The CIA World Factbook noted the following breakdown of religion in Afghanistan in 1989: 74% Sunni Muslim, 15% Shia Muslim, 11% other. In 2014 it noted the breakdown as follows: Sunni Muslim 80%, Shia Muslim 19%, other 1%.
Anecdotal evidence also points to the same thing. In case of Hinduism, “Before the Soviet war in Afghanistan, there were several thousand Hindus living in the country but today their number is only about 1,000”. In case of Sikhism, “Before the 1990s, the Afghan Sikh population was estimated around 50,000. As of 2013, they are around 800 families of which 300 families live in Kabul.”
Similar trend is noted in Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq where World Factbook notes that “ recent reporting indicates that the overall Christian population may have dropped by as much as 50 percent since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003, with many fleeing to Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon “. In case of Jews, the large scale migration began much earlier and left the Muslim countries devoid of Jews.
How are these trends in different countries tied to the transmogrification of Islam as exemplified by ISIS? Now that non-Muslims, such as Jews, Christians, Hindus and Sikhs, have been extirpated from the Muslim countries, the rage of Muslims has turned to those less Muslim than they are. The Sunni-Shiite conflict is just one aspect of this war as it will be extended to Sufis just like it has come to include the Yazidis. The moderates Sunnis will be the last in this long queue.