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R ELIGION , P OLITICS , AND THE E CONOMY

of just a few countries where the Shiite population is larger than the Sunni population. (Other Middle Eastern countries with more Shiites than Sunnis include Iran, Lebanon, and Bahrain.) According to recent figures, between 60 and 65 percent of Iraq’s population are Shiites, while 32 to 37 percent are Sunnis. Despite the Shiites’ majority status, since the time of the Ottoman Empire Sunni Muslims have traditionally held the power in Iraq. In addition to the Qur’an, Muslims believe that the hadiths (say- ings of the Prophet) are very important. The hadiths and stories about Muhammad are collected in the Sunna (traditions of the Prophet). Over the years, the Qur’an and the Sunna have given rise to a number of religious laws and codes of conduct; Islamic law is known as Sharia . In many Muslim countries of the Middle East, Sharia forms the basis not just for the justice system but also for legislation. While Iraq during the rule of Saddam Hussein had some special religious courts whose decisions were based on Sharia , the Baath Party was a secular organization, and Islam was not the foundation of the country’s laws or justice system. (Unfortunately, legislation and the justice system were all too often simply tools for Saddam’s regime to maintain its grip on power.) O THER R ELIGIONS IN I RAQ Although the overwhelming majority of Iraqis—both Arabs and Kurds—follow Islam, Iraq also has a small Christian community. Ancestors of these people have lived in Iraq for nearly 2,000 years. The Assyrians live in the northern part of Iraq, near the Kurdish enclaves that were protected by the northern no-fly zone between 1991 and 2003. Assyrians are a separate ethnic group from Kurds and Arabs. They still speak a version of Aramaic, the ancient lan- guage of the Middle East that was supplanted by Arabic during the spread of Islam in the seventh and eighth centuries. Historically, the Assyrians have been subject to repression by Iraqi rulers, and