyas and homes hold hundreds of gatherings on the first night of Muharram. Ashura, the mourning for Husayn at Karbala, shapes the year, with recited elegies, chest-beating (latmiyya) and Mahmous rice served to mourners. Qarqi'an, in mid-Sha'ban and mid-Ramadan, is a children's festival of sweets and songs from house to house. Qatif's fish market, pearling memory, palm groves and Tarout castle, and al-Ahsa's 2.5 million date palms (Khalas dates; a UNESCO World Heritage oasis since 2018) mark the two homelands. Families are close-knit and most marriages are within the community.

Ja'fari Twelver Shiism: prayer on a clay tablet (turbah), the khums tithe paid through the representatives of a marja (Sistani, Khamenei or the Shirazi line), Muharram and Ashura gatherings, the Arbaeen pilgrimage to Karbala and visits to Najaf, Mashhad and Sayyida Zaynab. Ja'fari courts handle personal status in Qatif and al-Ahsa, but state schools teach only Sunni Islam, new mosques and husseiniyas need permits that are hard to get, and public processions are confined to Qatif. Since the 2011-2013 protests sermons and Ashura gatherings are closely watched and clerics and reciters have been arrested. Al-Ahsa keeps small Akhbari and Shaykhi communities beside the Usuli majority. Islamic State bombed Shia mosques and husseiniyas in al-Dalwah (2014), al-Qudaih and Dammam (2015).

No known church among the Saudi Shia. The Arabic Bible, the Jesus Film and audio recordings are available, with some Gulf Arabic material; Christian Arabic media reach them by satellite and online. IMB counts the group as engaged, with under 2% evangelical. Leaving Islam would cost family, marriage and inheritance rights, on top of the legal danger.

In May 2017, Saudi security forces launched a military operation in Awamiyah, a predominantly Shia town in Qatif Governorate. The stated objective was to demolish the historic 400-year-old Musawara neighborhood, which authorities claimed harbored militants. The operation involved armored vehicles, snipers, and building demolitions that displaced thousands of residents. Multiple civilians were killed. Human rights organizations condemned the operation as collective punishment against the Shia community. The demolished neighborhood was replaced with a government-planned development project.